One of the towering figures in the world of private press/custom recording country music, producer/guitarist Gene Breeden was originally from Bakersfield, California and seems to have played live on the SoCal club scene, although he really made his name as an engineer and studio picker at the Ripcord Records in Vancouver, Washington. He purchased the studio (and label) from his boss Bob Gibson sometime in the late 1960s, and began working with a handful of musical cohorts -- most notably producer/engineers Blaine Allen and Ellis Miller. Breeden produced and played on hundreds of albums and singles by a far-flung pool of regional amateurs, semi-professionals and professional musicians, mostly from Washington state, Oregon, and Idaho. One of his biggest commercial successes came when he recorded some indie singles for truckin' country star Red Simpson, whose career was in a slump when they cut the song "I'm A Truck," which became a national Top 5 hit, and helped Breeden get his foot in the door in Nashville. He eventually moved to Tennessee and continued along in the same vein throughout the 1980s, producing innumerable country and gospel records from artists all along the music-making continuum. Though a talented and well-regarded session guitarist and steel player, Breeden never broke out as a solo artist -- perhaps he was just smart enough to not want to play the fame game, or maybe he just never got the breaks he deserved. Although he released a sprinkling of singles and pursued a few projects as a marquee artist, t

[Note: Gene Breeden seems to have passed away sometime around 2023, perhaps, though outside of a cryptic post on some random chat group about a wake held in LA, I couldn't find any information or obituary online.. Anyone who knows more, I would love to hear from you.]

Gene Breeden "Country Guitar Favorites, Volume 7" (GRT Records, 1973-?)
(Produced by Gene Breeden)
Alas, this exploito-record is the only full Gene Breeden album that I know of, and it may have actually only come out as an 8-track tape. Not sure who else plays on here, though Breeden did have a well-established set of musicians he worked with, and it's possible that his son, drummer Danny Breeden, at least, sat in on this session, although it may also be that this came out a little before Danny's time. Anyway, it's a cheapo budget-line set, and even the album title is a little misleading: these tunes are mostly instrumental versions of country (and pop) hits spanning back a few years ("I Ain't Never" and "White Silver Sands," for example) and a brace of more recent cart-toppers such as "Baby, Don't Get Hooked On Me" and "Funny Face," but not exactly a set of country classics such as "Wildwood Flower," or whatever. (Also, although this was "Volume Seven" in this GRT series, it seems to have been the only one under Breeden's name, and it's also possible no other volumes exist...) There's no date on the tape, but based on the song selection (and the catalog number) I think this came out in 1973.

Gene Breeden & Jerry Hill (Chance Records, 19--?) (#CR-111-A/B) (7")
A: "Poor Broke Mixed Up Mess Of A Heart" (c: Tommy Collins & Merle Haggard)
B: "Off My Mind" (c: Gene Breeden & Wade Jackson)
(Producer not identified)

Gene Breeden (Portland Records, 1971-?) (#45-1003-A/B) (7")
A: "The Smile Song" (c: Gene Breeden)
B: "The Smile Song II" (inst.) (c: Gene Breeden)
(Produced by Gene Breeden)

Gene Breeden (Portland Records, 19--?) (#45-048) (7")
A: "The South Never Fell" (c: Oren "Red" Reeves)
B: "A Lie Would Sure Sound Good Right Now" (c: Ellis Miller)
(Produced by Gene Breeden)

Gene Breeden (Portland Records, 197--?) (#45-1017) (7")
A: "I Made It Home" (c: Sonny Throckmorton)
B: "From Giddyup To Whoa" (c: Lonnie Coleman)
(Produced by Gene Breeden)

Gene Breeden (Respond Records, 1975-?) (#45-70075-A/B) (7")
A: "Good Things " (c: )
B: "You Took The Ramblin’ Out Of Me" (c: )
(Produced by Ron Akin)

Gene Breeden & Lorraine Walden (RCI Records, 1983) (#R-2382) (7")
A: "Don't You Find Love" (c: Lorraine Walden)
B: "All The Way With You Again" (c: Lorraine Walden)
(Producer not identified)
Not to be confused (as far as I know) with her fellow Seattle-area cowgal, Lorraine Van Sickle, Lorraine Walden had a long history with producer Gene Breeden, cutting several singles n his Oregon-based indie label Portland Records, then later moving to Nashville to record with Breeden again after his move to Tennessee... This is probably her most obscure recording, and may have simply been a demo for the Door Knob single below... Breeden and Walden collaborated quite a bit during this period, and on a few digital-era projects later on. A short blurb in the country music column of the Orlando Sentinel on July 28, 1985 informs us that Breeden and Walden had sold several songs to Universal Pictures for a Nick Nolte film called Redneck. That film never seems to have been completed, though even more tantalizingly the same article also mentions that they had been performing with hard-country heroine Melba Montgomery, which is a collaboration I'd really like to hear more about!

Gene Breeden & Lorraine Walden (Door Knob Records, 1984) (#DK84-217) (7")
A: "I'd Rather Be Loving You" (c: Lorraine Walden)
B: "All The Way With You Again" (c: Lorraine Walden)
(Produced by Gene Breeden)

• Discogs: Gene Breeden

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