“David Briggs could play keyboards in any style. For more than four decades, his deft touch graced countless country, R&B, rock, and pop recordings. He was eighteen years old when he played piano on Arthur Alexander’s epochal Muscle Shoals hit ‘You Better Move On.’ Recruited to Nashville by producer Owen Bradley, Briggs immediately became a studio fixture, enhancing records by Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, and many more. He further shaped Music City in co-founding Quadrafonic Studio and opening his own House of David studio. He was a man of music through and through.”

—Kyle Young, CEO
Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum

About David Briggs

David Briggs was just a teenager when he began his musical career as a session musician in north Alabama in the early 1960s. Briggs, who died April 22 at the age of eighty-two, spent more than six decades working in music and made many significant contributions to R&B, country, and rock & roll recordings.

Born David Paul Briggs and raised in Killeen, Alabama, Briggs’s first musical job was at Rick Hall’s FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, where he played piano alongside Norbert Putnam, Jerry Carrigan, and Terry Thompson in the studio’s original rhythm section. His playing was featured on early FAME hits like Arthur Alexander’s “You Better Move On” and Jimmy Hughes’s “Steal Away.”

At the urging of producer Owen Bradley, Briggs left Alabama for Nashville and, after a brief stint as a singer-songwriter signed to Decca, renewed his focus on session work. Briggs played piano on the session for Elvis Presley’s 1966 single “Love Letters,” and the encounter initiated a working relationship for the two that lasted until Presley’s death in 1977.

In 1969, Briggs partnered with his Muscle Shoals mate Putnam to open Quadrafonic Studios in Nashville. He played sessions for Alabama, Bob Seger, Roy Orbison, James Brown, Dolly Parton, and B. B. King, among many others, and co-produced Willie Nelson’s 1973 album “Shotgun Willie.” He also joined the influential band Area Code 615 and wrote jingles for advertising campaigns. Later, he opened his own Nashville studio, House of David, that hosted a variety of artists from Clint Black to indie rock band Yo La Tengo.