Bristol
Volume 1 | Issue 1
SEPTEMBER 2015 - $2.95
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virGiNia teNNessee
Where two cities become one
Wherever life takes you, ECU is
ALREADY THERE. Valley Street, Abingdon, VA Lee Highway, Bristol, VA Volunteer Parkway, Bristol, TN Highway 126, Blountville, TN
800.999.2328 www.ecu.org Be part of the extraordinary difference.
From The Editor
T
his is Bristol, a community so full of great people, great events, great venues and great history that it requires two states. From the mountain music to auto racing, from traveling by train to hiking former railroad rights-of-way, there are a million stories in the Twin City, just waiting to be told. And we can’t wait to bring them to you. So each edition of the new Bristol magazine, delivered to you and available on newsstands quarterly, will reveal the characters, the venues, the landscape and the fabric of the community that make living here so enjoyable. Articles and photographs will focus on elements and individuals essential to the character of our com-
munity, exploring the upper floors of a how they came to hat company warebe and why they house at 408 State St. are part of what we Because what hapcall home. We even pened there played plan, in future a role in shaping editions, to take a a whole genre of look at how Tenmusic, and because nessee and Virginia this community so “fought” over our treasures its heritage Christine Uthoff, Editor great little town. that we have not one, Pages of the magazine will be but two museums dedicated to full of historic photos from our the music of the mountains, we files and other archives, proare dedicating this inaugural, files of key residents past and keepsake edition of the Bristol present, and explorations of the magazine to those 1927 sesevents, venues and movements sions. that formed the Twin City and Whether you’re a Bristolian the region. yourself, or have been BrisAmong the stories receiving tolized by its music, its racing, prominent attention today is its natural beauty or its people, what for years was considered we hope you will enjoy reading a relatively unremarkable 10 about your hometown, a great days of recording sessions in place to live.
VIRGINIA TENNESSEE
Bristol
e one
com ies be two cit Where
5 - $2.95 SEPTEMBER 201
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About The Cover The cover image depicts A.P. Carter, his wife, Sara, and her cousin, Maybelle, holding the autoharp, as they are portrayed in a 30-by-100-foot mural stretching across a building overlooking Bristol’s Downtown Center. The mural, created by Blountville, Tennessee, musician and artist Tim White 30 years ago, features a number of artists who recorded during the 1927 Bristol Sessions. White, seeking to pay tribute to those recording sessions, created a much smaller version on canvas, and then recreated the painting on the brick wall of the historic building that now houses Kil’n Time pottery studio. For the story and full photograph of the mural, see pages 27-29. Along the edges of each forwarding page you will note a timeline. We have included some moments in history that we found interesting. The most historic moments of 1927, particularly the ones dealing with the Bristol Sessions, have been highlighted with bold type.
Bristol maGaZiNe | 3
Bristol Contents
virGiNia teNNessee
Hillbilly Music
Page 19
Ralph Peer
Page 33
Grass roots entertainment
The Big Bang
Page 39
Page 7
Where two cities become one
Lost Jewels
Producer, trailblazer, pioneer
Where country music began
Page 47
The Rhythm
Page 51
One-hit wonders of 1927
The Epitaph
The undertone of the Sessions
The final resting place
4 | Bristol maGaZiNe
Page 25
The Musicians The diverse talent at the 1927 Bristol Sessions Over 10 days in Bristol, with 19 artists, Ralph Peer recorded 76 new songs that he planned to market to customers eager for material to play on their new discplaying machines. A few of those artists, and a number of those recordings, hit pay dirt then and have become standards in the country music field. Others were just part of the groundbreaking sound recordings, for the technology used and the genre created, that are now called the 1927 Bristol Sessions. The list of recordings, from Ernest “Pop” Stoneman’s Dixie Mountaineers with “I Know My Name Is There” to the Shelor Family’s “Billy Grimes, The Rover,” reveals the diversity of the art and the artists of Appalachian music.
Page 27
The Mural One man’s tribute to the Birthplace of Country Music Larger-than-life images overlook Bristol’s Downtown Center from a 30-by-100-foot mural. Painted on the brick wall of the building next door, the mural depicts the images of a handful of musicians from the historic, 1927 Bristol Sessions. Recordings made by those stars, particularly The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, fueled a commercial enterprise that is now the country music industry. Created as a tribute to those stars, the mural itself fueled a community enterprise that is now a vibrant downtown.
W
alk through downtown Bristol and you’re likely to see street names such as Carter Family Way, Ralph Peer Street, and Farm and Fun Time Alley, along with a mural painted 30 years ago to commemorate the 1927 Bristol Sessions. The Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion festival is 15 years in existence, and downtown galleries, restaurants and shops flourish, often while emphasizing Bristol’s connection to early country music history. These initiatives didn’t take hold overnight, but rather took decades of advocacy. Today much of present-day downtown Bristol defines itself by the history of the Bristol Sessions, and the energy and initiative surrounding Bristol’s revitalization as an important place for both history and contemporary experiences has generated much interest and investment. The Bristol Sessions recordings were indeed commercially successful at the time they were released, but it was not until much later that scholars began to recognize the impact these sessions had on musicians and the industry. Ralph Peer’s primary goal during the 1927 and 1928 Bristol Sessions was to produce compelling recordings that sounded modern and would sell well. However, the impact of the Bristol Sessions reached far beyond that, and these recordings continue to influence musicians today, especially in bluegrass, revivalist folk music and rock music. Prior to the 1927 Bristol Sessions, country artists from the South — such as Eck Robertson, Gid Tanner & His Skillet
Introduction Lickers, Charlie Poole and The North Carolina Ramblers, and the Powers Family — traveled great distances to make professional recordings. Generally, country music records predating the Bristol Sessions were recorded in New York City, but other major sessions occurred in places like Atlanta, Georgia, and Richmond, Indiana. The first commercial country music recorded in the South is attributed to Fiddlin’ John Carson, an old-time fiddler from north Georgia who recorded “The Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane” and “The Old Hen Cackled And The Rooster’s Going To Crow” on June 14, 1923, for OKeh Records in Atlanta. In fact, many significant recording sessions took place before 1927, though none were to achieve the commercial success of the later Bristol Sessions. Record producer Ralph Peer identified Bristol — a small city near several Appalachian areas known for distinctive music traditions — as an ideal place to make recordings on the suggestion of musician Ernest V. Stoneman, whom he had recorded before in New York. Stoneman, an established professional musician, already had several hillbilly hits to his credit, having recorded some two dozen sides for the Victor Talking Machine Co. alone, and over 100 sides for other labels. Stoneman began building a legacy for his work with the 1924 release of “The Titanic,” later recorded as “The Sinking Of The Titanic” in 1925. By the time of the 1927 Bristol Sessions, Stoneman was well-established in the industry and working closely with Ralph Peer.
Jessica Turner is the director and head curator of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. She holds a doctorate in folklore and ethnomusicology from Indiana University at Bloomington and previously taught cultural heritage studies as an assistant professor at Virginia Intermont College. Technology The 1927 Bristol Sessions benefitted immensely from the introduction of a new stateof-the-art recording process, and microphone technology developed by Bell Laboratories and Western Electric. Before the Bristol Sessions, the production of a 78-rpm record involved transferring a music performance to a master disc by means of an acoustic horn, which channeled sound waves to create a vibration pattern on a diaphragm. This pattern was then transcribed by a recording stylus that cut a groove in a soft wax blank “master” disc, which was then used to produce commercial records. This acoustic recording system reproduced music that was compromised by a limited dynamic range. Additionally, a balanced sound on recordings depended heavily upon the precise placement of performing musicians in front of the horn. However, shortly before the
Bristol Sessions, a new type of microphone, manufactured by the Western Electric Co., was introduced, replacing the more primitive acoustic recording process. This change from an acoustic to an electric microphone system yielded records with a more nuanced and balanced sound. Variety At the turn of the 20th century, there were no standard band lineups or instrument arrangements. Rural musicians either created instruments themselves, or saved up money and purchased them from mail-order catalogs. Solo performers and groups played a variety of stringed and mouth instruments on recordings. A variety of musical styles and innovations are evident when listening to the Bristol Sessions. Coming out of a region that had developed distinctly southern Appalachian sounds Bristol maGaZiNe | 5
from the interconnection of Native Americans, African Americans, and immigrants from the British Isles and Western Europe over many generations, much of the music of the Bristol Sessions is a collection of distinct vocal styles coming from these ballads, fiddle tunes, blues and spirituals. This music, shaped over time by influences from new waves of immigration, technology, and innovation slowly coming to the mountains, form the broad base of musical styles brought to the Bristol Sessions. Traditional country music musicians often share a common thread when discussing their musical origins — church — and thus there was an abundance of gospel music recorded at the 1927 Bristol Sessions. Performers included Alfred G. Karnes, a Baptist minister who performed both original sacred-themed songs and traditional gospel material; and the Tennessee Mountaineers, a local community congregation. Ernest Phipps & His Holiness Quartet also came to the 1927 Bristol Sessions, and their tracks constitute the first-ever recordings of holiness music. The sacred music and gospel hymns that so influenced many of the famous recordings of the Bristol Sessions also had an impact on new genres of music such as bluegrass. While the Stoneman family went on to Nashville to experience a long musical career, among the most famous of all the Bristol “discoveries” was Jimmie Rodgers, who later gained fame as “America’s Blue Yodeler.” His two songs recorded at the Sessions — “The Soldier’s Sweetheart” and “Sleep Baby Sleep” — were not commercially successful upon their release in October 1927, yet Peer saw Rodgers’ potential and invited him to make additional recordings at the Victor studios in Camden, New Jersey, in late November 1927. One song recorded at Camden, “T for Texas (Blue Yodel),” immediately made him a national star upon its release. But the most immediately influential recordings to come out of the 1927 Bristol Sessions were by The Carter Family: A. P., his wife, Sara, and Sara’s teenage cousin Maybelle, all of whom lived in Maces Spring, Virginia. The six songs they recorded Aug. 1 and 2 — “Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow,” “Little Log Cabin By The Sea,” “The Poor Orphan Child,” “The Storms Are On The Ocean,” “Single Girl, Married Girl,” and “The Wandering Boy” — not only launched the Carters as the most important singing group in country music history, but also went a long way toward defining the sound of modern country music. Impact The Bristol Sessions experienced immediate commercial success, prompting Victor and other companies to travel south to produce more recording sessions to try to capture a piece of this lucrative new market. After the Sessions, The Carter Family traveled to Camden, New Jersey, to make more recordings. Throughout the Great Depression, while one-quarter of America was out of work, The Carter Family continued to sell hundreds of thousands of records, becoming one of the first stars of the emerging genre of country music, and continued to influence country music for decades. The Carter Family’s success illustrates the changes in the way Americans listened to music. In 2002, the Library of Congress ranked the 1927 Bristol Sessions among the 50 most significant sound recording events of all time in its National Recording Registry. The 1927 Bristol Sessions have profoundly transformed the landscape of Bristol. Recognition — local, regional, national, and international — of the vital role of the 1927 Bristol Sessions in the development of 20th-century American music, and their impact on 21st-century world culture, has led musicians, scholars, and leaders in the city of Bristol itself to publicly acknowledge and celebrate these recordings in recent years. The continuing influence of the Bristol Sessions recordings highlights the ways country music is central to the life of this region, and the connections between Appalachia and the world. Music-makers from a variety of backgrounds have drawn inspiration from the Bristol recordings, and these songs have been transformed into many new musical works. The course of history shows that the Bristol Sessions have impacted not just country music, but American music as a whole. The Bristol legacy is part of a circle that continues to bring new audiences, businesses, and performers in touch with each other, with Bristol, with the Appalachian region, and with this music. 6 | Bristol maGaZiNe
Bristol
virGiNia teNNessee
Where two cities become one
Bristol magazine is a quarterly publication published by the Bristol herald Courier®, a Bh media Group newspaper, at 320 morrison Boulevard, Bristol, va. periodicals postage paid at Bristol, va. all rights reserved. the contents may not be reproduced without prior written consent of the newspaper. issN 8750-6505.
Publisher: Jim Maxwell 276-645-2552 jmaxwell@bristolnews.com Editor: Christine Uthoff 276-645-2513 cuthoff@bristolnews.com Advertising Director: Steve Jameson 276-645-2521 sjameson@bristolnews.com Circulation Director: Tommy Dowdy 276-645-2548 tdowdy@bristolnews.com Images Editor: David Crigger Content Editors: Susan Cameron, Jan Patrick, Jim Sacco and Heather Provencher Designer: Missy Hale Contributors: David McGee, Tom Netherland, Joe Tennis, Tim White, Tim Buchanan and Jessica Turner Special Thanks: Bristol Historical Association, the Mountain Music Museum, and the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. AdvertisiNg
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Hillbilly Music Grass roots entertainment the irrestible twang from the appalachian mountains that listeners could not resist by dAvid MCgee
B
RISTOL, Va. — Music flowed through the Appalachian mountains like corn liquor drizzling from a copper pipe. Since the days of Daniel Boone, immigrant settlers of the remote corners of Southwest Virginia, East Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, western North Carolina and southern West Virginia entertained themselves by performing music on front porches, in living rooms and during barn dances — simultaneously passing down the varied traditions of their distant homelands. What evolved over generations was a mash of musical forms now sporting such labels as country, bluegrass, folk, rock, Americana, gospel and a dozen more sub-categories. It was a tune Ralph Peer couldn’t resist. A record producer and talent scout — an A&R (artists and repertoire) man in today’s parlance — for the Victor Talking Machine Co., Peer was a 1920s version of the old west prospectors — searching for musicians, not minerals. He was in search of people who could sing and play original “hillbilly” music. Peer arrived in the Twin City of Bristol Tennessee
and Virginia on July 22, 1927, with his wife, Anita, two recording engineers and the latest in recording equipment. Bristol would be the first of several southeastern sites for field recordings planned that year. Bristol was selected, in part, at the urging of old friend Ernest V. “Pop” Stoneman, a carpenter from rural Galax, Virginia. Stoneman had already enjoyed remarkable success recording for Peer — including selling a million copies of his 1925 hit song “The Sinking of the Titanic” when both were with OKeh Records. Beyond Stoneman, author and music historian Ted Olson said, Bristol offered all the amenities required to make the records. “The choice of Bristol had a lot to do with Ernest Stoneman and a lot to do with the fact Bristol was a crossroads city between the mountains and valleys of central Appalachia, not far from the coalfields area. But Bristol also was a place with railroad access and a reliable source of electricity to make a recording session possible. Making recordings where there wasn’t a reliable source of electricity was an exercise in futility because the machines needed a lot of electricity. This was before TVA, so a lot of rural areas
wouldn’t have had electricity. Bristol fit the bill.”
Listeners into buyers Consumers worldwide were purchasing records and new, improved record players, so the demand for music was growing rapidly. That technology allowed the records to sound better than radio, which had previously eroded the recordbuying market. Armed with a budget of $60,000, Peer’s mission was to round up, record and sign publishing agreements with as many talented folks as possible — acts he thought would resonate with record buyers — and his journey began in Bristol. Peer knew he couldn’t waste time harvesting
TIMELINE
Congress adopts the Copyright act of 1909, “to give the composer an adequate return for the value of his composition”
ethnomusicologist John lomax publishes “Cowboy songs and other frontier Ballads”
Cecil sharp begins publishing hundreds of folk songs from the appalachian region, specifically the Cumberland mountain area at the border of Kentucky and tennessee
March 4, 1909
1910
1916
The second and third floors of the Taylor-Christian Hat Co., 408 State St., was the recording site of the 1927 Bristol Sessions.
Courtesy of the Charles K. Wolfe family arChives
Bristol maGaZiNe | 7
inspiration NEW CLASSES: CANVAS PAINTING HAND BUILDING W/ CLAY FUSED GLASS 818 STATE STREET | DOWNTOWN BRISTOL | 423-573-9950
talent because the Gennett Co., an Indiana-based firm that made its mark recording great jazz artists, had just wrapped up an extensive recording session of “old time music” artists in Birmingham, Alabama. Already a pioneer in recording this art form, Peer had orchestrated a landmark 1925 recording session in the Vanderbilt Hotel in Asheville, North Carolina, that introduced record-buyers to Stoneman, Wade Ward and Kelly Harrell, all from Galax, Virginia, as well as North Carolina’s Henry Whitter and Fiddlin’ John Carson. But that was for his former employer, OKeh Records, and involved the sizable, acoustic, horn-shaped microphone that couldn’t hold a candle to the dynamically richer sounds picked up by the latest, state-of-the-art, electric iteration he brought to Bristol — the Western Electric 387W double-button carbon microphone. During the first quarter of the 20th century, recordings were made with a large conical horn that collected the sound waves of those who stood before it, forcing performers to sing and play as loudly as possible. The Victor Talking Machine Co., one of the nation’s two leaders in the recording field, attached the tradename “Orthophonic” to both the recording process and the record player. The — ted olson Western Electric Co. also developed both an electronically amplified, electromagnetic disc cutter in the early 1920s and improved the acoustic phonograph record player. The initial “electrical” recordings were released in late 1924 and consumers responded. Peer and Victor believed the superior technology would transform listeners into buyers because of its far more realistic sound reproduction.
Peer was a genius at marketing the music and finding new audiences to listen to the music and how to sell it. He put in play his genius in full swing in Bristol.”
Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Co. came to town with a mission and a budget of $60,000. His mission was to round up, record and sign publishing agreements with as many talented folks as possible.
photo Courtesy of peermusiC
That equipment was set up on the third floor of the Taylor-Christian Hat Co. warehouse at 408 State St. It is believed the Peers rented a room at the Hotel Bristol, on the corner of Moore and Cumberland Streets. This trip marked Peer’s third visit to the bustling Twin City that summer. He was in town just a week before to finalize arrangements for a recording session originally planned to last just three days, July 20-22, according to accounts in the Bristol Herald Courier. Instead, they extended their stay for more than two weeks. “Mr. Peer has devoted several years to hunting for original songs from the mountain people as well as the negroes in the cotton states,” according to an article in the July 13, 1927, edition of the Herald Courier. “Following the recordation in Bristol, Mr. Peer will go to Charlotte, N.C., to make mountain song records. This class of records, still comparatively new, is having a big sale.” To remind people of the sessions, local Victrola dealer Cecil McLister of Clark-JonesSheeley Co., at 621 State St., inserted a single sentence inside its regular newspaper advertisement, “The Victor Co., will have a recording machine in Bristol for 10 days beginning Monday to record records — inquire at our store.” The Victor Talking Machine Co. and the dealer were in the business of sell-
the patent for manufacturing records expires, opening the market for an endless supply of vinyl albums
prohibition was adopted in January 1919 and took effect a year latert
Nov. 1918
Jan. 16, 1920
Bristol maGaZiNe | 9
www.TruPointBank.com
Sara, Maybelle and A.P. Carter of the Carter Family, the First Family of Country Music, recorded the first six songs of their legendary career in Bristol, Tennessee, on Aug. 1-2, 1927.
Courtesy of The Charles K. Wolfe Family Archives
ing the latest Orthophonic Victrola — a record player inside a large wooden cabinet — and all manner of 78 rpm single records to play on it. But Peer wasn’t just counting on Stoneman to round up additional talent. He expected the newspaper story would generate interest and he’d already scheduled a handful of other artists who recorded for him during his OKeh days.
Creating a studio Despite the late-July heat and humidity, the upstairs windows at 408 State St. remained closed to block the noise from the street below. Blankets were hung everywhere inside the warehouse, in a further effort to muffle all extraneous noise. The blankets also served to contain the sounds of the musicians,
Will Meet Her,” which took three takes. On that first morning Stoneman also recorded two songs with Alex “Uncle Eck” Dunford and Irma Frost concluding by noon. Between 1:30 and 5 p.m., Stoneman’s Dixie Mountaineers — including his wife, Hattie, Brewrecords spun at 78 revoluer, Dunford, Frost, Mooney tions per minute and, due to and Stoneman’s brother size limitations, songs could George — were in the studio be no longer than about three recording six songs which minutes. required a total of 14 takes. With equipment at the The second day of the sesready, Stoneman was the first sions was devoted solely to to stand before Peer’s miCorbin, Kentucky, preacher crophones, recording a total Ernest Phipps and his Holiof 10 tracks July 25. The first ness Quartet, which included song on the first day featured Roland Johnson, Ancil McVey Stoneman, Kahle Brewer and and an unlisted backup singRalph Mooney singing “Dying er. Later accounts speculate Girl’s Farewell.” They started the backup singer was fellow at 8:30 a.m., and session Corbin preacher and Bristol notes show they performed Session performer Alfred two takes. The trio also colKarnes. The crew recorded six laborated on “Tell Mother I sides that day.
The first song on the first day featured Ernest Stoneman, Kahle Brewer and Ralph Mooney singing “Dying Girl’s Farewell.” resulting in a dark, steamy recording space. More blankets surrounded the machine — a heavy turntable powered by pulleys and weights — that carved the music into the thick wax discs placed upon it. A platform was rigged up for artists to stand on while they sang and played. After a take was completed, engineers Edward Eckhardt and Fred Lynch would play the recording back. Most artists did a second or third take, trying to get it just right. Finished 10-inch diameter
This 1920s-era photo shows the TaylorChristian Hat Co., where the Bristol Sessions took place.
12 | BRISTOL MAGAZINE
Courtesy Norfolk Southern Archives at Virginia Tech.
While Phipps and his group never achieved any level of commercial success, their songs are considered the first recorded Holiness music and further boosted a burgeoning interest in recording southern Gospel music, Olson said. Stoneman and his clan returned to the makeshift upper-floor recording studio July 27 with Eck Dunford recording four sides, two of which included Ernest and Hattie Stoneman playing along. That afternoon, Stoneman’s Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers, a comedy ensemble that included his wife, Dunford and Ivor Edwards, recorded two comedy skits called “Old Time Corn Shuckin’ parts one and two.” Historians say initial response to Peer’s call for musicians was tepid at best, which might explain why Stoneman received so much work. “The first days of the Bristol Sessions of 1927, it was a novel concept anyway. There was spoken word, advance promotion by Stoneman and Ralph Peer but the advance planning wasn’t that extensive,” Olson said. “Besides Ernest Stoneman and his family, Blind Alfred Reed was told about it in advance. In the first four days, those were the ones
given advance invitations. The ones in the last week of recording were all the finds.” The pace picked up dramatically after a reporter from the Bristol News-Bulletin newspaper came to interview Ernest Stoneman for a story in that afternoon’s edition. Already an established artist, Stoneman talked about the $100 a day he was being paid to record in Bristol and the $3,600 in royalties he’d already received for a song recorded the previous year. That amounted to about three and a half times the average national wage. “For 1927 that $100 was an eye-popping amount for a musician to be paid. A lot of recording sessions in that era paid $50 a day,” Olson said. Writing in “Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone; The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music,” author Mark Zwonitzer reported Peer told the reporter he paid Stoneman $200 a day, not $100 as Stoneman said. “This worked like dynamite,” Peer told an interviewer in 1953. “And the very next day I was deluged with longdistance calls from the surrounding mountain region. Groups of singers who had not visited Bristol during their
Bristol’s Old Fashioned
oKeh records talent scout ralph peer records mamie smith’s “Crazy Blues,” considered the first recording of blues by an african-american
Aug. 10, 1920
ralph peer records James p. Johnson’s “Carolina shout,” a jazz piano piece
Oct. 18, 1921
the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) is formed
Bakery
1922
When you visit the bakery, you will feel as though you stepped back in time when neighbors first and shop owners knew each other on a first name basis. Although the specialty of the find delicious house is doughnuts, you will find pastries and desserts ranging from mouthwatering baklava and brownies, to cheesecakes, cupcakes, and pies. We believe in our community and we want our customers to leave with more than just a treat, we hope they have that little extra spring in their step as they walk out our door. You’ll always get old fashioned customer service with a smile to go with your order.
1920 rtson c.
e eck rob
Mon 6 am - Sat Midnight Closed Sundays 56 Piedmont Ave., Bristol, VA 276-645-5754 www.blackbirdbakerybristol.com
texas fiddler eck robertson cuts a record of “oldtime music”
1922
Bristol maGaZiNe | 13
entire lifetime arrived by bus, horse and buggy, train or on foot.” On July 28, Peer recorded the Johnson Brothers, Blind Alfred Reed and El Watson, the only African-American performer to participate in the 1927 sessions. The Johnsons, who were believed to hail from Boone, North Carolina, had just recorded at Victor’s studio in Camden, New Jersey, in May 1927, and he had invited them to join him in Bristol. Once here, Charles and Paul Johnson cut three tracks that morning and then accompanied Peer to a local Kiwanis Club luncheon where they performed six distinctly different tunes. “Peer was a genius at marketing the music and finding new audiences to listen to the music and how to sell it. He put in play his genius in full swing in Bristol,” Olson said. Before the Johnson’s recorded three more songs that afternoon, Reed recorded four songs — including the “Wreck of the Old Virginian,” the song that first attracted Peer’s attention. Peer was familiar with the words of the song and invited Reed to travel to Bristol from Princeton, West Virginia, to record it. “Blind Alfred Reed was very interesting; very talented and perhaps under-appreciated,” Olson said. “He was not the entertainer the Carters and Jimmie Rodgers were, so there was limited potential
for marketing his music.” The first week of the Bristol Sessions wrapped up July 29 with Alfred Karnes, a Baptist preacher and B.F. Shelton, banjo player, who traveled from Corbin, Kentucky. Shelton recorded four songs, including the iconic Appalachian ballads “Pretty Polly” and “Darling Cora” during a nearly four-hour morning session. That afternoon Karnes lent his booming baritone voice to six traditional hymns, including “Where We’ll Never Grow Old” and “When They Ring the Golden Bells.” david CriGGer/Bristol herald Courier
Hitting paydirt Historians suggest Peer spent most of the weekend auditioning prospective acts for the final week but he and his wife also drove through the mountains, presumably to seek out other acts. Peer understood all forms of music and was searching for a distinctive sound. “Ralph Peer was not there to document every type of music that existed in the area,” Olson said. “It was who showed up that Ralph Peer liked, that he thought he could make money with. Who could he make stars? He hit paydirt in the second week of the sessions with the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers.” The sudden surplus of acts
A sign marking Bristol as the “Birthplace of Country Music”. prompted Peer to expand the recording schedule to include evening sessions and accommodate hours of auditions. When the work resumed Monday, Aug. 1, Southwest Virginians J.P. Nestor and Norman Edmonds recorded four songs, but only two were ever released. That afternoon, Peer recorded The Bull Mountain Moonshiners, a five-member square dance group from Coeburn, Virginia. The group drove to Bristol, auditioned that morning and went upstairs to record in the afternoon. While they never achieved commercial
recognition, the group was led by fiddle-playing Charles McReynolds, the grandfather of future bluegrass music stars Jim and Jesse McReynolds. After dinner, the first evening session was reserved for Alvin Pleasant “A.P.” Carter, his wife, Sara, and her cousin Maybelle, who played guitar. The couple, their young children Gladys and Joe, and Maybelle, who was nearly eight months pregnant, drove the 26 miles from Maces Springs, Virginia, in Scott County, to Bristol on Sunday. But their journey was long as Carter stopped three times to
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Wsm, a radio station based in Georgia, begins broadcasting folk songs to its audience
1922
W.a. Wilson, who would later own Wopi am-fm radio stations, opens a small retail store in Bristol to sell radio parts and receivers
BC m
a
1922
of
“Single Girl, Married Girl” was one of the best-selling songs from the sessions selling about 40,000 copies.
Ernest “Pop” Stoneman enjoyed success as a recording artist prior to the Bristol Sessions and was an integral part of why Bristol was chosen as the site to record “hillbilly” music.
ph ot oC ou rt es y
dering Boy,” with Sara singing solo on both and Maybelle playing a distinctive style of rhythm guitar in which she strummed the melody on the bass strings. This technique was later referred to as the “Carter scratch.” Ralph Peer II later reflected that his father was amazed; not that the Carters were good “but they didn’t seem to know how good they were.” The Alcoa Quartet, a church group from near Knoxville, Tennessee, followed the Carters into the studio, while the afternoon session was reserved for Henry Whitter. An established musician from Fries, Virginia, Whitter recorded two harmonica solos he’d originally cut for Peer when he was with OKeh Records. Peer began Aug. 3 with three hours of morning auditions. One of the acts the fire escape that day, in the book he he selected was the Shelor Family from co-wrote with Olson; imagine pregnant Meadows of Dan, Virginia. The group did Maybelle climbing the fire escape with 10 takes to record four songs between her guitar slung over her shoulder and 1:30 and 5 p.m. Sara’s two young children in tow. “The Shelor Family talked about However they arrived and whatever how Peer heard their repertoire and they wore, any doubt of their talents wanted them to do songs with melted away when the trio stood towords rather than instrumengether before Peer’s microphone. That tals,” Olson said. “Peer had a evening the Carters recorded four songs, clear vision of what he wanted: “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow,” songs with lyrics that could be “Little Log Cabin by the Sea,” “The Poor copyrighted, published and Orphan’s Child,” and “The Storms Are the kinds of lyrics people could On The Ocean.” Each was accomplished identify with and sing along with. in two takes and the session wrapped up He recorded some instrumentals, about 9:30 p.m. but his focus was on lyrics he could Sara sang lead on every song — a first- copyright. time experience for Peer in this type of “Peer was ultimately trying to music — but he was captivated by her create a more mainstream type of voice. He invited them back to record sound,” Olson said. “The true Apmore the next morning but Sara and palachianess of music that came to Maybelle returned without A.P. Between Bristol didn’t interest Peer that much. 9 and 10:30 a.m., the women recorded He saw nothing wrong in telling people “Single Girl, Married Girl” and “The Wan- what they should play and how they photo Courtesy of BCma
nurse a tire that wouldn’t hold air. Once in Bristol, they spent the night at the home of A.P.’s sister Vergie before putting on their best “Sunday clothes” and going downtown to audition, Zwonitzer wrote in the Carter biography. “On the sidewalk outside the building and all through the lobby, there were people milling around and it seemed like half of them were carrying instruments. The way they were dressed, they might have been from Richmond or New York or London,” Zwonitzer wrote. “Years later, A.P. confessed to a friend that he’d been so shaken when they arrived that they decided to go around to the alley and climb the fire escape. They didn’t want to walk through that crowd and let everybody get a look at their country clothes.” Peer was later quoted embellishing the story, claiming A.P. arrived from the fields wearing mud-splattered coveralls and the women wore simple “calico” dresses. Other versions of the story claimed they weren’t even wearing shoes. And author Charles K. Wolfe debunks the notion the Carters climbed
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Bristol maGaZiNe | 15
should play it. He knew what sounded good; he knew what sounded interesting and how to evaluate talent.” After breaking for dinner, Peer returned to record two songs by James Baker and his wife, from Coeburn, Virginia, who were cousins of the Carter Family. The following morning, Jack Pierce, Claude Grant and Jack Grant, a group of Bristolians who had comprised 75 percent of The Tenneva Ramblers, began recording three songs at 8 a.m., including “The Longest Train I Ever Saw.” The session was notable not just because they were the hometown act, but because a recent member of their group — Mississippi native Jimmie Rodgers — didn’t record with them. Accounts vary as to why they didn’t record together include rumors of dispute within the band, but Peer was quoted in a 1953 interview saying the “records would have been no good together” because the group was a string band and Rodgers’ vocals leaned toward the blues. “The audience’s tastes were being created as they spoke, so they tried to shape those tastes by trying new and novel approaches,” Olson said. Rodgers entered the makeshift recording studio just before 2 p.m. and required four takes before Peer was satisfied with his version of “The Soldier’s Sweetheart.” It took three more takes to get “Sleep, Baby, Sleep” and Rodgers’ portion of the sessions was done at 4:20 p.m. “He did more takes on Jimmie Rodgers than any other artist at the Bristol Sessions. He was really trying to get him to relax and open up,” Olson said. Rodgers was paid $100 and Peer immediately signed him to a contract as a Victor recording artist. The two tracks 16 | Bristol maGaZiNe
An original copy of the very first record that the Carter Family recorded, “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow,” which was recorded on Aug. 1, 1927 during what’s now known as the 1927 Bristol Sessions. tom NetherlaNd
were released Oct. 7, 1927, and, soon after, Peer scheduled Rodgers to record at Victor’s Camden, New Jersey, studios. The Bristol Sessions concluded Aug. 5, with The West Virginia Coon Hunters — a string band from Bluefield, West Virginia — and a church group from nearby Bluff City that didn’t have a name so Peer dubbed them The Tennessee Mountaineers. Each recorded two songs and the Bluff City group’s “Beautiful River,” was the final track committed to wax as the session concluded about 3:30 p.m.
Aug. 9. That session yielded 46 records but unearthed no major stars. In addition to Rodgers, Peer signed contracts in Bristol with the Carter Family and Blind Alfred Reed. An initial wave of songs recorded in Bristol was released Sept. 16, 1927, but included neither the Carters
“The Poor Orphan Child” and “The Wandering Boy.” On Dec. 2, Victor released “Single Girl, Married Girl” and “The Storms Are On the Ocean.” It was then that Sara’s haunting vocal tribute to a woman recalling her childhood quickly captivated listeners. “There were some strong sellers although they weren’t runaway best-sellers,” Olson said. “’Single Girl, Married Girl’ was one of the best-selling and it sold about 40,000 copies. By comnor Rodgers. The first releases parison to other hit records of of the new “Orthophonic Vic- the era, the Bristol Sessions tor Southern Series” included at the time weren’t seen as songs by Ernest Phipps, The the golden child of location Blue Ridge Corn Shuckers, recording sessions. They were Blind Alfred Reed, Alfred successful because they conKarnes, Ernest Stoneman and tracted future stars of country his Dixie Mountaineers, and music the Carter Family and B.F. Shelton. Jimmie Rodgers, so I’m sure The two-sided Rodgers Peer thought it was a successdisc — featuring the only two ful enterprise. There would songs he recorded in Bristol — have been no concept that was released Oct. 7. Nearly a everyone who recorded there month later, Peer released the would go off and become a first two Carter Family songs, star.”
The Carters recorded four songs, “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow,” “Little Log Cabin by the Sea,” “The Poor Or�han’s Child,” and “The Stor�s Are On The Ocean,” in two takes in one afternoon.
Perspective Over the 10-day period, 19 acts recorded 76 songs. After breaking down and packing away the equipment and the fragile wax imprint discs, Peer’s party prepared to continue their quest, leaving the following day for Charlotte, North Carolina, and a six-day recording session that began
Most of the other tracks were released over the following year, while a few were released as late as 1930. And some of the tracks from those 1927 sessions were out of circulation by the time Peer returned to Bristol in 1928 to record more hillbilly music. Timing, as was so often the case with the Bristol Sessions, even played a role in the success of the records. “The 1927 recordings had a chance to sell because they were released late that year and during the first part of 1928, before the Great Depression, so people were still buying records,” Olson said. And while the 1927 sessions received much acclaim, Olson says similar sessions also produced notable music. “The other location recording sessions in Appalachia and elsewhere in the south tend to get marginalized or ignored. I would debate that point,” Olson said. “If you listen to the Johnson City sessions or Knoxville sessions, record for record, all legend aside, there were amazing records made at all of these sessions and forgettable records were made at all of these sessions. To suggest every record made at the Bristol Sessions was a jewel and these other sessions don’t compare would be revisionist history.” Many acts from 1927 including Stoneman, Dunford, Karnes and Phipps returned to Bristol the following October to record for Peer again. For men like Karnes and Phipps it would be their final commercial recordings. “Five of 19 acts had notoriety outside of the [1927] Bristol Sessions,” Olson said. “So that leaves 14 that went back to their lives and maybe listened to their 78s that were released. I would say a lot of them never listened beyond an initial time or two.”
ralph peer records fiddlin’ John Carson’s “the little old log Cabin in the lane.” despite robertson’s recording of “old-time music” one year prior, Carson’s recording is often considered the first official “country” music recording.
“uncle” dave macon releases “hill Billie Blues”
Nashville’s first radio station, Wsm, begins broadcasting a barn dance program that would eventually change its name to the “Grand ole opry”
1923
1924
1925
Courtesy of the Charles K. Wolfe family arChives
Jimmie Rodgers, called the Father of Country Music, began his monumentally influential recording career in Bristol, Tennessee, on Aug. 4, 1927.
Courtesy of?????
An early photo of the Carters with Maybelle on guitar, Sara on the autoharp and A.P. at their home in Scott County, Virginia.
Bristol maGaZiNe | 17
contributed photo
Jimmy Rodgers and The Carter Family pose for a photo. Rodgers and the Carters have been referred to as the proverbial Adam and Eve of country music.
18 | BRISTOL MAGAZINE
Ralph Peer Producer, trailblazer, pioneer peer establised the industry standards for today’s artists, musicians and songwriters by Joe teNNis
C
redited with making the first recording of blues by an African American (Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues”) in 1920 and the first jazz piano recording (James P. Johnson’s “Carolina Shout”) in 1921, Ralph Peer arrived in Bristol in 1927 with a reputation for discovering new talent. He had worked his way from selling phonograph players as a teenager in his father’s store in Independence, Missouri, to becoming recording director for the OKeh label, based in Chicago. But Peer was not a publisher of music. That changed with his move to the Victor Talking Machine Co., where Peer, at age 35, took a real interest in the “mechanical rights” to music.
Becoming a publisher “When he was at OKeh, he wasn’t yet a publisher,” Peer biographer Barry Mazor said. “When he joined Victor as an A&R consultant in 1926, he began setting up publishing companies, and so both profiting from mechanicals and sharing them with the songwriters, began there.” Several years before arriving in Bristol, Peer produced in 1923 what some say was the actual first
recording of country music — Fiddlin’ John Carson’s “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane.” Seeking more of what he called “hillbilly” music, Peer set up in Bristol with plans to obtain the mechanical rights to all of the original songs the artists would perform during those field sessions. He understood “the importance of the publishing aspect of records, where, if properly handled to promote the song as well as the performers, the most money could be made by publishers and songwriters alike from recordings,” said Mazor, author of “Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots Music.” (Chicago Review Press, 2014, $28.95). Peer’s approach, in turn, put a new emphasis in popular music, Mazor said: Lining up the right new material with the right performer — before making a recording. Such an emphasis had not been so central in the music industry before, but it has been ever since, Mazor said. “It was a great idea that he had,” Mazor said. “And there were a lot of gambles that he would take in his life. But it was very calculated and
knowledgeable.”
The right approach In other words, Peer rode into town knowing exactly what he was doing, said Ted Olson, a professor of Appalachian studies at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City. “I think he had been a success at everything he had done, frankly,” Olson said. “So, that, the Bristol Sessions were the realization of an idea that … he felt … the time was right to pursue. Before that time, he had recorded artists who had recorded more traditional material.” Mazor said the Victor Talking Machine Co. brought
John scopes John scopes is tried in dayton, tenn., for violating a state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution
Kings mountain hospital opens on West state street in Bristol, virginia
July 1925
Nov. 11, 1925
Bristol maGaZiNe | 19
Peer in because “they knew he was a guy who knew how to get a line of country music records going.” “This is what I believe really starts at Bristol: It was the birthplace of what the country music industry was to become, because of tying together these stars and their promotion with the right songs in the right way,” Mazor said. “It was the beginning of the star system.” Still, Peer wanted to find star performers who had original material. “He was formulating an approach throughout his career towards profiting from recorded music,” Olson said. “He settled on the idea of recording original, copyright-able songs. So that’s perhaps what he applied so effectively at Bristol. He ran across or stumbled upon — by happenstance, frankly — the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Alfred Reed. These three musicians were firstrate songwriters.” Principally, Olson said, these three artists “wrote new material that Ralph Peer could apply his approach of a shared-
many royalties come from radio or television broadcasts, digital downloads and streaming. And, even with songs recorded in 1927, the royalties keep coming. Songs recorded at Bristol by the Carter Family are still pay— Jessica Turner, director of Bristol’s Birthplace of Country Music Museum ing dividends, said Rita Forrester, a granddaughter of A.P. and Sara Carter, two-thirds of royalties contract for original material. the original Carter Family trio. “All of the So it was publishing, frankly, that was descendants, it’s all divided out.” very successful — or the great kind of Coming to the Bristol Sessions, perrevelation coming out of the Bristol Ses- formers were paid $50 a side (or song) sions.” plus royalties on publishing. And as a publisher, Peer could finan“He paid them per side for their recially benefit from the music. cording, for the songs that they recorded “Before that time, people would at the session. And then, on top of that, make records and be given a flat fee for he paid royalties on those recordings recording, and they would go home and — a small royalty,” said Jessica Turner, that was kind of it,” Olson said. “Now, the director of Bristol’s Birthplace of Peer would look specifically for musiCountry Music Museum, which celcians who also wrote their own songs.” ebrates the sessions and their impact on the music industry. The royalty deal was a good thing for Three-point contracts the artists, Forrester said. “Mr. Peer and In the era of the Bristol Sessions, my grandfather (A.P. Carter) were doing royalties were collected from the sales of the best they knew how. They set the sheet music or from dance hall perforstandards for an industry. There was mances. Today, almost a century later,
“You can call it gambling. You can call it a really savvy entrepreneur effort. He was kind of a pioneer in the recording industry because he took those chances.”
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no road map. They made the industry the way it is today.” As Mazor puts it, Peer realized those songs could make money — for himself and for those who wrote them. “Months after starting to work with Peer, Jimmie Rodgers was driving around in his collection of Cadillacs and moving towards a mansion,” Mazor said. “The Carter Family women were in fur coats.” Working with the artists in Bristol proved successful, Turner said. “That structure of setting up all those rights, and royalties, really paid off and was very lucrative to him.” Music historians consider Peer’s business arrangements inspirational. “And we still use that structure even today — that three-part structure,” Turner said. “Peer set up the recording rights, paid the artist to record and then paid royalties on that recording. Then there’s the publishing rights on
The former Hotel Bristol, at the corner of Moore and Cumberland Streets, is where Ralph Peer and his wife reportedly stayed during the recording sessions.
CoNtriButed photo
top of that. It was set up so that he received publishing rights for those songs. And that copyright structure yielded him a whole lot of money.” Why did it work? Because other artists also would record those songs, Mazor said. “Peer had retained, at first, at least, rights to the publishing on the songs
Working for oKeh records, ralph peer creates a number of recordings of appalachian regional musicians at the vanderbilt hotel in ashville, N.C.
1925
photo Courtesy of BCma
front view of a reproducer from a victor orthophonic player
reynolds arcade Building is constructed on Cumberland avenue, in Bristol, virginia
1925-26
Bristol maGaZiNe | 21
recorded, the so-called ‘mechanical rights,’ which, for new songs, would otherwise have been owned by the record company, which generally didn’t pay songwriters anything. He did,” Mazor said. “And he would promote recording of these new songs by other artists and labels as well — something record labels who owned publishing weren’t always interested in doing then. So a Jimmie Rodgers got pretty rich from the composer’s share of his songs recorded by all those other people — not just from his own records.” And while Rodgers collected riches, well, so did Peer. “Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family would go on to make very substantial money as performing artists, including from their records and their songwriting,” Mazor said. “You can call it gambling,” Turner said. “You can call it a really savvy entrepreneur ef-
Courtesy of Bill hartley
Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Co., produced the now-famous Bristol Sessions of 1927. fort. He was kind of a pioneer in their careers — and had a in the recording industry be- separate contract with them cause he took those chances.” for that,” Turner said. Perceptions of Peer, by Villain? Or hero? the public, appear mixed by Ralph Peer also set up visitors at Bristol’s Birthplace management contracts with of Country Music Museum, artists like the Carter Family. Turner said. “He’s either “So Peer managed the Carter somebody who found the Family and Jimmie Rodgers music, discovered the music,
made famous the music and is all seen in a very positive light. And then there are others who see Ralph Peer in a very negative way, as taking financial advantage of local musicians and taking advantage of traditional music practices where people are already hearing songs that are part of the common public domain and common property in the folk music tradition.” Turner said that’s where this story gets complicated, and the museum purposely tells it in a complicated way. “What is going on at the time is brand new. ... It’s all new territory,” Turner said. “And it’s difficult to say that Ralph Peer took advantage of them, or that Ralph Peer discovered them and made them famous when folks are just figuring this out: One, the new recording technology and being part of that industry; and, two, finding a way to get their music out there in a
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way that would be a little bit more long term in their relationship, in setting up a management contract with Ralph Peer.” Mazor addresses it more simply. “There’s this myth that these slickers from New York came and kept all the money and took advantage of these poor artists,” Mazor said. “Describing Peer as the big bad guy from New York, he wasn’t even from New York, who kept all the money and exploited those poor naive artists is an inaccurate, often-repeated picture in many, many ways, that I’ve been working to finally clarify,” Mazor said. “They were paid, as any RCA Victor artist, at least $50 a side for recording, which was good money at the time — a separate subject from the rights Peer was involved with.” Peer’s business model focused on what he figured would be the real money in the music business, “publishing not just the recording,” Mazor said. “Peer was the publisher, and he took the publisher’s part and he paid the songwriter royalties, and virtually nobody else was doing that at that point — and certainly not in country music.”
It worked for Peer, Olson said, because Peer met performers in Bristol who also were songwriters. “He was such an innovator, from a business perspective, that I suspect he knew full well what he was doing, even if he didn’t know the faces that would embody the ideas that he was working toward,” Olson said. “He hadn’t met the Carters yet or he hadn’t met Jimmie Rodgers yet or Blind Alfred Reed. I think he assumed the talent was there and that was the marketing angle and that was the business angle that he should pursue. Peer was clearly photo Courtesy tom NetherlaNd about success.”
Jimmie Rodgers’ Martin 00-18 guitar is the one he used in Bristol during the 1927 Bristol Sessions. It is encased in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville.
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The Musicians Diverse talent of 1927 Sessions here is a listing of the artists, songs, recording date and release dates from the two week event Session Date
Artists
Title
Release Date
07/25/1927 07/25/1927 07/25/1927 07/25/1927 07/25/1927 07/25/1927 07/25/1927 07/25/1927 07/25/1927 07/25/1927 07/26/1927 07/26/1927 07/26/1927 07/26/1927 07/26/1927 07/26/1927 07/27/1927 07/27/1927 07/27/1927 07/27/1927 07/27/1927 07/27/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/28/1927 07/29/1927 07/29/1927 07/29/1927 07/29/1927 07/29/1927 07/29/1927 07/29/1927 07/29/1927 07/29/1927 07/29/1927 08/01/1927 08/01/1927
ernest stoneman/Kahle Brewer/ralph mooney ernest stoneman/ Kahle Brewer/ralph mooney ernest stoneman/eck dunford/irma frost ernest stoneman/irma frost stoneman’s dixie mountaineers stoneman’s dixie mountaineers stoneman’s dixie mountaineers stoneman’s dixie mountaineers stoneman’s dixie mountaineers stoneman’s dixie mountaineers ernest phipps and his holiness Quartet ernest phipps and his holiness Quartet ernest phipps and his holiness Quartet ernest phipps and his holiness Quartet ernest phipps and his holiness Quartet ernest phipps and his holiness Quartet uncle eck dunford/hattie stoneman uncle eck dunford uncle eck dunford uncle eck dunford/ernest stoneman Blue ridge Corn shuckers Blue ridge Corn shuckers Johnson Brothers Johnson Brothers Johnson Brothers Blind alfred reed Blind alfred reed Blind alfred reed Blind alfred reed Johnson Brothers Johnson Brothers Johnson Brothers el Watson el Watson B. f. shelton B. f. shelton B. f. shelton B. f. shelton alfred Karnes alfred Karnes alfred Karnes alfred Karnes alfred Karnes alfred Karnes J.p. Nestor/Norman edmonds J.p. Nestor/Norman edmonds
dying Girl’s farewell tell mother i Will meet her mountaineer’s Courtship midnight on the stormy deep sweeping through the Gates i Know my Name is there are you Washed in the Blood No more Goodbyes the resurrection i am resolved i Want to Go Where Jesus is do lord remember me old ship of Zion Jesus is Getting us ready for that Great day happy in prison don’t you Grieve after me What Will i do, for my money’s all Gone the Whip-poor-Will’s song skip to ma lou ma darling Barney mcCoy old time Corn shuckin’ part 1 old time Corn shuckin’ part 2 the Jealous sweetheart a passing policeman Just a message from Carolina the Wreck of the virginian i mean to live for Jesus you must unload Walking in the Way With Jesus two Brothers are We the soldier’s poor little Boy i Want to see my mother pot licker Blues Narrow Gauge Blues Cold penitentiary Blues oh molly dear pretty polly darling Cora Called to the foreign field i am Bound for the promised land Where We’ll Never Grow old When i see the Blood When they ring the Golden Bells to the Work train on the island Georgia
02/17/1928 02/17/1928 11/04/1927 Not released 09/16/1927 03/16/1928 09/16/1927 03/16/1928 01/20/1928 01/20/1928 09/16/1927 11/18/1927 11/18/1927 03/02/1928 03/02/1928 09/16/1927 10/05/1928 11/04/1927 12/16/1927 12/16/1927 09/16/1927 09/16/1927 04/06/1928 Not released 11/04/1927 09/16/1927 12/16/1927 12/16/1927 09/16/1927 04/06/1928 11/04/1927 12/16/1927 11/18/1927 11/18/1927 09/06/1929 09/06/1929 09/16/1927 09/16/1927 12/05/1930 09/16/1927 09/16/1927 Not released 12/02/1927 12/02/1927 01/20/1928 Not released
08/01/1927 08/01/1927 08/01/1927 08/01/1927 08/01/1927 08/01/1927 08/01/1927 08/01/1927 08/02/1927 08/02/1927 08/02/1927 08/02/1927 08/02/1927 08/02/1927 08/03/1927 08/03/1927 08/03/1927 08/03/1927 08/03/1927 08/03/1927 08/03/1927 08/04/1927 08/04/1927 08/04/1927 08/04/1927 08/04/1927 08/04/1927 08/05/1927 08/05/1927 08/05/1927 08/05/1927
J.p. Nestor/Norman edmonds J.p. Nestor/Norman edmonds Bull mountain moonshiners Bull mountain moonshiners the Carter family the Carter family the Carter family the Carter family the Carter family the Carter family the alcoa Quartet the alcoa Quartet henry Whitter henry Whitter fred h. Greever, John B. Kelly, J. v. snavely shelor family dad Blackard’s mountaineers dad Blackard’s mountaineers shelor family mr. and mrs. J. W. Baker mr. and mrs. J. W. Baker tenneva ramblers tenneva ramblers tenneva ramblers red snodgrass’ alabamians Jimmie rodgers Jimmie rodgers West virginia Coon hunters West virginia Coon hunters tennessee mountaineers tennessee mountaineers
John my lover Black eyed susie sweet marie Johnny Goodwin Bury me under the Weeping Willow little log Cabin By the sea the poor orphan Child the storms are on the ocean single Girl, married Girl the Wandering Boy remember me o mighty one i’m redeemed henry Whitter’s fox Chase rain Crow Bill When they ring the Golden Bells Big Bend Gal suzanna Gal sandy river Belle Billy Grimes, the rover the Newmarket Wreck on the Banks of the sunny tennessee the longest train i ever saw sweet heaven When i die miss liza, poor Gal Weary Blues the soldier’s sweetheart sleep, Baby, sleep Greasy string your Blue eyes run me Crazy standing on the promises Beautiful river
Not released 01/20/1928 Not released 02/28/1928 01/20/1928 01/20/1928 11/04/1927 12/02/1928 12/02/1928 11/04/1927 11/04/1927 11/04/1927 11/04/1927 11/04/1927 Not released 10/07/1927 02/17/1928 02/17/1928 10/07/1927 10/07/1927 10/07/1927 10/07/1927 10/07/1927 02/28/1928 Not released 10/07/1927 10/07/1927 10/07/1927 10/07/1927 10/07/1927 10/07/1927
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The Mural One man’s tribute to the Birthplace of Country Music bristol herAld Courier
O
ccasional live music programs were staged in downtown Bristol throughout the 1970s and ‘80s. But there was no Paramount; the theater had closed and its grand renovation was years away. Ditto on the live music venues. There was no O’Mainnin’s, Machiavelli’s or Stateline Bar and Grille. And no Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion; that was still decades away. But there was a story shared among local musicians, and Bristol natives, about something that happened in town in 1927. The story fascinated Tim White, a Roanoke native who’d moved to the Tri-Cities and found himself melding his passions, music and art. “I got real excited about what happened in Bristol in 1927,” White told the Bristol Herald Courier about those years in the mid-1980s, when the Country Music Mural that serves as backdrop to Bristol’s downtown outdoor music stage was merely an idea. “So I just threw myself into it. I did my homework. I found out about all of those people.” Soon, he was painting images of Ralph Peer, A.P. Cater, Sara Carter, Maybelle Carter, Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, Hattie Stoneman and Jimmie Rodgers on a brick wall downtown. All of those artists were
here that year, recording their own style of music in an upper-floor warehouse space. White’s original 30inch-by-5-foot panoramic canvas hangs in his living room. But he’d always considered the work something to be shared with everyone, and eventually settled on the side of a building in the 800 block of State Street that was covered in billboards. “The wall was jointly owned by Lark Amusement and the city,” White said. So in early 1986 he approached the Bristol Tennessee City Council. They applauded his canvas, but offered no funding for his dream. They did, however, give him permission to turn that brick wall into a giant canvas — a 30-by-100-foot tribute to Bristol’s standing as the birthplace of country music because of those recordings by Rodgers, The Carter Family, the Stonemans and others. “I started it in late March,” White said, talking about his project on its 25th anniversary,
five years ago. “I had a sign shop then but I basically shut it down. Me and three of my buddies worked on it pretty hard for most of April.” Prep work included removing billboards, power washing and coats of primer. Metal scaffolding was erected. “I went from left to right with the mural, starting with Ralph Peer,” White said. In all, the costs amounted to between $10,000 and $15,000, White said. Some came from his own pockets, more from sales of lithograph copies of his
bristol herald Courier publishes an article on a record producer who will be in town to record “hillbilly” music
July 13, 1927
ralph peer arrives in bristol with recording equipment
July 22, 1927
peer and a couple of his artists attend a kiwanis Club luncheon where some of the songs from the sessions recordings are performed
July 28, 1927
A.P., Sara and Maybelle Carter overlook a group performing at the Downtown Center where the mural is located off State Street in Bristol, Tennessee.
Bristol herald Courier
Bristol maGaZiNe | 27
artwork, and the rest from donations by those who believed in his project. “Bob Lark gave me a hundred bucks,” White said. “Holston Hardware gave me the paint. Bristol Jeans gave me $3,000. Hickory Tree Grocery gave a hundred bucks.” As the mural came to life, so did a rekindling of Bristol’s downtown music scene. “Downtown Bristol was in decline” at the time, said Karl Cooler, owner of Bristol’s Mountain Roads Recordings, a bluegrass record label. Speaking at the mural’s 30th anniversary party in August 2015, Cooler eyed the stage, the mural and the crowd, saying: “Now look around.” On May 2, 1986, the day 28 | BRISTOL MAGAZINE
after White finished painting, live music was a key part of the dedication, attracting fans and musicians alike. “My band Troublesome Hollow played,” White said. “Country singer Gary Morris was there. Janette and Gladys Carter were there.” A year later word of the mural reached Ernest V. “Pop” Stoneman’s daughter Patsy Stoneman. “Charlie Daniels came through Bristol,” Stoneman told the Bristol Herald Courier on the mural’s 25th anniversary in 2010. “He told my sister Roni that you ought to be proud of what is on that wall over yonder in Bristol. I said, ‘what wall?’” Stoneman made a point to visit Bristol soon thereafter.
She said her father would have reacted with pride had he seen it. “He’d have said, ‘I’d just be dad-blamed.’ I can see him standing and staring at that,” she said. “Yes, he would be very proud of it.” And her? “How did it hit me?’ Stoneman said. “If it hadn’t been for Tim White painting that, I would have given up trying to get daddy in the Country Music Hall of Fame.” Pop Stoneman was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008. “That mural lit a fire under me,” Stoneman said. Apparently it did the same for Bristol and its music fans. “I think the average person in Bristol has a great appreciation of their heritage
— now,” Dr. Douglas Pote, of Chilhowie, Virginia, said as musicians played on the mural stage in August, for the mural’s 30th anniversary celebration. A native of Massachusetts, Pote wrote the play “Keep on the Sunny Side,” which tells the story of the Carter Family and debuted at the Barter Theatre in 2002. And it was in 1994 that Fred McClellan and Leton Harding, while at the Piccadilly Cafeteria in the Bristol Mall, founded the Birthplace of Country Music Association (later called an alliance), the forerunner of the organization that today operates the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. “I can still remember
opening the Bristol paper in 1994 and seeing Tim, Leton Harding and Fred McClellan in front of the mural, announcing the formation of the BCMA,” Pote said. “Even after nearly 10 years of the mural, the BCMA was a small snowball.” Then, in 1998, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution recognizing Bristol as the Birthplace of Country Music. Building on the theme, in 2006, White and James Bryant founded the Appalachian Cultural Music Association, which sponsors free, live music downtown every week, at the Pickin’ Porch, and operates the Mountain Music Museum
at 620 State St. “I think that mural started a dominoes effect for the music in our community,” said Leah Ross, executive director of the Rhythm & Roots Reunion, a downtown music festival first held in 2001. “It shows us what roots can give us.” Now in its 15th year, the music festival draws roughly 50,000 people to Bristol every fall. “I think (the mural) helps tell why music is so important to us,” Ross said. “When that mural was painted, it was a place. Now it’s a destination. It’s definitely a shining star.” Bristol magazine and Bristol herald Courier staff and file reports contributed to this article.
aNdre teaGue/Bristol herald Courier
Tim White, seen at the Mountain Music Museum radio station. In 1986 the Bristol Tennessee City Council gave him permission to turn a brick wall into a giant 30-by100-foot tribute to Bristol’s standing as the birthplace of country music. Soon, he was painting images of Ralph Peer, A.P. Cater, Sara Carter, Maybelle Carter, Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, Hattie Stoneman and Jimmie Rodgers on a brick wall downtown. Bristol maGaZiNe | 29
Ernest Phipps with his daughter Helen Eulene and son Charles. Courtesy of the Rev. J. Randall Mays and the Rev. W. R. Mays; stepsons of the Rev. Ernest Phipps
30 | BRISTOL MAGAZINE
Courtesy of soNy arChives
Ernest Phipps cue sheet from July 26, 1927 − Bear Family Records , German firm that released Bristol Sessions 1927-1928: The Big Bang of Country Music.
25-year-old Charles lindbergh flies from long island to paris in 33 hours and 29 minutes
May 21, 1927
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kelly and green photo Craftsmen, a retail store dedicated to selling cameras and processing film, opens on Cumberland street. it was advertised as bristol’s first all-picture store.
July 3, 1927
Bristol maGaZiNe | 31
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The Big Bang Where country music began in 1927, track by track, history was set into motion with one man on a musical mission Rodgers as the Father of Country Music, thanks to the influence of their work hey weren’t the in the decades that folfirst recordings of lowed. country music, and Bookended at the Bristol produced only a handful Sessions by Coeburn’s of stars — chiefly Jimmie Bull Mountain MoonshinRodgers and The Carter ers (a square dance band Family — but the 1927 led by fi ddler Charles M. performances captured McReynolds, grandfather by a talent scout and two of seminal bluegrass duo engineers in a warehouse Jim and Jesse McReynolds) turned studio in downand The Alcoa Quartown Bristol garner tet, the Carter Family credit for birthing a plowed major ground genre or two. with their first of six “The Carter Family recordings (Aug. 1-2, extolled family and 1927) with a harmonihome and place. The ous “Bury Me Under Jimmie Rodgers swagthe Weeping Willow” ger formed a different on Aug. 1, 1927. model to tell of the Three days later, lives of the ne’er do Rodgers accompanied wells,” said Ted Olson, himself on guitar with professor of Appaa pair of plaintive lachian Studies at tunes, “The Soldier’s East Tennessee State Sweetheart” and University. “Sleep Baby Sleep,” “The Bristol Sesneither of which sions did encapsulate became major hits those two avenues though each proof spirit that counvided the beginning of try music sustained Rodgers’ seminal and through the years. wildly influential sixCountry music has year career as a bona gone into those direcfide recording star. tions almost simultaDue to their parneously,” Olson said. ticipation in those “If they are the two sessions and their superhighways, then subsequent infl uence there are some other on numerous stylistic byways as well.” Courtesy of Bill hartley realms of country muSome 19 acts were This modest ad that ran in the Bristol Herald sic, Rodgers and the recorded by talent Courier on July 24, 1927, announced the Carter Family equate scout Ralph Peer, an recording session, now known all over the to country music’s agent of the Victor world as the 1927 Bristol Sessions. Adam and Eve. They Talking Machine Co., by toM NetherlANd
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in the upper floors of the Taylor-Christian Hat Co. in Bristol, Tennessee. Peer found assistance in rounding up talent through a newspaper ad, and from Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, who had already made a few records himself. Eventually, history would brand the Carter Family as The First Family of Country Music and
initial recordings from the bristol sessions are released, under the title “orthophonic victor southern series”
Sept. 16, 1927
the Jazz singer, the first “talkie,” moving picture show (movie) premieres
Oct. 6, 1927
victor releases two tracks by Jimmie rodgers, “the soldier’s sweethart” and “sleep, baby, sleep”
victor releases “single girl, Married girl,” and “the storms Are on the ocean” featuring sara Carter on vocals. “single girl, Married girl” sells 40,000 copies.
Oct. 7, 1927
Dec. 2, 1927
Bristol maGaZiNe | 33
Courtesy of The Charles K. Wolfe Family Archives
A Carter Family songbook, which documents some of the earliest songs recorded by the illustrious trio from Maces Spring, Virginia.
planted the seed that birthed mainstream country music, and such vital relatives as honkytonk, bluegrass and western music. “Without Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, we’re not talking about Bristol 1927,” Olson said. “Not in 2015. That’s why people talk about it.” Hence Porterfield’s coining of the 1927 Bristol Sessions with the tag “The Big Bang of Country Music.” Yet with the passage of time, discovery and the knowledge gleaned from country records made before the Bristol Sessions, academics, including Olson and Porterfield, have begun to temper the term. “Let me tell you, I have been credited with calling it The Big Bang of Country music,” Porterfield said by phone from his home in Bowling Green, Kentucky. “Well, it doesn’t get consolidated without the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers.” Still, musicians not named Carter, Rodgers or Stoneman played a role,
Ralph and Anita Peer stop in Scott County, Virginia, while visiting the Carter Family, circa 1930. Photo courtesy the Carter Family Museum.
CoNtriButed photo
creating the foundation for the vital, stylistic aspects of today’s country genre and industry. “That’s the best defense of the Bristol Sessions, the direct mainstream influence on country music,” said Olson, who co-edited the 2005 book “The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music” with the late Charles K. Wolfe. Peer’s later set of recordings from
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Wopi airs its first am radio broadcast, featuring a concert by the Kingsport orchestra, from studios at 22nd and state streets in Bristol
1929
stock market crashes: a record 12.9 million shares were traded that day, known as “Black tuesday.”
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texas singer-songwriter Gene autry’s “silver haired daddy of mine” launches the “honkytonk” style of country music.
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Bristol, while minimal at best in terms of influence on the forthcoming wave of mainstream country music, nonetheless featured six landmark sides from The Stamps Quartet, who became one of the 20th century’s most legendary Southern gospel groups. Founded in 1924 and still intact today, The Stamps Quartet with J.D. Sumner at the helm recorded and toured with Elvis Presley from 1971 until Presley’s death in 1977. “They made some of their biggest singles in Bristol in ’28,” Olson said. “The Stamps Quartet recorded ‘Do Your Best, Then Wear A Smile,’ in Bristol, which was one of their biggest records. Why were the ’28 sessions so off people’s radars? Some of the ’28 records sold quite well. One or two records from Bristol in 1928 made it onto Harry Smith’s ‘Anthology of American Folk Music.’”
With the advent of the LP an array of tribute albums to Rodgers and the Carter Family helped to revive interest in the Bristol Sessions. Smith’s groundbreaking six-album, 84-song collection, “Anthology of American Folk Music,” was issued on Folkways Records in 1952. Smithsonian Folkways Recordings reissued the set in 1997 on compact disc. Uncle Eck Dunford’s “Old Shoes and Leggins,” which was recorded in Bristol in 1928, turns up on the collection’s first volume, which focuses on ballads. Collectively, Smith’s landmark collection influenced the folk music boom of the late 1950s and ‘60s, though not particularly mainstream country. Instead, with the advent of the
“The Carter Scratch” that developed after the Bristol Sessions, deeply influenced the guitar’s evolution from a rhythm to lead instrument and in turn directly influenced such seminal country guitarists as Chet Atkins. Tubb, Snow, Autry, Atkins and generations of country LP and well into the 1960s stars and sub-styles that and ‘70s, an array of tribute branched out from the tree albums to Rodgers and the as planted by Rodgers and Carter Family from such the Carter Family. country hit-makers as Merle “Autry, Tubb — a whole Haggard helped to revive in- bunch of people began as terest in the Bristol Sessions. imitators of Jimmie,” said “Look at Merle Haggard,” Rodgers’ biographer Nolan Olson said. “He has a tribute Porterfield. “Some people album to Jimmie Rodgers still are influenced by Jimmie and a tribute album to the Rodgers. The Carter Family Carter Family.” influenced the folk moveVocally, Rodgers and The ment and people like Joan Carter family influenced Baez. Rodgers had a little a wide swath of country’s something of everything mainline stars to come, (in his style). He has the including Ernest Tubb, Hank blues. He recorded with a Snow and western’s Gene Au- jazz band. He recorded with try. Maybelle Carter’s guitar Louis Armstrong. Whatever signature, oft-described as you wanted, he could do it.”
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Barter theatre opens in abingdon
Rodgers and The Carter family influenced a wide swath of country’s mainline stars to come, including Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow and western’s Gene Autry. Here, The Allman Brothers Band LP plays on a Detrola at the Sessions 27 music store in Bristol, Virginia.
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Jimmie rodgers dies in New york City at the age of 35
y tom NetherlaN photo Courtes
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1933
the year’s first issue of Billboard magazine introduces a “folk” chart that mixes country, jazz, and blues.
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The first visitors make their way through the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in August, 2014, during the opening weekend.
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Lost Jewels Wopi-fm goes on air with the first fm-radio broadcast from Bristol
One-hit wonders of 1927
1946
a number of obscure sessions musicians played an important role in mainstream country music seemed to be in the Grants’ lifeblood. They participated in music history on Aug. 4, 1927, when they recorded “The ost of the musicians recorded Longest Train I Ever Saw,” “Sweet Heaven in 1927 and ’28 — during what has become known as the Bristol When I Die” and “Miss Liza, Poor Gal” for Ralph Peer and the Victor Talking Sessions — came in a flash and left in Machine Co., just across the state line in a flash. They are known by a handful of Bristol, Tennessee. Their former though music historians and archivists, but not short-termed member, Jimmie Rodggenerally by the public. ers, recorded two songs — “The Soldier’s “A lot of those one-hit wonders didn’t sell many records,” said Ted Olson, profes- Sweetheart” and “Sleep Baby Sleep” — almost immediately before them on sor of Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State University and co-editor with the same day. He left the group the night the late Charles K. Wolfe of the 2005 book, before, for reasons that are not quite clear, but some music historians point to the “The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the possibility of an argument between RodgBig Bang of Country Music.” “That’s the ers and Jack Grant. reality of it. A lot of the obscure artists, “As far as I can remember, Jimmie when their records came out, they were Rodgers was too hard to work with,” said lucky to sell a couple of thousand copies Richard Blaustein, a retired professor nationally.” emeritus of sociology and past president And the sessions — 10 days of recordof the Tennessee Folklore Society. Blausings by talent scout Ralph Peer on a Victor tein interviewed Claude Grant on May label — were designed to create records 13, 1975, in Grant’s home, and asked him that would sell. Still, acts including the Tenneva Ramblers, Uncle Eck Dunford, Blind Alfred Reed and more played a significant role: They were part of an event at the dawn of what became the mainstream country music industry. “Without (the Bristol Sessions), the country music industry would not have happened to anywhere near the size and complexity so early,” said Ralph Peer II, chairman and CEO of Peer Music, and the son of Victor and Bristol Sessions producer Ralph Peer. “It showed what could be done.” by toM NetherlANd
M
hank Williams
mGm releases hank Williams’s “lovesick Blues.”
A car and a haircut At the precipice stand the Tenneva Ramblers. Brothers Jack and Claude Grant with their neighbor Jack Pierce formed the trio in Bristol in 1924. The Grants’ grandfather, Dave Grant, had been an old-time banjoist, so music
Courtesy of riChard BlausteiN
1949
Taken shortly before the 1927 Bristol Sessions, the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers included Jimmie Rodgers, brothers Claude and Jack Grant and Jack Pierce. The Grants and Pierce split from Rodgers to record during the sessions as The Tenneva Ramblers. Bristol maGaZiNe | 39
about Rodgers. “He was like an egomaniac,” Blaustein said of Rodgers. “He knew he was good, really good and he didn’t mind letting them know. He treated (the Tenneva Ramblers) like hired hands, which they were.” The Tenneva Ramblers met Rodgers in May 1927 dur-
to return to Bristol from Asheville in late July 1927. “We left Asheville for Bristol because Jack Pierce and Jimmie wanted to obtain a car,” Grant said during his interview with Blaustein, as documented in the book, “The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music.” “They decided to see if Jack’s daddy, Mr. Pierce, who owned a barber shop on Fifth Street in Bristol, would get them a car.” History, at least according to Claude Grant, — Ralph Peer, happened in son of Bristol Sessions producer Ralph Peer that barber shop. “Ralph Peer, ing a Kiwanis Club picnic at the Victor man, happened to a ballpark in Johnson City. be at the barber shop,” Grant Rodgers, a native of Meridian, told Blaustein. “Mr. Peer told Mississippi, had been newly Jack and Jimmie to bring us hired by radio station WWNC on over to make some music; in Asheville, North Carolina, he’d see what we had.” to perform live radio shows. Rodgers and the TenRodgers heard and liked the neva Ramblers as the Jimmie Ramblers, offered them a Rodgers Entertainers were to spot with him on WWNC, record together Aug. 4, 1927. and off they went, together. Whatever happened (A fight, The newly formed group, perhaps? “No, I don’t know,” billed as the Jimmie RodgBlaustein said.) to split ers Entertainers, proceeded Rodgers from the Ramblers to tour throughout June and may have occurred the night July 1927. before. According to Claude Grant, “Claude was designated as via his interview with Blausthe go-between to tell Ralph tein, an opportunity to buy a Peer that they had broken car compelled the foursome up with Jimmie Rodgers,”
Without (the Bristol Sessions), the country music industry would not have happened to anywhere near the size and complexity so early. It showed what could be done.”
40 | BRISTOL MAGAZINE
Blaustein said. “Ralph Peer told Claude, ‘we’ll just record you boys.’” The Tenneva Ramblers, who recorded during the 1928 Bristol Sessions as the Grant Brothers & Their Music, were professional musicians of the time, but tab today as one-hit wonders who faded into music history’s crowded closets of the nearly forgotten. Rodgers, who headed to Peer’s recording sessions on his own, ended up signing a contract with Peer and Victor. His first two tracks were released on a 78 rpm that October. Rodgers biographer, Nolan Porterfield, in a booklet accompanying Bear Family Records’ 1992 complete collection of Rodgers’ recordings, “The Singing Brakeman,” wrote that “...Rodgers’ record released with unusual promptness.” But it was a month and 23 days later that, on Nov. 30,
1927, Rodgers recorded his breakthrough, “Blue Yodel” (which later became “Blue Yodel No. 1” and referred to as “T for Texas”) for Peer and Victor in Camden, New Jersey. Quickly thereafter, Rodgers ascended to stardom while his former pals, the Tenneva Ramblers, descended into obscurity. “They didn’t have star quality, whatever star quality is,” Blaustein said of the Ramblers. “Jimmie Rodgers had star quality — and he had it to a high degree. The Grant brothers were good but they didn’t stand out.”
A fiddler with style Blind Alfred Reed stood out. One record in particular, and despite the presence of a fiddle, Reed’s four sides made during the 1927 Bristol Sessions stray from what led to the formation of a mainstream country music format. Recorded on July 28, 1927,
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Blind Alfred Reid wrote all of his own songs, some of which featured social commentary. Reed’s recordings have been overlooked in comparison to other Sessions artists.
Reed’s recordings — “The Wreck of the Virginian,” “I Mean to Live for Jesus,” “You Must Unload” and “Walking in the Way With Jesus” feature a style removed from the era’s pop or hillbilly records. “The Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and Blind Alfred Reed were a trio of great discoveries from the Bristol Sessions,” Olson said. For the past three years Olson has worked on a forthcoming book and CD that documents Reed’s complete recorded output. “He recorded 19 sides and multiple takes of those,” Olson said of Reed. “Music was just one of the hats he wore. He was a very talented musician, songwriter who happened to record up in Bristol on July 28, 1927 and made four recorded sides.” Born blind and into a farming family on June 15, 1880 in Floyd, Virginia, Reed’s records differed with his Bristol Sessions counterparts in part because he wrote all of his songs, which featured lyrical content from edgy gospel music to historical ballads, and beyond the Bristol Sessions, social commentary. For instance, “You Must Unload” featured a pointed finger at Christians who aren’t living the Christian life: “you fashion-loving Christians you will surely be denied … you are robbing God’s own treasure if you
feed yourself in pride … you must, you must unload.” Reed was among the three artists who left the sessions with signed contracts in hand, but his Bristol Sessions recordings have, particularly when compared with the other two, Rodgers and the Carter Family, been overlooked at large. “I felt that among the number of people who recorded for Ralph Peer in Bristol, the artist who tended to get overlooked the most was Blind Alfred Reed,” Olson said. “I felt like it was the next story that needed to be told.” Reed’s music classifies as socially conscious Americana. While his records were not hits in the genuine sense of the term, some have resonated well via influence, particularly with 1929’s “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live.” “It has energized latter-day musicians, roots musicians,” Olson said. “That’s a protest song. You can say that Blind Alfred Reed influenced Ry Cooder and Bruce Springsteen. I don’t think he cared one iota that his music wasn’t country music. Think of the people who have covered Blind Alfred Reed’s songs including The New Lost City Ramblers.” His most covered song, “How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live,” turns up on Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
the first Grammy recognizing the best country a western performance is given to the popular folk artists the Kingston trio for “tom dooley.”
1958
dottie West for the first time, the Grammys honor the best country & western vocal performance, female. dottie West wins for her song, “here Comes my Baby”
1964
Bristol maGaZiNe | 41
member Bruce Springsteen’s “We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions” album. England’s reggae-inflected pop group UB40 included it on their 2013 album, “Getting Over the Storm.” Americana musician Tim O’Brien tried his hand with Reed’s protest song on the 2007 compilation “Always Lift Him Up: A Tribute to Blind Alfred Reed.” Three of the four songs that Reed recorded in Bristol in 1927 are covered on the album, including Mountain Stage host Larry Groce’s rendering of “You Must Unload.”
Comedic additions Alex Dunford, billed as Uncle Eck Dunford, was a native of Ballard, Virginia. He officially married into the Stoneman family in 1908 when he married Callie Frost, who was related to Ernest Stoneman’s wife, Hattie. Dunford performed as a fiddler, singer and comedian. His
Blind Alfred Reed was among three artists who left the Bristol Sessions with a signed contract in hand. participation in the Bristol Sessions included records made during the 1927 and ’28 sessions, typically within a collection of musicians helmed by Ernest Stoneman. According to early country music historian, the late Charles K. Wolfe, Dunford’s first recordings were in Bristol in 1927. Of those, three were issued under his name. They were “The Whip-PoorWill Song,” “Skip to Ma Lou, My Darling” (which features Dunford singing a solo) and “”What Will I Do for My Money’s All Gone,” a duet with Hattie Stoneman. Wolfe, in an essay included in “The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of
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42 | BRISTOL MAGAZINE
Country Music,” said that Ralph Peer invited Dunford to record in Atlanta in October 1928. “Peer seemed fascinated with Dunford, and was especially intrigued by his comic monologues,” Wolfe wrote. Dunford recorded four comic monologues in Atlanta. Their titles are “Sleeping Late,” “My First Bicycle Ride,” “The Taffy Pulling Party” and “The Savingest Man on Earth.” Wolfe described them as bizarre. When Peer returned to Bristol in 1928, Dunford again recorded with the Stoneman Family. Two titles recorded under his name, “Angeline the Baker” and “Old
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Shoes and Leggins,” attained varying measures of influence by way of later exposure. For instance, “Old Shoes and Leggins” turns up in Harry Smith’s 1952’s famed “Anthology of American Folk Music.” Dunford rarely recorded thereafter, though he did appear on record playing fiddle with Galax’s Bogtrotters Band in 1937, during some recordings for the Library of Congress.
Families of talent Scores of musicians who recorded during the Bristol Sessions remained nearly as obscure in the aftermath as during the time leading up to the sessions. Among them were Charles and Paul Johnson, known musically as the Johnson Brothers. They recorded earlier for Peer and Victor Records. They recorded such tunes as “Down in Happy Valley” and “Careless Love” at the Victor studio in
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However, the Johnson Brothers’ crisply pinpointed vocal harmonies foreshadowed a forthcoming trend within what became the country music industry. Brother acts including The Bailes Brothers, The Blue Sky Boys, The Louvin Brothers, The Everly Brothers, The Bellamy Brothers, Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers and even today’s Swan Courtesy of the Charles K. Wolfe family arChives Brothers can look to the little known Johnson Brothers as the earliest among a trend that continues today. “In many ways,” Wolfe wrote, “the Johnson Brothers were harbingers of the new country music scene starting to develop in the late 1920s.” Charles Johnson played guitar on a pair of recordings, “Pot Liquor Blues” and “Narrow Gauge Blues,” made by El Watson during the Bristol Sessions
Alfred G. Karnes from Corbin, Kentucky, was a Baptist preacher and gospel singer. Karnes along with B.F. Shelton, a banjo player, recorded four songs, including the iconic Appalachian ballads “Pretty Polly” and “Darling Cora” during a nearly four-hour morning session.
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Camden, New Jersey, in May 1927. Peer, according to Wolfe, “invited” the Johnson Brothers to perform during a Bristol Kiwanis luncheon on July 28, 1927. The pair performed about a half-dozen songs, including “New River Train” and “My Carolina Home,” neither of which they ever recorded. The Johnson Brothers recorded six songs in Bristol. Several, including “A Passing Policeman,” feature the brothers’ occasional vaudevillian influenced style. The Johnson Brothers returned to Camden, New Jersey, in May 1928 to record seven more songs for Peer. In total, they recorded 20 sides for Peer. “Possibly because they were somewhat slick and professional sounding, very few of the 20 recordings made by the Johnson Brothers for Victor have been reissued on modern LP and compact disc,” Wolfe wrote in the book “The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music.” “They remain among the least known and recognized musicians who recorded at the 1927 Bristol Sessions.”
dedication held for the country music mural that artist, musician tim White painted on a downtown building that spring
May 2, 1986
Bristol maGaZiNe | 43
in 1927. Watson’s sessions immediately followed the Johnson Brothers’ pairings with the Tennessee Wildcats, the last of which was “The Soldier’s Poor Little Boy,” on which Watson played harmonica. Watson was the only African-American person who was recorded during the sessions. “Little is known about the harmonica soloist El Watson…,” Wolfe wrote. “Those sides (with Charles Johnson) qualify as among the very first integrated country music or blues recordings.”
In many ways, the Johnson Brothers were harbingers of the new country music scene starting to develop in the late 1920s.”
Early gospel
Then there are the ministers, — Charles k. Wolfe, country music historian Virginia native Alfred G. Karnes and Kentuckian Ernest Phipps. The latter recorded six songs on July 26, 1927, the second day of the 1927 sessions. Billed as Ernest Phipps and His Holiness Quartet, they delivered into history rarely recorded examples of holiness gospel singing via such tunes as “Do Lord Remember Me” and Old Ship of Zion.” Karnes recorded six gospel tunes on July 29, 1927, including “I Am Bound for the Promised Land” and “When They Ring the Golden Bells.” It’s doubtful that either were on board with the intention of making hit records, Olson said. “Ernest Phipps and Alfred G. Karnes went to record music that they were all
about,” Olson said. “I think Karnes and Phipps thought they were doing the work for God and not the money.” Karnes and Phipps returned to Bristol for the 1928 sessions. Karnes recorded three tunes, including “We Shall All Be Reunited.” Phipps, billed as Ernest Phipps & His Holiness Singers, again recorded six sides, including “A Little Talk with Jesus.” As during the year before, all of Karnes’ and Phipps’ tunes were gospel songs. Karnes never recorded after the 1928 sessions. Phipps may have participated during the 1929 and ’30 Knoxville sessions within Courtesy of theliBrary of CoNGress the group the Kentucky Uncle Alex “Eck” Dunford is shown posing with his fiddle. Holiness Singers. If so, they Ralph Peer was said to be intrigued by Dunford’s comedic style. were Phipps’ last recordings. “Most of the 21000 series,” Wolfe Nonetheless, Phipps’ recordwrote in his discography of the 1927 ings wedge into history tagged with sessions contained in his book, “were importance. out of print as early as March 1928, “This group of religious singers from months before Peer’s return to Bristol.” the Corbin, Kentucky, vicinity is noteStill, though amid the presence of an worthy for being one of the very few acts abundance of one-hit wonders, Jimto record the surging, unbridled Penmie Rodgers and The Carter Family tecostal singing styles during the early emerged as the most obvious igniters of years of the recording industry,” Wolfe what became the mainstream counwrote. Peer was apparently keen on Phipps, try music industry and sound. Ernest Stoneman certainly played a part as a particularly as the first record released talent scout and participant. All of the from the 1927 Bristol Sessions was acts were part of the steps of history Phipps’ “Don’t You Grieve After Me” being made. and “I Want to Go Where Jesus Is,” “They carved a lot of territory,” Peer on Sept. 16, 1927. A steady stream of said of Rodgers and The Carter Famreleases continued through March 2, ily and their lead roles in what is today 1928, followed by a trio of 78s issued called the Big Bang of Country Music. on March 16, April 6 and Oct. 5, 1928. Most were issued within Victor number “I can buy into that. Country wouldn’t sound like it sounds today without the 21000 series.
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The Bog Trotter Band with, Uncle “Eck� Dunford, from Galax, Virginia, in 1937. Back row: Uncle Alex Dunford, fiddle; Fields Ward, guitar; Wade Ward, banjo. Front row: Crockett Ward, fiddle; Doc Davis, autoharp.
Courtesy of liBrary of CoNGress
fred mcClellan and leton harding start the Birthplace of Country music association (later called an alliance), the forerunner of the organization that today operates the Birthplace of Country music museum
1994
Birthplace of Country music museum
u.s. Congress passes a resolution recognizing Bristol as the Birthplace of Country music
1998
Bristol maGaZiNe | 45
tabletop victrola from the early 1900s
Courtesy of dr. JessiCa turNer
Alfred G. Karnes “I Am Bound For The Promised Land” vocal solo with guitar was one of the lesser-known recordings from the 1927 Bristol Sessions. Karnes’ recordings, along with Ernest Phipps, were some of the rare examples of holiness gospel tunes recorded. Courtesy of dr. JessiCa turNer
Columbia tabletop record player from the early 1900s; common models were made by victor and Columbia.
Thompson Artworks
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The Rhythm The undertone of the Sessions the artists’ musical talent came as much from their instruments as it did from their voices Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. Rodgers’ body rests 331 miles hey’re quiet now. away in a grave back home As with those in Meridian, Mississippi. who played the Within a whisper of instruments used to make Rodgers’ guitar rests Mayhistory during the 1927 belle Carter’s 1928 Gibson Bristol Sessions, the guiL-5 guitar, which was tars and banjos and fiddles purchased new for $275 and mandolins employed in 1928 with profi ts from during July and August of The Carter Family record1927 are mostly gone. The vast majority of the people ings made in Bristol in 1927. Bill Monroe’s heavare dead and their instruments seemingly long lost. ily scarred 1923 Gibson F5 Lloyd Loar mandolin, A precious few are which some estimates list known to exist. as being worth at least $1 “Think about it,” said million, rests nearby. Ted Olson, professor of However, the guitar Appalachian Studies at connected with the Bristol East Tennessee State UniSessions and Maybelle versity and co-editor with Carter, does not rest in the late Charles K. Wolfe the Country of the 2005 book, “The Music Hall Bristol Sessions: Writof Fame and ings About the Big Bang Museum. of Country Music.” “Look An 18at El Watson, who played year-old harmonica during the Maybelle Bristol Sessions. Nobody Addington seems to even know who Carter, who he was, much less know married Ezra anything about the exis“Eck” Carter tence of his harmonica.” Not so for Jimmie Rodg- and thus into the Carter ers’ Martin 00-18 guitar, Family in enlisted to record “Sleep, Baby, Sleep” and “The Sol- 1926, used dier’s Sweetheart” on Aug. a little Stella 4, 1927, in Bristol, Tennes- flattop parlor see. The guitar sits upright guitar on the Bristol day and night as if in wait Sessions. of the Singing Brakeman’s Pregnant and slender-fingered touch, seven weeks encased in glass and on display within the Country from giving by toM NetherlANd
T
birth to her first of three daughters, Maybelle, along with A.P. and Sara Carter began the sessions with “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow,” which Maybelle and Sara had sung since they were little girls. Sara, who was married to Ezra’s brother A.P., played an autoharp bought via mail order through the Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog. “That autoharp is in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum,” said Ronnie Williams, of Spotsylvania, Virginia, a longtime friend of various members of the Carter Family, including Maybelle. “It’s just a little old
the 1927 Bristol sessions selected as one of 25 significant recordings included in the library of Congress’ National recording registry during the program’s first year of existence.
2002
Sara Carter’s Sears and Roebuck autoharp, which she played during the sessions, resides on display at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. photo Courtesy tom NetherlaNd
Bristol maGaZiNe | 47
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five-bar autoharp. It’s real thick. It’s a black autoharp.” Regarding the Stella guitar that Maybelle played on the Bristol Sessions, Williams said he asked her about its whereabouts during one of his visits to her home in the mid-1970s. “She played it with her bare fingers,” Williams said. “She started using a thumb pick and a pick on her index finger when she bought her Gibson L-5 in 1928.” Williams owns the last autoharp that Maybelle Carter owned and played. He also owns several instruments that were owned and played by her daughters Helen, Anita and June Carter. In 1984, he bought, for $1,250, a 1929 Gibson L-5 that is only a year older and nearly identical to Maybelle’s famed Gibson, which he still owns and plays. He said Johnny Cash and all three Carter sisters have played that guitar. However, Maybelle’s little Stella remains elusive. “Well, she told me that she used the Stella guitar on those first sessions,” Williams said. “It was a cheap little guitar. I think one of her brothers gave it to her.
She told me that she gave it to a girl in the Hiltons community when she got her Gibson. She said she didn’t know what happened to it, but that she would give anything to have it back.” If the guitar emerges, it will join Charles McReynolds’ fiddle and William McReynolds’ banjo as one the few instruments known to exist that were used during the 1927 Bristol Sessions. The McReynolds’ recorded two songs in Bristol on Aug. 1, 1927, as members of the Bull Mountain Moonshiners. Their recordings of “Sweet Marie” and “Johnny Goodwin” were made immediately before the Carter Family recorded “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow.” Charles McReynolds was the grandfather of Jim and the late Jesse McReynolds, who are IBMA Bluegrass Hall of Fame members. William McReynolds was the brothers’ uncle. “Jim’s daughter has the banjo that my uncle used at the Bristol Sessions,” said Jesse McReynolds, 86, from his home in Gallatin, Tennessee. “Jim had it sitting by his fireplace in his home. I
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IBMA Bluegrass Hall of Fame member Jesse McReynolds is shown with his grandfather Charles McReynolds’ fiddle. Charles McReynolds played this fiddle as a member of the Bull Mountain Moonshiners during the two songs they recorded on Aug. 1, 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee, during a roundup of recording sessions that are now known as the 1927 Bristol Sessions. These photos were taken at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in August 2014 during the inaugural festivities.
told her I’d like to have it restored and then record something with it along with my grandfather’s fiddle.” Jesse McReynolds owns his grandfather Charles’ fiddle that was played during the 1927 Bristol Sessions. He played it last year in Bristol during the grand opening ceremonies of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. “My great grandfather gave it to my grandfather,” McReynolds said. “It’s a copy of a Stradivarius. I think it’s close to 200 years old. I got it from my uncle. I still use it. It plays a lot better than when I first got it.” McReynolds, a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1964, occasionally plays his grandfather’s fiddle on the Opry. The Opry was established in 1925, two years before the Bristol Sessions. McReynolds’ fiddle appears to be the only instrument known to have been used during the Bristol Sessions and also on the Opry, which is known as The Mother Church of Country Music. “That’s an important linkage,” Olson said. “That’s pretty remarkable. It’s that boom era.” McReynolds said he’s in the midst of a project centered on his grandfather’s fiddle. “I’ve started to record an album of fiddle tunes that my grandfather played with the fiddle,” McReynolds said. “I’m going to get six or seven famous fiddlers on the album to play it, too.” McReynolds’ memories of the fiddle date to his early childhood. “He lived way back in the mountains in a place called
Possum Holler,” McReynolds, a native of Coeburn, Virginia, said. “When I was 9 or 10, we’d go visit him and he’d sit there in his living room and bedroom, which was all in one room, and he’d play his fiddle. He kept it in his dresser drawer. My grandmother said the night he died he put it way in the back of the drawer for some reason after he played it. He had a stroke that night and died.” Another fiddle exists. Blind Alfred Reed, a native of Floyd, Virginia, played a fiddle July 28, 1927, during a quartet of songs including “You Must Unload” during the Bristol Sessions. “His son is named Denny Reed, and he has the fiddle, which is a violin made in Italy in the 1690s,” Olson said. “Blind Alfred Reed would drop it occasionally, pick it up and glue it back together. The stories about it are fascinating. He dropped it in a pond one time. Someone scooped it out of the pond, and the only change was that it had better tone.” Unlike Reed’s fiddle, Charles McReynolds’ fiddle and William McReynolds’ banjo, Maybelle Carter’s Stella guitar that she used in Bristol on Aug. 1, 1927, might never resurface. Perhaps it sits under someone’s bed, in a closet or attic, its owner unaware of its significance to country music history. “Oh my goodness,” Williams said of the possibilities. “Maybelle said it was a real cheap guitar, but look what it did for country music history.”
tim White and James Bryant start the appalachian Cultural music association, which today sponsors free, live music downtown every week, at the pickin’ porch, and operates the mountain music museum at 620 state st.
the stage play “Keep on the sunny side,” telling the story of the Carter family, debuts at the Barter theatre
2006
2002
Courtesy tom NetherlaNd
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Germany’s Bear family records issues a complete Bristol sessions boxed set; all of the 1927 recordings from Bristol and all the recordings that peer made in Bristol during follow-up sessions october-November 1928. the Bear family release received two Grammy nominations.
2011
Bristol maGaZiNe | 49
Maybelle Carter’s famed Gibson L-5 guitar was not the one she used during the 1927 Bristol Sessions, but it is without question the guitar that she made famous because it was played on most of the recordings made by The Carter Family. Also, it’s the one that she pioneered her “Carter Scratch” technique of playing rhythm guitar on the bass strings, which in turn helped to make the guitar a lead instrument. This was taken at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville. To listen to Maybelle Carter’s “Carter Scratch” technique, visit an episode of “The Johnny Cash Show” at http:// bit.ly/1hlCk5R. photos Courtesy tom NetherlaNd
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The Epitaph From Bristol to Nashville Carter family circle of life rests within the cradle of country music history by toM NetherlANd
H
ILTONS, Va. — Atop a hill amid the Clinch Mountains in Southwest Virginia is Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church. Out back from the white clapboard church, made of wood cut and crafted from the nearby mountains, is the church cemetery. It’s a place of hallowed ground, not just for those whose names echoed little if at all beyond the region known as Poor Valley, but particularly because it’s the final resting place for two of the three original members of The Carter Family. A.P. and his wife, Sara Carter, two-thirds of the First Family of Country Music, were buried in the Mt. Vernon cemetery, on a hill overlooking what is
now called the A.P. Highway. The Hiltons was their home. Today, the cemetery defines as blessed among the annals of country music history, and among the fans and practitioners who often are found graveside seeking inspiration. A.P. died Nov. 7, 1960, at age 68. Sara, who had long since relocated to California, died Jan. 8, 1979, at age 80. A gold record carved into each grave marker reads “KEEP ON THE SUNNY SIDE,” the title of their hit recording from May 9, 1928. The song was released just nine months after The Carter Family made its first records in Bristol, Tennessee, for Ralph Peer and the Victor Talking Machine Co., during what is now known as the Bristol Sessions. Author Nolan Porterfield
coined the term “The Big Bang of Country Music” to describe the formation of the country music industry and the genre resulting from those recordings during the summer of 1927. Maybelle Carter, often referred to as “Mother” Maybelle Carter, died in 1978 at age 69. She is buried at Hendersonville Memory Gardens in Hendersonville, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville, and but a few steps from her daughters Helen, June and Anita. Grammy award-winning, country music star Johnny Cash, June’s husband and Maybelle’s son-in-law, is buried beside June. As with A.P. and Sara Carter’s burial sites in Hiltons, the Hendersonville site reverberates with historical significance. A visit to A.P. and Sara Carter’s graves, on a cold,
the Birthplace of Country music museum, dedicated to interpreting the Bristol sessions, opens in Bristol, a couple of blocks away from where the sessions were held
the Birthplace of Country music museum celebrates it’s first birthday
2014
Aug. 2015
A.P. Carter’s final resting spot is at Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church in Maces Spring, Virginia, near the Carter Family Fold. His wife, Sara Carter, also is buried there. Maybelle Carter is buried just a couple of feet away from her daughter June and son-inlaw Johnny Cash in the Hendersonville Memory Gardens in Hendersonville, Tennessee, just on the outskirts of Nashville, the home of the Country Music Hall of Fame. photo Courtesy tom NetherlaNd
Bristol maGaZiNe | 51
fall day with the wind whipping yellow and burnt orange leaves into a square dance with their falling counterparts of apple red and walnut brown, brings to mind the lyrics of another Carter hit: “Can the Circle Be Unbroken.” The words rise to the surface of thought like a Sunday morning cross on the mind of the Biblical: “I was standing by the window, on one cold and cloudy day; when I saw the hearse come rolling to carry my mother away. “Can the circle be unbroken, bye and by Lord, by and bye; there’s a better home awaiting in the sky, Lord, in the sky.” By the time Maybelle’s son-in-law performed and recorded that song, the title and lyrics had been transformed into “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.” Several months previously, during another cemetery
visit, on a day as hot as sizzling bacon, the harsh sunlight threatened to obliterate the view of Maybelle Carter’s modest grave marker. Flat to the Hendersonville, Tennessee, ground, her gravesite’s humble appearance mimics her humble nature in life. “THE FIRST LADY OF COUNTRY MUSIC,” Maybelle Carter’s marker reads, “GOD HAS PICKED HIS WILDWOOD FLOWER.” While Bristol, home of the sessions, gave birth to country, Nashville, home of the Country Music Hall of Fame, witnessed, nurtured and memorialized the genre’s growth. And those two burial sites — one in the mountains near Bristol, the other on the outskirts of Nashville — together rest in a cradle of culture that is forever tied to country music. Tom Netherland is a freelance writer. He may be reached at features@bristolnews.com.
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A.P. Carter was born in 1891 inside an old log cabin that once stood in Little Valley, near Maces Spring, in Scott County, Virginia. Built in the 1880s, that cabin is listed on the national historic landmarks register. It was moved in 2003 and dedicated in 2004 after being restored on the grounds of the Carter Fold. Today, it stands next to the old general store that was operated by A.P. Carter in the 1940s after he left the music business. That store was the site of the first musical gathering in 1974 by Janette Carter, one of Carter’s daughters. That gathering became the start of the regular Saturday night shows at the Carter Fold. The store is now a museum and stands next to the Carter Fold. Built in 1976, “The Fold” is the site of musical gatherings Saturday nights, as well as other occasions.
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