He’s not the greatest country singer who ever lived, but he may be my favorite. It’s hard to say why I love Tubb’s music so much, but I responded powerfully the first time I ever heard his voice (duetting with Loretta Lynn on “Sweet Thang” (1967), though I heard it on a Lynn collection that … Continue reading Ten Things You Need to Know About Ernest Tubb
Author: Tennessee Walt
My Favorite Things
I did a great show last weekend in Deer Park—and I should emphasize that I did a show I’d done many times before, something like the 25th performance of Tennessee Walt’s The Other Great American Songbook, and did it neither better nor worse than usual; it was the audience that made it great, by being … Continue reading My Favorite Things
Love Is Blind, in 4/4 Time
It’s been nine years since I started listening to country music and, unwittingly, placed my feet on the path that led to the birth of Tennessee Walt. (For further details of this story, check here.) The people who have known me longer than that are, for the most part, baffled by my new taste in … Continue reading Love Is Blind, in 4/4 Time
Glen Campbell Faces the End with Guitar in Hand
by Gary Graff c.2012 Gary Graff Glen Campbell gets a warm but wary reception as he strides onstage at the University of Michigan's Hill Auditorium. It's no secret that the five-time Grammy Award winner is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. He announced it himself, in June 2011, and has said that his latest album, "Ghost … Continue reading Glen Campbell Faces the End with Guitar in Hand
‘The Most Important Event in the History of Country Music’
On August 6, 1927, Ralph Peer left Bristol. By Monday, August 8, there weren’t many people who even remembered that the Bristol Sessions had happened. Most of the musicians who had auditioned for him were already back in their everyday lives, scrambling to get by. Peer returned to New York, Bristol went about its business … Continue reading ‘The Most Important Event in the History of Country Music’
Six Songs, Plus Three More
If you listen to the recordings from the Bristol Sessions (and you should—the Bear Family collection, The Bristol Sessions: 1927-1928 is the definitive version, despite some unfortunate errors in its accompanying hardcover liner notes, but the Country Music Hall of Fame release The Bristol Sessions is also excellent) … if you listen to the recordings … Continue reading Six Songs, Plus Three More
I Walk the Line
On August 4, 1927, Jimmie Rodgers—free of his entanglement with the Tenneva Ramblers—made his first recording as a solo act. Commercial country music, which had been born, unheralded and unnoticed, on August 1, when the Carter Family made their first recordings, came into focus at that moment. (The Tenneva Ramblers—free of their entanglement with Jimmie … Continue reading I Walk the Line
The Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers
The most important event of the August 3, 1927, Bristol Sessions happened not on the second floor of the Taylor-Christian Hat Company building, where Ralph Peer had set up his portable Victor Talking Machine Company recording studio, but rather across town at Mrs. Pierce’s boarding house. Different parties involved had different recollections of what went … Continue reading The Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers
Give Me That Old-Time
Ralph Peer came to Bristol looking for traditional music that would have commercial potential on records—or, as he put it himself “old-time music.” We know what he found—Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, above all—but was it what he was looking for? What was he looking for, specifically, and why was he looking for it? … Continue reading Give Me That Old-Time
Straight from Clinch Mountain
It’s easy enough to see why Jimmie Rodgers caught Ralph Peer’s eye in Bristol. A show-business veteran with the gift of the gab and a zest for self-promotion, Rodgers was a dapper dresser with a fine, flexible voice, brimming with self-confidence, and he had that yodel to set him apart from the crowd. The songs … Continue reading Straight from Clinch Mountain
Tennessee Walt 