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’
Virginia History
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
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
If You’ve Got the Money: The Economics of the Bristol Sessions
The Bristol Sessions looms large in history for artistic reasons: They launched the careers of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, whose music would define the parameters of country music for generations to come. However, the Sessions were not primarily an artistic exercise, but rather an economic one. Ralph Peer wasn’t in Bristol looking for … Continue reading If You’ve Got the Money: The Economics of the Bristol Sessions
El Watson and the Ghost of Esley Riddle
By July 28, 1927, the Bristol Sessions were looking like a bit of a dud. Ralph Peer had been recording for three days, and though he’d heard some good music—most of it from Ernest Stoneman and his friends and family in various combinations—he hadn’t heard anything that sounded like a game-changer for Peer or for … Continue reading El Watson and the Ghost of Esley Riddle
Spreading the Word
The standard mythology about the Bristol Sessions has it that Ralph Peer drifted into Bristol on July 22, a stranger in town; that he placed an ad in the local paper and, as a result, hordes of aspiring country musicians came down from the hills to audition; and that among those hordes were Jimmie Rodgers … Continue reading Spreading the Word
Why Bristol?
Today “the Bristol Sessions” is a portmanteau phrase in its own right, so much a given to country-music aficionados that it hardly seems necessary to ask questions such as “why were there sessions in Bristol?” or, more relevant to this discussion, “Why were the sessions in Bristol?” They didn’t have to be. In the 1910s … Continue reading Why Bristol?
Tennessee Walt 