Legendary Bristol Sessions that birthed the genre began 90 years ago.
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Where was Country Music born? If you think Nashville you’re probably not alone. But it all started 90 years ago today in a warehouse in Bristol where Ralph Peer, a pioneer in field recording, began cutting dozens of songs by 19 regional performers. The Bristol Sessions lasted two weeks and are widely considered the Big Bang of Country Music, yielding the debut recordings of two artists that became superstars—the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers.
The Carters popularized the kind of harmony singing that dominated Country Music for years to come, and Maybelle Carter crafted the so-called Carter lick on the guitar and watche. Rodgers, known for his rhythmic yodeling, was later hailed as the Father of Country Music.
But why in Bristol? “That’s one of those real mysteries of these sessions,” says Jessica Turner, director and head curator at Bristol’s Birthplace of Country Museum. One reason may have been the city’s status as a transportation hub that linked Southwestern Virginia with Eastern Tennessee and Kentucky. Says Turner, “There also were a lot of musicians in this region that had not been recorded yet, which is why it may have happened here.”
Peer, the recording engineer, stopped in Bristol during a two-month tour through the South. New Jersey-based Victor Talking Machine Co. had sent him on the road to sonically preserve dozens of unknown Blues, Ragtime, Gospel and early Country Music artists for posterity. It was a commercially risky yet practicable strategy in a time when going to New York City to record was out of reach for most musicians.
“So Victor decided to come down to Bristol to record,” says Turner. “That was possible because of advances in the recording technology in the 1920s where you could load equipment on a train and bring it down south for a location session.”
While the warehouse where Peer made his recordings stood just across the state line in Tennessee, the Birthplace of Country Music Museum is just a few blocks away on the Virginia side. The museum is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution and is dedicated to telling the story of the 1927 Bristol Sessions and demonstrates the impact of these recordings on later musical genres, including Rockabilly, Bluegrass and early Rock.
Although Bristol birthed the genre, Nashville eventually claimed the title as the capital of Country Music. That’s because unlike Bristol, Nashville had a 50,000-watts station that reached the entire East Coast.
“It’s just the way history played out,” says Turner.
On Saturday, July 29 at 7:30 p.m., the Birthplace of Country Museum presents a Friends of 1927 concert featuring artists Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle and Jerry Salley. Tickets start at $75. BirthplaceOfCountryMusic.org
