The College of Musical Knowledge

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1. John wrote:

   The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers.

   During the last week of July and the first week of August 1927, Ralph Peer from Victor Records set up a temporary studio in Bristol Tennessee and held open auditions for local musical talent. A growing city whose State Street formed the official line between Virginia and Tennessee, Bristol was the third stop on Peer’s third trip through the Appalachians in search of blues, gospel, and “hillbilly” musicians to record. In the context of musical history, the Bristol Sessions are referred to as “the Big Bang of Country Music”, having been the point of discovery for both the “Father of Country Music”, Jimmie Rodgers, and the “First Family of Country”, the Carter Family.

   By the time he pulled into Bristol, Ralph Peer had already spent years working for the Columbia and OKeh record labels, recording both the first vocal blues record by an African American, “Crazy Blues” by Mamie Smith, and what is considered to be the first country music recording, “The Little Old Cabin in the Lane” by Fiddlin’ John Carson. In addition, various field recording sessions gave him the opportunity to record Fats Waller, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Bennie Moten, Sippie Wallace, and Ernest V. “Pop” Stoneman before they all became well known musicians. While searching for talent during these journeys, Peer perfected his pitch: all artists were paid $50 per side (usually one or two songs), with a royalty of 2.5 cents per record sold. He encouraged them to record original material (or anonymous folk songs) in order to for him to establish control of the copyright for the songs.

   During his time in Bristol, Peer relied on the assistance of Stoneman to round up musicians for his first week in town. After a local newspaper article about the sessions noted that Stoneman’s previous recordings had earned him $3,600 in 1926, musicians from miles away made their way to Bristol in hope of auditioning for Peer. In total, Peer recorded 76 songs by 19 artists during his two weeks in Bristol. Of them, The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers would ultimately gain the greatest fame and have an immeasurable influence on the yet unnamed country music genre.

   A.P. Carter, his wife Sara, and sister-in-law Maybelle traveled from Maces Spring, Virginia (about 30 miles away) and recorded 6 songs (”Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow”, “Little Log Cabin By the Sea”, “Poor Orphan Child”, “The Storms are on the Ocean”, “Single Girl, Married Girl”, “The Wandering Boy”) on August 1st and 2nd.

   Jimmie Rodgers and his band came from Ashville, North Carolina (about 80 miles away). After an argument over how they should be billed, Rodgers decided to record solo, with the band performing on their own as the Tenneva Ramblers. On August 4th, Rodgers recorded two songs, “The Soldier’s Sweetheart”, and “Sleep, Baby, Sleep.”

   After the initial releases by both artists began to sell well, Peer brought them each up north for follow up sessions. From there, both immediately went on to become household names throughout rural America, with their careers managed by Peer. While they became successful musicians, Peer used the copyrights he had collected during his travels to begin his own song publishing business, Southern Music Publishing Company, which later evolved into peermusic. With the rights to such classic songs as “Georgia On My Mind”, “Deep In The Heart Of Texas”, “You Are My Sunshine”, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”, “Mambo Number 5″, “Brazil”, and thousands more, peermusic is currently the world’s largest independent music publisher.

   To honor the recordings of the summer of 1927 and their impact upon American culture, in 1998 the United States Congress officially recognized Bristol as “The Birthplace of Country Music.”

   “Single Girl, Married Girl” by The Carter Family, 1927

   “Sleep, Baby, Sleep” by Jimmie Rodgers, 1927
   While not his best song, this record has Rodgers demonstrating his yodeling skills, which would later be used to great effect on some of his most famous songs. As Peer stated of “Sleep, Baby, Sleep”, “I thought his yodel alone might spell success.”

   “The Carter Family and Jimmie Rogers in Texas” by The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, 1931
   This version of the song is pulled from Bob Dylan’s satellite radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour. Listen for Dylan’s witheringly accurate opinion of today’s talent scouts.

   Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at 3:04 pm | Permalink

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