The Birthplace of Country Music

The Birthplace of Country Music is a world-class museum and music park dedicated to preserving and celebrating the history of country music.

The Bristol Sessions

In 1927, the Bristol Sessions were recorded in Bristol, Tennessee. These sessions were groundbreaking because they featured the first commercial recordings of the genre of country music. The music that was recorded during these sessions would go on to inspire subsequent generations of country musicians.

Commercial recordings begin

In 1927, Ralph Peer of Victor Records came to Bristol with the intent of recording local music. The results of these sessions, which are now known as the “Bristol Sessions”, were nothing short of historic. For the first time, the music of the Appalachian Mountains was captured and presented to the world. These recordings would go on to have a profound influence on the development of country music and American popular music as a whole.

The Bristol Sessions featured a wide variety of performers, including some who would go on to become major stars in country music. The most famous recordings from these sessions are likely those of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, both of whom went on to have hugely successful careers in country music.

The Big Bang of Country Music

In the summer of 1927, music producer Ralph Peer set up a recording studio in Bristol, Tennessee, with the intention of capturing the sounds of the people who lived in the region. The recordings made in that studio over a two-week period would come to be known as The Bristol Sessions, and they would go on to have a profound impact on the world of music.

The Bristol Sessions were a collection of recordings made by Peer and his team that captured the sounds of traditional Appalachian music. These recordings were made at a time when country music was just beginning to gain popularity, and they played a significant role in shaping the sound of the genre. The songs recorded at Bristol have become some of the most iconic in country music history, and they continue to influence musicians today.

The Bristol Sessions were groundbreaking not only for their contribution to country music, but also for their influence on American popular culture as a whole. The recordings made during those two weeks in 1927 helped to define an entire genre of music and launched the careers of some of its most iconic performers. 100 years later, the impact of The Bristol Sessions is still being felt.

The Carter Family

The Carter Family was a country music group that originated in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia in the early 1920s. The group was composed of Alvin Pleasant “A.P.” Delaney Carter (1891–1960), his wife Sara Dougherty Carter (1898–1979), and their sister-in-law Maybelle Addington Carter (1909–1978). The Carter Family was one of the first commercially successful country music groups.

Maybelle Carter’s guitar style

Maybelle Carter’s guitar style, soon christened the “Carter Scratch,” was a highly influential component of her family’s sound. It can be generally described as a cross-picking technique, in which the guitar strings are picked with the thumbs and both forefingers in a rapid, syncopated pattern. This distinctive style helped to give the Carter Family’s music a tone that was uniquely their own, and set them apart from other early country music acts.

The group’s success

The Carter Family’s success was immediate following the release of their first recordings on Victor in 1927. Their recordings of songs such as “Wabash Cannonball”, “Can the Circle Be Unbroken”, “Wildwood Flower”, and “Keep On the Sunny Side” sold extremely well and became hits on radio stations throughout America. The group’s success continued into the 1930s, when they began to record with Jimmie Rodgers. The duo’s collaboration resulted in commercial success, with hits such as “The Rock Island Line” and “T for Texas”.

Jimmie Rodgers

The “Blue Yodeler” Jimmie Rodgers is considered by many to be the father of country music. He was born on September 8, 1897 in Meridian, Mississippi and was the youngest of six children. His father, John Rodgers, was a train conductor and his mother, Elizabeth Rodgers, was a homemaker. When Jimmie was only three years old, his father died in a train accident.

His yodeling

Even before his recordings made him a national star in 1927, Rodgers was known for his distinctive style of yodeling, which he called “the only way to keep my voice from cracking.” He elaborated on this technique during his years with the Carver Boys and developed it further after going solo. His records with the Carver Boys show Rodgers experimenting with yodeling, singing in a higher pitch on some verses and slipping into a lower register on the chorus or instrumental breaks. On his solo recordings, he would often sing the verses in a natural voice and slip into yodeling on the chorus or bridge. Rodgers’ yodeling style became so associated with him that it was often imitated by other singers, most notably the girls in the Republic Pictures all-female western The Trail Blazers (1940), who warbled their way through a version of “Mule Train” while saddling up their horses.

His success

In 1927, Rodgers released his first recordings, “The Soldier’s Sweetheart” and “Sleep, Baby, Sleep”, on Victor Records. These were commercially successful, and led to a series of further recordings. Rodgers was called “the singing brakeman”, “the blue yodeler”, and “the father of country music”. By 1931 he was recognized as a major figure in country music, appearing in Chicago’s WLS-AM radio show National Barn Dance. In 1932 he had his first million-selling hit record, “Blue Yodel No. 1”.

The Legacy of the Bristol Sessions

In 1927, record companies from New York City came to Bristol, Tennessee to hold auditions for local musicians. The musicians who were selected went on to record what is now known as the Bristol Sessions, which were a series of recordings that helped to launch the careers of many Country Music legends. The Bristol Sessions are considered to be the birthplace of Country Music, and the city of Bristol is now home to a country music museum and numerous music festivals.

The music’s influence

The music of the Bristol Sessions had an enormous impact on the development of country music. The recordings were widely heard and gave rise to a new musical genre, which came to be known as “hillbilly music.” This new style of music combined elements of folk and popular music, and it quickly became popular across the United States. The recordings of the Bristol Sessions were some of the first country music recordings to achieve national prominence, and they helped to establish Nashville as the center of the country music industry.