The Sessions

Going into the sessions, the big star was undoubtedly Ernest Stoneman--known to generations of fans as "Pop Stoneman," and the founder of country's first dynasty, the Stoneman Family. Working from his base in nearby Galax, Virginia, Stoneman by mid-1927 had recorded more than any other Southern artist--over 100 sides for various companies. A versatile instrumentalist and fine singer, he had a nose for good songs and got them from barb printed and oral sources. TELL MOTHER I WILL MEET HER, the second song done at the sessions, came from a 1903 songbook compiled by Georgia publisher John B Vaughan, ARE YOU WASHED IN THE BLOOD, sung by Stoneman, his wife, his brother- and sister-in-law; and other Galax friends, is gospel standard by Elisha Hoffman dating from 1878, while THE RESURRECTION came from a Pentecostal songbook the same era. On the other hand, themes like SKIP TO MA LOU and THE MOUNTAINEER'S COURTSHIP are well grounded in Appalachian folk tradition: the courtship song-a delightful duet between Stoneman and his wife Hatsie - is often called "OLD GREY BEARD," though Stoneman titled it "NO SIR" in his own manuscript version. MIDNIGHT ON THE STORMY DEEP, a heretofore loss item recently discovered in the Victor vaults and issued here in complete forms for the first time, is a duet between Stoneman and his sister-in-law Irma Frost, and a traditional ballad later popularized by the Blue Sky boys. OLD TIME CORN SHUCKIN' features most of the Galax area musicians Stoneman brought with him and marks Victor's entry into the genre of rural comedy.

A few months earlier Columbia records had issued a skit by the Georgia band the Skillet Lickers about a fiddling contest and had seen it become a bestseller. Peer had asked Stoneman to write a similar one, and, fresh from a real corn shucking on a Virginia farm, Stoneman obliged. This record was the very first issued from the session and rushed out less than a month later. Peer was fascinated with what he called "holy roller" music and went out of his way to record it when he could. On the second day of the session (July 26) Peer interrupted his Stoneman recordings to devote the entire day to a session by a Pentecostal group from Gray, Kentucky (near Corbin), led by Preacher-singer Ernest Phipps. I WANT TO GO WHERE JESUS IS, the first of a number of sides Phipps would make for Peer and Victor, captures the fervent holiness church style so rarely heard on commercial recordings of the time. On July 28 Peer recorded Charles and Paul Johnson, a well-known vaudeville team from nearby Happy Valley. By 1926 the Johnsons were living in Johnson City and had already traveled to New York to record for Victor. POT LICKER BLUES is a harmonica piece featuring Charles backing a musician known only as "El" Wassom. Wassom was a Johnson City resident, and probably black, but little else is known of him, save that he backed the Johnsons on one of their longer sides. Unlike many of the Bristol musicians, the Johnsons later dropped locally out of music, and their subsequent career is unknown. Both THE JEALOUS SWEETHEART and A PASSING POLICEMAN features Paul on steel and vocals, and Charles on guitar. On "A Passing Policeman" a third person, possibly El Wassom is playing the thin bars of bone or wood that were a popular form of percussion in old minstrel shows. "A Passing Policeman" is another minstrel piece heard for the first time. Also known as "The Little Lost Child," the ballad was a hit in 1894 on Broadway, when it was written by music composer Edward Marks and pianist Joe Storr. The awkward bridge, with its odd chord changes, probably explains why it wasn't released, but nevertheless shows the problems of traditional musicians in coping with older pop songs.

The same day the Johnsons recorded, a remarkable protest and gospel singer-songwriter from Princeton, West Virginia, came forth. Peer had earlier heard of Blind Alfred Reed's topical ballad THE WRECK OF THE VIRGINIAN and, mindful of the appeal of train wreck songs, asked him to come in; Reed also did his own piece, WALKING IN THE WAY WITH JESUS. Reed would record again, writing such pieces as "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live," revised in the 1970's by Ry Cooder. An equally distinctive gospel singer was preacher Alfred Karnes, from Corbin, Kentucky. Attracted by the newspaper stories, Karnes drove over the mountains to Bristol, bringing with him his rare Gibson harp-guitar, with its three sets of strings. It thrives on I AM BOUND FOR THE PROMISED LAND, where the old words are welded to the driving melody of "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down" on Dion De Marbello's 1887 standard WHEN THEY RING THOSE GOLDEN BELLS; and on Fanny Crosby's 1899 gospel hymn TO THE WORK. Karnes' lively gospel songs were some of the best selling records from the session, and in 1928 Peer called him back for more. Karnes had brought with him from Corbin another superb traditional singer, B.P. (Frank) Shelton, a barber in Corbin who had supposedly met Karnes while he was an inmate in a prison where Karnes preached. The stark, modal sound of O MOLLY DEAR has made it one of the outstanding examples of traditional Southern music recorded this century: the lyrics, better known as "East Virginia Blues," have helped define the concept of mountain blues.

Throughout the weekend, Peer continued to audition groups that came out of the nearby mountains. On Monday August 1, he recorded two fiddle bands. One was the Hillsville, Virginia duo of banjoes-singer J. P. Nessor and fiddler Norman Edmonds who played BLACK-EYED SUSIE. Edmonds would go on to become a widely known and recorded old-time fiddler in the 1950s and 1960s. From Coeburn, Virginia came the Bull Mountain Moonshiners, headed by fiddler Charles McReynolds, the grandfather of bluegrass greats Jim & Jesse. The Moonshiners' Johnny Goodwin, their sole issued record, is a delightful and intricate reading of "The Girl He Left Behind." After supper, from 6:30 to 9:30, Peer recorded yet a third Virginian group, an act he initially identified as "Mr. and Mrs. Carter from Maces Springs." We now know that Peer had set up recordings with A.P. Carter back in June, but he was still somewhat surprised to see them. "They wander in," he recalled. "He's dressed in overalls and the women are country woman from way back there. They look like hillbillies. But as soon as I heard Sara's voice, that was it. I knew it was going to be wonderful." There were AP and Sara, a middle-aged couple married then some 12 years and both fond of old songs, and Sara's cousin, Maybelle, barely 18, who had shyly asked AP, before they had left home, whether or not she should bring her guitar. They began with a song Sara and Maybelle had both known since childhood, BURY ME UNDER THE WEEPING WILLOW, a nineteenth-century song widely known in the mountains. They then moved to LITTLE LOG CABIN BY THE SEA and POOR ORPHAN CHILD, two songs AP had learned from an old gospel song book used at the local church where AP had sung in the choir. Sara and AP sang them as duets. All three voices returned for THE STORMS ARE ON THE OCEAN, a lyric derived from an old Scottish ballad.

The next morning the session continued, but recently found Victor files show that, for some reason, AP was not present for the last two recordings. Sara, accompanied only by her autoharp and Maybelle's guitar, did two solos, WANDERING BOY (a song she had known all her life), and SINGLE GIRL (a song she had learned from a boy in Russell County about 1905, and which she felt, "ripped off" the session). The Carters didn't know it, but they had started a long career, one in which AP would serve as front man and manager, leaving the two women to carry most of the musical burden. August 2 and 3 saw more local talent. From Alcoa, Tennessee, came John "Lennie" Wells' Alcoa Quartet, then the favorite singing group to perform at conventions or funerals in west Tennessee; I'M REDEEMED, sung unaccompanied from a contemporary seven-shape rose book, was their favorite. The group had also recorded earlier, and later appeared with a young Roy Acuff on Knoxville radio. Another veteran was a harmonica player named Henry Whitner, whose FOX CHASE had been recorded in 1924 for Okeh and had established the piece as a standard. Peer felt an electrical recording of the novelty would give it a new sales appeal, and he was right. From Meadows of Dan, Virginia, came the Shelor Family--actually the Shelor-Blackard family--with its unusual instrumentation of piano, banjo and two fiddles. The singer on BILLY GRIMES, THE ROVER, an old English music ball song that was sung in America before 1850, is Joe Blackard, who had been visited by famed Appalachian folk song collector Cecil Sharp in 1918, SANDY RIVER BELLE, a popular fiddle tune, appears herein an unissued alternate take in which Joe Blackard sings a wordless second verse to the fiddle-an archaic Irish technique called "diddling." Wednesday night was given over to the band of Mr. and Mrs. James Baker, cousins of the Carters, from nearby Falls Branch , who did a driving version of THE NEWMARKET WRECK, about an accident near Morristown, TN in 1904.

While the Bakers were recording, the band that was to record the following morning (Thursday, August 4) had been arguing among themselves. This was a band called the Tennessee Ramblers (because they worked out of Bristol, on the state line), which had been in business since 1923, and which was led by Claude and Jack Grant, with Jack Pierce on the fiddle. Since March 1927 the trio had been teaming up with a young Mississippi singer with a skill at yodeling and a flair for promotion; his name was Jimmie Rodgers. The group had been working at a mountain resort in Asheville, and had stumbled onto Peers session by accident when they came home to visit Pierce's mother, who ran a boarding house just across State Street from the studio. After their auditions for Peer-they had had to promise to find older, more down-home songs than the ones they had been doing-the band and Rodgers broke up over how the record label credits were to read. As a result, the Ramblers quickly recruited a banjo player and recorded by themselves. Their classic THE LONGEST TRAIN I EVER SAW, a version of the well known "In the Pines," was one result-- it was to be the start of a long recording career for the band members. At 2:00 that afternoon Rodgers appeared for his session, accompanied only by his little Martin guitar and a lot of high hopes. Peer was disappointed to find that most of the songs Rodgers had been singing were fairly new pop songs and asked him for older ones, ones that sounded old but could be copyrighted. Rodgers came up with his version of an old World War 1 song, THE SOLDIER'S SWEETHEART, sung to the tune of "Where the River Shannon Flows," and after four takes Peer approved it. To display his yodeling, Rodgers did SLEEP, BABY, SLEEP an old vaudeville song from the 1860s which had already been recorded several times by other singers. "I thought his yodel alone might spell success," Peer recalled in a classic understatement. The next day, August 5, the sessions concluded with a pair of rider by the West Virginia Coon Hunters, a fiddle band from Bluefield, West Virginia, headed by fiddler W.B. Boyles: GREASY STRING is one of these.

That afternoon 30 members of a Bluff City church group gathered to record, as the Tennessee Mountaineers, the 1886 hymn STANDING ON THE PROMISES. Among the group was Roy Hobbs, the brother-in-law of AP Carter, in whose home the Carters had stayed when they recorded three days earlier. After the session, Peer packed up the heavy wax masters for shipment back to New York and moved on to Charlotte. About two months later, on October 7, Bristol papers carried ads for the first real batch of the records to be issued. "New Southern Series" trumpeted the ad, and people rushed to their stores to hear the new records. Though they were curious about hearing their friends and neighbors, and validating their mountain music, they were ushering in a new era in American music. Country music--what Peer called hillbilly music--was about to go in high gear. By Charles Wolfe, from liner notes of The Bristol Sessions (Country Music Foundation, 1987)