'Bristol Sessions' rich in history

By Tad Dickens
The Roanoke Times
March 26, 2011

The Bristol Sessions -- pre-Depression sides revered for their influence on country, bluegrass and traditional music -- just got a new shine.

A box set called "The Bristol Sessions 1927-1928: The Big Bang of Country Music" was released earlier this month on the Bear Family Records label. And the Bristol-based Birthplace of Country Music Alliance threw a shindig March 12-13 to celebrate the five-CD, 112-page book package.

Only one person who participated in those recordings is still alive. Her name is Georgia Warren, and she was 12 years old when she, her father and 18 other a cappella hymn singers made the trek from nearby Bluff City, Tenn., to the upper floors of 408 State St. in August 1927.

And there was Warren on March 12 -- sitting in the front row at the box set release party, in an antique store just two blocks from where producer Ralph Peer had set up the Victor Talking Machine Company's cutting-edge gear to record mountain melodies.

In her lap was a copy of the new box set. In front of her, descendants of the Stonemans and Carters, key performers from those sessions, played their ancestors' music.

The box set completes a remarkable collection for the 96-year-old Warren. She still has an original copy of the music that she and her mates in the Tennessee Mountaineers recorded late that Aug. 5. Peer had sent her father the disc that contains "Standing On The Promises" and "Shall We Gather At The River."

Peer and his team worked on the second and third floors of a building then used by the Taylor-Christian Hat Co. (That building is long gone, but the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance has recently moved into a newer structure at that address.)

"We went upstairs and behind curtains, and I was scared to death," Warren said. "We come early, but Jimmie Rodgers, you know that day that they had that quarrel. And we had to spend all day, and we didn't get to sing till late in the afternoon on account of it. But he came back though and made his record."

The Tennessee Mountaineers were, in fact, the last group to record at those historic sessions.

Historic discoveries

According to documents from the session included in the box set's accompanying book, Rodgers had actually recorded his numbers the day before. He and his musical partners in the Tenneva Ramblers had fallen out "for reasons that continue to be debated by scholars," according to the box set's book, co-written by East Tennessee State University professor Ted Olson and British music writer Tony Russell.

Peer was the first to record Rodgers, and he was impressed by the Mississippi native's yodeling skills. He invited Rodgers to the Victor studios in Camden, N.J., later that year. There, Rodgers laid down "Blue Yodel (T for Texas)," the hit that put him on the national map.

Rodgers died of tuberculosis in 1933, but "The Singing Brakeman" would come to be considered the father of country music. In 1961, Rodgers was the first performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, in Nashville, Tenn., but his influence runs so deep that in 1986 the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him, too.

The "Blue Yodeler" was not the only star to emerge from the 1927 sessions.

The Carter Family -- A.P. Carter, his wife, Sara, and Sara's cousin, Maybelle Addington -- famously traveled from Maces Springs (now Hiltons), fording the Holston River and changing many tires along the way to make their first recordings.

The work they did in Bristol launched their own career "as the most important singing group in country music history" while helping define the genre's sound, Olson and Russell wrote.

The Stoneman Family, led by Ernest "Pop" Stoneman, was there, too. Stoneman, from Galax, was the reason Peer came to Bristol in the first place. He had already worked with Peer, recording tunes including his cover of "The Sinking of the Titanic," one of the first "hillbilly music" hits. (Read more about Stoneman.)

Rousing performances

Several Carter and Stoneman descendants were on hand at the box set release party, which Larry Groce of NPR's "Mountain Stage" emceed. The next night, Groce would host "Mountain Stage" at the nearby Paramount Center.

Members of the Stoneman family, including Roni Stoneman of "Hee Haw" fame, performed songs that had been in their clan for decades. John Carter Cash, son of Johnny and June Carter Cash, and Dale Jett, a grandson of A.P. and Sara Carter, joined other family members to perform Carter Family standards. The Carter descendants closed the party with a rousing singalong on "Will The Circle Be Unbroken."

After the show, Warren handed her copy of the set to Bear Family Records founder Richard Weize for his autograph. Later, she said that she still enjoys the music of her youth.

"I like the old singing better than I do this high-falootin' stuff you can't keep up with and can't understand a word they're saying, and all the squealing," she said. "I don't like that kind of singing."

Is there still a lot to learn from the old tunes?

"Oh, law, yes," she said. "Oh yes."