The Bristol Sessions
Although musicians had been recording fiddle tunes (known as Old Time Music at that time) in the southern Appalachians for several years, It wasn't until August 1, 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee, that Country Music really began. There, on that day, Ralph Peer signed Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family to recording contracts for Victor Records. - from Roughstock's History of Country Music

Some of this material is taken from:

  1. Polk Brockman
    1. Brockman was born into an Atlanta mercantile family; he worked as a traveling wholesale representative of the Simmons Bedding Co. for 3 years, and in 1920 returned to Atlanta to work in the family furniture store.
    2. He was put in charge of the sale of record players (which at the time were large wooden objects regarded as living room furniture). They did not need electricity, and were therefore popular even among those with less disposable income and rural families without electricity.
    3. In an effort to increase sales, Brockman acquired the Atlanta dealership for the Okeh Record Company, which in addition to its dance band and "romantic singer" catalog was releasing jazz, urban blues (i.e., Bessie Smith), and other recordings by African American performers. Okeh asked Brockman to become their regional wholesale distributor in 1921.
    4. Like other dealers in the South, Brockman also acted as a talent scout. He was asked to identify groups or individuals in the Atlanta area to test Okeh's new portable recording equipment, and he provided a white dance band, a gospel singing group, two female blues singers, novelty acts, and Fiddlin' John Carson. Carson's recording of "Little Log Cabin in the Rain" and "That Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Goin' to Crow" on or around 6/19/1923 sold quickly.
    5. Brockman put together a mutually reinforcing, five-component system of production:
      1. recording.
      2. radio.
      3. touring
      4. song publishing.
      5. songwriting.
    6. Brockman's influence and music enterprise did not grow like those of others in the industry. In retrospect, the difference seems to be that, unlike Peer and others, Brockman failed to appreciate the interaction of the system he had helped create. He tried to extract profit from each component of the system. Peer and others developed and exploited the system for long-term gain.
    7. Using the analogy of mining, Peterson compares Brockman's method to "strip-mining." Peer, on the other hand, made copyrights profitable for himself and the artists, transforming tradition into a "renewable resource." He was probably the first to build a publishing company around royalties from record sales.
  2. Ralph Peer
    1. Born May 22, 1892, Peer was a leading talent scout, recording engineer, and and record producer in the country music field in the 1920s and 1930s.
    2. After working for Columbia Records, Peer was hired as recording director for Okeh Records, a subsidiary of Genral Phonograph in 1920. Later that year he supervised the reording of Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues," possibly the first blues recording.
    3. Peer was in charge of the Atlanta recording session with Polk Brockman in 1923. He also recorded Ernest "Pop" Stoneman in 1925, whose "The Sinking of the Titanic" became one of the best selling records of the 1920s. Soon after this recording Peer left Okeh.
    4. Peer theorized that profitability in the music business centered on copyrights and publishing. In 1926 went went to work for the Victor Co. for $1 per year on the condition that he would be allowed to copyright any of the music he recorded. He set up Southern Publishing Co., and began making money immediately. He later claimed that, in a 3-month period about a year after the contract with Victor, the royalty payment to Southern Music came to a quarter of a million dollars.
    5. For more information, check out:
      1. country.com.
      2. http://www.centrohd.com/biogra/p2/ralph_peer_b.htm.
  3. Some of the most influential recordings resulted from Peer's trip to Bristol, TN in July-August 1927 (for more information see "In the Summer of 1927" by Dave Winship and "The Sessions", both from the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance website). These "Bristol Sessions" produced works by Pop Stoneman (undoubtedly the big star going into the sessions) and his Dixie Mountaineers, the Alcoa Quartet, and - most importantly - Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family.
    1. Peer set up portable recording equipment on the second floor of the Taylor-Christian Hat Co.warehouse, and he placed advertisments in local newpapers, mentioning that Pop Stoneman had already made $3600 in royalties he had made.
    2. News of the sessions reached A. P. Carter 30 miles away in Maces Spring, VA as well as Asheville, NC, where the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers were performing. Rodgers' group traveled to Bristol to record; however, after an argument the night before, it was decided that Rodgers would record solo.
    3. Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family
From the Country Music Hall of Fame website:
  • The Birth of Country Music.
  • "The Rise of An Industry: Country Comes of Age".

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