A Visit to the Birthplace of Country Music
My wife, Peggy, and I recently took a trip to the Birthplace of Country Music. For those of you who are thinking Nashville, Tennessee, think again. Nashville may be Music City USA, but it ain't where the music started. While Country's roots can be traced back to folk and Celtic music originating in Europe, the official birthplace of Country music is Bristol, Tennessee.
The right answer is Bristol, Tennessee. Bristol is on the Tennessee and Virginia border, where Appalachian mountain folk music has been popular for generations. Many of the fiddle tunes and song styles came over from the British Isles in the 1700s.
In 1927, Ralph Peer of Victor Records...went to Bristol, Tennessee, to record local musicians. He thought that old-time and "hillbilly" musicians could be found there. Two local acts signed recording contracts -- the Carter Family from Virginia and former railroad worker Jimmie Rodgers of North Carolina.... They both became successful nationwide. The Carter Family formed the core of several generations of popular country musicians, and Rodgers's 1928 recording of "Blue Yodel" became one of the first country records to sell a million copies!
These early Bristol recordings laid the groundwork for much of the country music that followed. Because Bristol is not usually thought of as the place where country music began, it was especially important that the U.S. Congress recognized Bristol's contribution to music history. In 1998, Congress passed a resolution recognizing Bristol as the "Birthplace of Country Music."
Driving through Bristol, especially through the center of town, where you can literally put one foot in Tennessee and one foot in Virginia, gave us a sense of history. We didn't visit the museum, but we did make the trek on Saturday night to the Carter Family Fold where we heard some great music performed by The Jeanette Williams Band.
One of the most enjoyable features of the Carter Family Fold performance center is the dance floor. I don't dance, but it was quite an experience to watch the folks who do. Down there, they call it "flat foot dancing." More common names are "buck dancing" and "klogging."
As you can see in the photo, this is beautiful country and it was hard to leave. I felt like I had come home. The highlight of the trip for me was an offer (which I declined, due to being out-of-practice) to perform on the stage as a guest artist. But, I made arrangements for an appearance the next time I'm in town.
And it won't be long before my next visit.
posted by Kenny Hart | 4:40 PM
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Fiddlin' John Carson (ca. 1868-1949)
In the spring of 1922, Georgia's "Fiddlin' John" Carson, at the age of fifty-four, became the first genuine old-time country musician to broadcast genuine old-time country music over a radio station. A year later, on June 14, 1923, the country-music recording industry was launched when Carson made his first phonograph record.
John William Carson, a native of Fannin County, in the north Georgia mountains,
Fiddlin' John Carson
made a living as a farmer, railroad worker, horse jockey, and moonshiner before his talent as a musician was discovered. Between 1913 and 1935 Carson was a major figure at the Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Conventions, held annually in Atlanta. A favorite among contesting fiddlers, he was a colorful character who knew the value of publicity and understood how to cultivate it. He played upon his rural north Georgia origins and regaled audiences with tales about making moonshine, hardscrabble farming, and time spent in jail. He frequently brought his fiddle to the contests in a flour sack. On one occasion he brought along his dog, Old Trail, a hound he had trained to vocalize in accompaniment to its master's fiddling.
When Atlanta's WSB, the South's first radio station, went on the air on March 16, 1922, Fiddlin' John Carson took notice. A week later, fiddle in hand, he visited the studios to inquire about being allowed to have a try at this latest marvel of entertainment technology. Taking his place before the microphone, Carson launched into an impromptu concert of mountain music that lasted, according to one station official, until "exhaustion set in." The response from listeners was instantaneous and profuse. Telephone calls, telegrams, and letters poured in for days afterward. Carson was a regular performer on WSB into the early 1930s and thereafter, intermittently, into the 1940s. In those early days of radio, when the air was clear and broadcasting stations were few, WSB's signal could be picked up as far away as the Rocky Mountains, New York, Cuba, and Canada. Carson, therefore, became a national radio personality.
Carson began making records in 1923, when an official with a New York record company, visiting Atlanta for the OKeh label, reluctantly allowed Carson to record two songs, "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" and
Fiddlin' John Carson and Moonshine Kate
"The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going to Crow." Although the record company held this effort in low esteem, the record-buying public depleted the initial supply of 500 records within days, and company record-pressing facilities were rushed into service to fill back orders. When sales reached the 500,000 figure, the company greatly altered its assessment of Fiddlin' John Carson's abilities. Carson was called to New York to record more of the music from his considerable repertoire of old-time ballads and traditional fiddle tunes. His recording career, which yielded some 165 recorded songs, lasted into the 1930s.
Carson was frequently accompanied on radio, records, and stage by his daughter Rosa Lee (1911-92), a guitarist, singer, and dancer. Under the pseudonym Moonshine Kate, Rosa Lee established herself as an independent performer, thus becoming a pioneer among women country music performers. In 1925 she recorded "Little Mary Phagan," a ballad composed by her father ten years earlier in response to the Leo Frank case. The song proclaims the guilt of Frank, a Jewish factory manager convicted of killing thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, one of his employees. Although today Frank is widely considered to be the innocent victim of anti-Semitism, the ballad, which Carson performed in 1915 on the steps of the state capitol, expressed the sentiments of many Georgians at the time. Around 1925 he also recorded another song related to the case, "The Grave of Little Mary Phagan."
Fiddlin' John Carson spent the last years of his life as an elevator operator in Georgia's state capitol, a job earned as a reward for years spent entertaining prospective voters at campaign rallies for Georgia governors Eugene and Herman Talmadge. Carson was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1984.
Suggested Reading
Bob Coltman, "Look Out! Here He Comes, Fiddlin' John Carson, One of a Kind, and Twice as Feisty," Old Time Music 9 (1973).
Wayne W. Daniel, Pickin' on Peachtree: A History of Country Music in Atlanta, Georgia (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990).
Bill C. Malone and Judith McCulloh, Stars of Country Music: Uncle Dave Macon to Johnny Rodriguez (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975).
Gene Wiggins, Fiddlin' Georgia Crazy: Fiddlin' John Carson, His Real World, and the World of His Songs (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987).
MY NAME IS GERRY AND GUESS WHAT? I LIVE IN GEORGIA.:-)
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