“Race music” specialist Ralph Peer took a miniaturised Western Electric Recording System to Bristol, Tennessee in 1927 to record local hillbilly performers at $50 per song. Among the 19 hopefuls lucky enough to make their recording debuts over those 10 fateful days were The Carter Family and “The Blue Yodeller” Jimmie Rodgers (both featured here), acts who went on to dominate country on vinyl and over the airwaves in the ’30s and early-’40s.
Seventy-five years on, the passion of these simple, sincere performances still touches the heart.
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