Country music’s place as a permanent fixture of American life and culture is a direct result of the Bristol Sessions.
Over 12 days between July 25 and Aug. 5, 1927, in Bristol — a city on the border of Virginia and Tennessee — Victor Talking Machine Company record producer Ralph Peer recorded blues, ragtime, gospel and traditional Black and European folk songs for commercial release. The sounds, styles, techniques, intonations and lyrics committed to vinyl during those two weeks — everything from Maybelle Carter’s “scratch-style” guitar work to Jimmie Rodgers’ yodel, and more — represent the creation of country music and the preservation of America’s quintessential, bedrock foundations.