SUMMARY
The Bristol Sessions occurred in 1927 when the Victor Talking Machine Company brought a field unit to Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia, to record musicians from the region. Victor held the sessions on the second and third floors of the Taylor-Christian Hat Company building at 408 State Street on the Tennessee side of Bristol’s main thoroughfare, which also serves as the Tennessee-Virginia border. Director Ralph Peer and the Victor engineers recorded fiddle tunes, sacred songs, string bands, harmonica solos, and others from July 25 to August 5. Celebrated as the session that produced the first recordings of country music legends Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, the session also featured artists who had made previous recordings for other record labels. The session captured on 78-rpm commercial recordings an excellent cross section of the styles of music present in the Blue Ridge Mountains and Appalachian regions.
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May 29, 1868: The East Tennessee Union Flag advised readers, “To cure warts on horses and cattle, take a small quantity of blue vitriol, pulverize it, and add enough water
May 28, 1869: The East Tennessee Union Flag alerted readers that the Science Hill Male and Female Institute would begin its fall session on August 14 of that year. The