The foundations of country music were in the 1927 Bristol Sessions, presented here in a deluxe box set featuring the first recordings by the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers – plus the ultra-rare follow-up sessions from 1928!
The Bristol Sessions 1927 – 1928 – The Big Bang Of Country Music (5-CD)
5-CD boxed set (LP-size) with 120-page hardcover book. 124 tracks. Playing time approx. 6 hrs 25 mns.
The recording trip made by Victor Records to Bristol, Tennessee in July-August 1927 was a defining moment in country music. Producer Ralph Peer found two acts that acquired national and international fame: Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. But more than a hundred other recordings were made at the Bristol sessions of 1927 and ’28. There were ballad singers, street evangelists, string bands, gospel quartets, harmonica virtuosos, Holiness preachers, blues guitarists and rural storytellers. A snapshot of rural American music was caught in an era of rapid change: pictures of a past almost beyond recall, but preserved for ever in these magnificent recordings.
The five CDs in this set gather every surviving recording from these sessions, including alternative takes. The accompanying 120-page, LP-sized hardcover book contains newly researched essays on the background to the sessions and on the individual artists, with many rare and unpublished photographs. Also included are complete song lyrics and a detailed discography, illustrated with reproductions of the original recording sheets.