The Johnson City Sessions were a series of influential recording auditions conducted in Johnson City,

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

, in 1928 and 1929 by Frank Buckley Walker, head of the

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

"hillbilly" recordings division. Certain releases from the Johnson City Sessions—especially Clarence Ashley's " The Coo-coo Bird" and The Bentley Boys' "Down On Penny's Farm"—are considered by music scholars as important recordings of early country music that influenced a whole generation of revivalist folk musicians of the 1950s and 1960s, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Doc Watson.

Background

The auditions were part of a search for native

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musical talent. Walker was a pioneer, as was

Ralph Peer Ralph Sylvester Peer (May 22, 1892 – January 19, 1960) was an American talent scout, recording engineer, record producer and music publisher in the 1920s and 1930s. Peer pioneered field recording of music when in June 1923 he took remote rec ...

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, in the art of remote recording, which was deemed more effective than bringing musicians to

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or larger northern cities to record. They thought the unsophisticated amateurs would perform more comfortably in their accustomed surroundings.

First Auditions

On Saturday October 13, 1928, Walker auditioned musicians, with recording sessions scheduled for the following week at makeshift studios at the Brading-Marshall Lumber Company in Johnson City. Amateur musicians brought their fiddles, banjos, guitars and voices to Johnson City to display their talents for Walker. Participants included the Shell Creek Quartet, the Grant Brothers, the Roane County Ramblers, Renus Rich and Charles Bradshaw,

Clarence Greene Clarence Greene (August 10, 1913 – June 17, 1995) was an American screenwriter and film producer who is noted for the "offbeat creativity and originality of his screenplays and for films noir and television episodes produced in the 1950s. ...

, the Wise Brothers, Ira Yates, Uncle Nick Decker, the Proximity String Quartet, Hardin and Grindstaff, the Greensboro Boys Quartet, Richard Harold,

Charlie Bowman Charles Thomas Bowman (July 30, 1889 – May 20, 1962) was an American old-time fiddle player and string band leader. He was a major influence on the distinctive fiddle sound that helped shape and develop early Country music in the 1920s and 19 ...

and His Brothers, the Bowman Sisters, Bill and Belle Reed, the Reed Children, the

Reed Family The Reed family is an American business family who focuses on landownership. The family currently controls Simpson Investment Company, established 1890, and its spin-off Green Diamond Resource. The family owns 1.37 million acres across California, ...

, the Hodges Brothers, the

Hodges Quartet Hodges may refer to: People and fictional characters * Hodges (surname) Places * Hodges Drive, a main west–east road in Joondalup, north of Perth, Western Australia * Hodges Glacier, a small glacier one nautical mile west of Grytviken, South G ...

, Bailey Briscoe, Robert Hoke and Vernal Vest, McVay and Johnson, Earl Shirkey and Roy Harper (Roy Harvey), George Roark, the Ed Helton Singers, the Garland Brothers and Grindstaff, Dewey Golden and His Kentucky Buzzards, the Holiness Singers, Frank Shelton and the McCartt Brothers/Patterson.

Second Auditions

Returning to Johnson City in October 1929, Walker auditioned the following in the second group: Blalock and Yates, Jack Jackson, George Wade and Grancom Braswell, the Roane County Ramblers, Wyatt and Brandon, Roy Harvey and Leonard Copeland, the

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, the Queen Trio, Earl Shirkey and Roy Harper (Roy Harvey), the Moatsville String Ticklers, the Weaver Brothers, Byrd Moore and His Hot Shots, the Bateman Sacred Quartet, Fred Richards, Clarence Ashley, the Bentley Boys, Charlie Bowman and His Brothers, Fran Trappe, Eph Woodie and the Henpecked Husbands, Ira and Eugene Yates, and Ellis Williams.

Recordings

Popular recordings, such as "

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" (now a bluegrass standard) and "

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" by Charlie Bowman and His Brothers, along with "

Johnson City Blues Johnson is a surname of Anglo-Norman origin meaning "Son of John". It is the second most common in the United States and 154th most common in the world. As a common family name in Scotland, Johnson is occasionally a variation of ''Johnston'', a ...

" by Clarence Greene, were made from the Johnson City Sessions. Clarence "Tom" Ashley's clawhammer banjo classic recording, " Coo Coo Bird", was a highlight of the 1929 Johnson City sessions. According to the North Carolina musician Walter Davis, he and Clarence Greene learned the art of

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

guitar from the legendary performer

Blind Lemon Jefferson Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson (September 24, 1893 – December 19, 1929)Some sources indicate Jefferson was born on October 26, 1894. was an American blues and gospel singer-songwriter and musician. He was one of the most popular blues sing ...

, who played on the streets in Johnson City during the early 1920s.Wayne Erbsen, "Walter Davis: Fist and Skull Banjo," ''Bluegrass Unlimited'': March 1981, 22-26

Other States

In addition to the Johnson City sessions, Frank Buckley Walker (Oct. 24, 1889 - Oct. 15, 1963) scheduled recording sessions in

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(1925 – 1932),

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
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(1925-1927),

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(1928), and

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(1927-1929) to search out musical talent throughout the southern United States. Walker recounted to

Mike Seeger Mike Seeger (August 15, 1933August 7, 2009) was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, ...

once during an interview:

We would build up the recording sessions in advance – getting the word around that at a certain time of year we were going to be there, and these people would show up from 800 or 900 miles away. How they got there I'll never know and how they got back I'll never know. This was natural. Life in the country, particularly in the early days, was a lonesome life. Farmers would often talk to themselves or to a horse and stock… and the sound of that railroad train, that lonesome whistle has a powerful emotional impact.

References

{{Reflist

General

* "The Bristol Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music," by Charles K. Wolfe and Ted Olson, McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers, 2005. * "Can You Sing or Play Old-Time Music?: The Johnson City Sessions, 1928-1929," 4-CD set with a 124-page hardcover book produced and written by Ted Olson and Tony Russell, Bear Family Records, 2013. * "Can You Sing or Play Old-Time Music?: The Johnson City Sessions," by Ted Olson, "The Old-Time Herald": vol. 13, no. 6, 2013: 11-17. * "Fiddlin' Charlie Bowman," by Bob L. Cox, University of Tennessee Press, 2007. * "Remembering Johnson City," by Bob L. Cox, History Press, 2008. * "Anthology of American Folk Music," edited by Josh Dunson and Ethel Raim, 1973. * "Hillbilly Music: Source and Symbol," by Archie Green, "Journal of American Folklore": vol. 78, Jul-Sep 1965, 204-228. * "Walter Davis: Fist and Skull Banjo," by Wayne Erbsen, "Bluegrass Unlimited": March 1981, 22-26.

External links

"Old Time Music Heritage"
Johnson's Depot Website

audio recording 1920s in American music 1928 in Tennessee 1929 in Tennessee American country music East Tennessee Johnson City, Tennessee Music of East Tennessee