Johnson City sessions
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The Johnson City sessions were a series of recording auditions conducted in Johnson City, Tennessee, in 1928 and 1929 by Frank Buckley Walker, head of the Columbia Records “hillbilly” recordings division, as part of a search for native Appalachian-Blue Ridge Mountains musical talent. Walker was a pioneer, as was Ralph Peer of Victor Records, in the art of remote recording, which was deemed more effective than bringing musicians to New York City or larger northern cities to record. It was also thought that the unsophisticated amateurs would perform more comfortably in their accustomed surroundings.[1]
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. Hopeful amateur musicians brought their fiddles, banjos, guitars and voices to Johnson City to display their talents for Mr. Walker. Participants in the 1928 project included the Shell Creek Quartet, the Grant Brothers, the Roane County Ramblers, Renus Rich and Charles Bradshaw, Clarence Greene, the Wise Brothers, Ira Yates, Uncle Nick Decker, the Proximity String Quartet, Hardin and Grindstaff, the Greensboro Boys Quartet, Richard Harold, Charlie Bowman and His Brothers, the Bowman Sisters, Bill and Belle Reed, the Reed Children, the Reed Family, the Hodges Brothers, the Hodges Quartet, Bailey Briscoe, Robert Hoke and Vernal Vest, McVay and Johnson, Earl Shipley and Roy Harper, 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.
Returning to Johnson City in October 1929, Walker’s second group of participants included Blalock and Yates, Jack Jackson, George Wade and Grancom Braswell, the Roane County Ramblers, Wyatt and Brandon, Roy Harvey and Leonard Copeland, the Spindale Quartet, the Queen Trio, Earl Shirley and Roy Harper, 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.
Popular recordings such as Roll on Buddy (now a bluegrass standard) and Moonshiner and His Money by Charlie Bowman and His Brothers along with Johnson City Blues by Clarence Greene emerged 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 North Carolina musician Walter Davis, Davis and fellow entertainer Clarence Greene learned the art of blues guitar from legendary performer Blind Lemon Jefferson who played on the streets in Johnson City during the early 1920s.[2]
In addition to the Johnson City sessions, Frank Buckley Walker (born Oct. 24, 1889, Fly Summit, N.Y., died Oct. 15, 1963, Little Neck, N.Y.) scheduled recording sessions in Atlanta (1925 – 1932), New Orleans (1925-1927), Memphis (1928), and Dallas (1927-1929) to search out hidden musical talent throughout the southern United States.
Walker recounted to Mike Seeger 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.
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[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] General
- "Fiddlin' Charlie Bowman," by Bob L. Cox, University of Tennessee Press, 2007.
- "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 78: Jul-Sep 1965, 204-228
- "Walter Davis: Fist and Skull Banjo," by Wayne Erbsen, Bluegrass Unlimited: March 1981, 22-26
[edit] Notes
- ^ Johnson's Depot: Old-Time Music Heritage
- ^ "Walter Davis: Fist and Skull Banjo," by Wayne Erbsen, Bluegrass Unlimited: March 1981, 22-26
