(Vocals, guitar, 1890–1957) Initially a New York session guitarist (with a talent on the side for whistling), Kansas-born Robison became the regular accompanist and vocal duet partner of Vernon Dalhart on hundreds of recordings in the 1920s. He also learned the skill of songwriting for the hillbilly market, specializing in topical subjects like bank raids and train crashes ...
(Fiddle, vocals, 1875–1949) Carson’s June 1923 disc of ‘The Old Hen Cackled And The Rooster’s Going To Crow’ and ‘Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane’ was the first country record made in the South, in a temporary studio in Atlanta. A farmer by trade, Carson had been famous for years in Northern Georgia as an entertainer ...
(Fiddle, 1887–1975) To fiddler Eck Robertson, and his often overlooked partner Henry Gilliland, goes the credit for recording, in June 1922, the first unequivocal country record: ‘Arkansaw Traveler’, an intricate fiddle duet, and ‘Sallie Gooden’, a virtuoso version of the traditional tune played by Robertson alone. He recorded again in the late 1920s with his ...
(Vocals, harmonica, 1883–1948) Although a trained singer with experience in opera – and from 1917 a full-time recording artist in the popular field – the Texas-born Dalhart is best known for his vast catalogue of recordings in the hillbilly idiom, beginning with ‘The Wreck Of The Old ’97’ and ‘The Prisoner’s Song’ in 1924. In all, he ...
If you look for country music’s Big Bang, there is nothing more momentous than Bristol, 1927. Within four summer days, two stars appeared that would change the cosmology of country – remap the sky. And it all happened in a disused office building in a quiet mountain town perched on the state line between Virginia and Tennessee. Why ...
From its roots, country music has been associated with simplicity – in melody, in subject-matter and in instrumentation, and it is this that has perhaps ensured its longevity. However, all good musicians make their craft look simple, and the history of country music is packed with virtuosos, from the pioneering banjoist Earl Scruggs, through ...
Acoustic Guitar Throughout its history, the guitar has – perhaps more than any other instrument – managed to bridge the gap between the often disconnected worlds of classical, folk and popular music. Its roots go back to Babylonian times; by the 1500s it was prevalent in Spain, and is still sometimes called the Spanish guitar. Medieval versions – ...
In the nineteenth century, country music belonged to fireside and family, to the frontier town and the backwoods hamlet. Four decades into the twentieth, it was utterly transformed, driven headlong into the new world of the new century. First, fiddlers’ conventions and other public events provided a context of competition and offered the musician the chance ...
(Vocal/instrumental duo, 1930s–50s) Raised near Louisville, Kentucky, Cliff Carlisle (1904–83) was attracted as a boy to blues and Hawaiian music. His fusion of the two would make him one of the most distinctive musicians of his time. Playing the dobro resonator guitar with a slide, he transmuted the blue yodels of Jimmie Rodgers, becoming a popular ...
(Vocals, songwriter, 1925–82) One of country music’s most versatile singers and energetic stage performers, Martin David Robison, born near Glendale, Arizona, possessed a fluid, empathetic baritone that enabled him to master a variety of music idioms, including country, pop and western (cowboy) songs. One of the most popular figures on the Grand ...
(Producer, 1892–1960) Peer entered the record business at the age of 19 in his home town of Kansas City, Missouri. By 1920, he was in New York running the OKeh label, where he supervised the first vocal blues recording by a black artist – Mamie Smith – and created a ‘race series’ of exclusively African-American recordings. He ...
The Sons Of The Pioneers are one of the most influential vocal groups in American history – an impeccable hallmark of fluid precision and musical integrity since 1933, universally admired for their tight sound and gorgeous harmonies. The group also boasted two great American songwriters in Tim Spencer and Bob Nolan, and two of the most influential country instrumentalists ...
Uncle Dave Macon (1870–1952) was the first star of country music. Other artists got on disc first: men like Eck Robertson, Henry Whitter, Fiddlin’ John Carson, Gid Tanner and Riley Puckett. Uncle Dave didn’t enter a recording studio until July 1924 – whereupon he proved to be quite productive – but he had another route to the affections ...
In the wake of the pyrotechnic manifesto that Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker and Dizzy Gillespie jointly issued on their first recording together in 1945, most musicians on the New York jazz scene began fanning the flames of bebop. Tempos picked up speed, intensity increased on the bandstand and blazing virtuosity became a means to an end, in a fiery ...
‘The fiddle and guitar craze is sweeping northward!’ ran Columbia Records’ ad in Talking Machine World on 15 June 1924. ‘Columbia leads with records of old-fashioned southern songs and dances. [Our] novel fiddle and guitar records, by Tanner and Puckett, won instant and widespread popularity with their tuneful harmony and sprightliness… The records of these quaint musicians which ...
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David Bowie
Fantastic new, unofficial biography covers
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