95
recordings of string bands, a favored format in the early years of country
music.
160
According to Zwonitzer and Hirshberg, Peer made his way down south:
With money in place—and a new and better recording system—Peer
wrote Stoneman. He was coming to visit Pop at his new home in Galax, Virginia,
and Pop should go up in the mountains and find some acts worth recording. After
the auditions, Peer said, he’d have Pop and the other approved acts meet him in
Bristol, Virginia, for Victor’s first field-recording session. Recording in Bristol had
two advantages: There was a strong Victor distributorship there, run by Cecil
McLister, and it was a railhead. With two major roads and a half-dozen short
lines running into Bristol, acts from all over Appalachia could get there fairly
easily. If all else failed, Peer figured, at least he’d get some Stoneman recordings
on wax. Ironically, by the time Peer got to Bristol, Pop hadn’t turned up much
talent besides his own family and one friend.
161
Pop Stoneman may not have delivered the musicians for whom Peer was looking
but nonetheless it was the trust between him and Peer that brought the Victor
field-recording process to Bristol. Peer eventually invited a local newspaper
editor to the Stoneman recording session and the coverage that followed was
really what brought musicians over the miles to audition for Peer. Newspaper
publicity generated extensive excitement about Peer’s visit to Bristol. In Peer’s
words, “(Using the newspaper) worked like dynamite and the very next day I was
deluged with long-distance calls from the surrounding mountain regions. Groups
of singers who had not visited Bristol during their entire lifetime arrived by bus,
horse, buggy, trains, or on foot”
162
Beyond that, the fact that musicians were
paid for their music was even more inviting.
160
Eric Morritt, “The Early Sound Recording Technology and the Bristol Sessions,” in The Bristol
Sessions: Writings About the Big Bang of Country Music
, eds. Charles K. Wolfe and Ted Olson
(Jefferson: McFarland, 2005), 12.
161
Zwonitzer and Hirshberg, 93-94.
162
Malone, Country Music USA, 80.