The Beginning of Country Music:
String Band and Cowboy Years 1922-1933
Many people believe that country music began on August 1, 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee when Ralph Peer signed Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family to recording contracts for Victor Records. This simply isn’t true. Country Music was in full swing by 1927, one of the biggest country hits of the first twenty-five years, “The Prisoner’s Song,” was recorded in 1924. Although Rodgers as well as The Carters would make a significant impacts on country music in the late 20’s and 30’s they were just two of hundreds of country artists who recorded in the 1920s.
Stated simply- Country Music began when “country” artists began making commercial recordings and began performing on commercial radio. The first such recording after the advent of radio was Eck Robertson in 1922 followed by Henry Whitter and Fiddlin’ John Carson in 1923. [Some historians like Tony Russell include the Vaughan Quartet gospel discs (Vaughan 300 series) as the first Country recordings which were issued on their own custom-made label in 1921.] Certainly it was the combination of radio and recordings as well as a distinct defined genre (old-time/hillbilly music and western “cowboy” music) that was the nucleus of creation in the 1920s.
The 1923 recordings for Okeh (Henry Whitter’s “The Wreck of The Old Southern 97” and Fiddlin’ John Carson’s “Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane”) laid the groundwork for the future public clamor. The whole disenfranchised region in the south needed music that they could identify with; it was the music of their parents- the music that was passed down through the generations. It was music made by country folk, who worked in mills or farms, for country folk. This was the appeal of the early “hillbilly” recordings. Although the word, hillbilly (or hill billie) has been used both pejoratively and humorously in American print since the 1900 it was never applied as a music genre until 1925.
What the recording industry wasn’t prepared for was the enormous commercial and popular success of “hillbilly” songs. Ralph Peer with Okeh and later Victor and Frank Walker with Columbia were searching for ways to compete onslaught of commercial radio stations. Radio was already cutting into their profits by early 1920s. After Peer’s hit with a blues song on a newly created “race” division, he was looking for new material. When Peer recorded Fiddlin’ John Carson’s “Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane” which sold over 500,000 units, the rush to record country artists was on. Then in 1924 one record, “The Wreck of the Old 97” with “The Prisoner’s Song” on the B side, would change everything. “The Prisoner’s Song” alone would go on to reportedly sell over 20 million copies and hillbilly music would be a dynamic force in the recording industry.
To solidify the genre’s name, Peer in 1925 christened a popular band (Al Hopkin’s Buckle Busters), The Hill Billies. When Peer began calling his Country artists “hillbilly,” the name stuck. Victor also discovered a new form of hillbilly music in Carl T. Sprague a ranch hand, veteran cavalryman and Texas A&M athletics coach. They recorded Sprague’s traditional cowboy ballads in mid-1925. The Western could now be applied to the Country.
Carl T. Sprague
Western culture and cowboys had always fascinated Americans and much of the world. The musical heritage of the west is a long and rich one. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show touted one of the first western bands, Buffalo Bill's Cowboy Band, which was organized and directed by William Sweeney in 1883. By 1895 Powder River Jack and Kitty Lee performed “cowboy songs” at the show. In 1910 John Lomax published “Cowboys Songs and Other Frontier Ballads.” Otto Gray and His Oklahoma Band formed in 1918 merged with Billy McGinty’s troupe and became a major vaudeville attraction. Gray and Gene Aurty would play roles in Country’s western recording revolution.
Songs that would qualify as Country had been recorded earlier. Certainly Billy Golden could qualify as the first Country Music recording artist. Golden recorded “Turkey in the Straw” in 1896 and then the bluegrass standard “Roll on de Ground” in 1899. His performances were in a similar vein to those of future Grand Ole Opry star, Dave Macon. The “Arkansas Traveler” from 1901 by Len Spencer on Ed 8202 was a hit and stayed in the Columbia catalogue for years. Silas Leachman recorded “Turkey in the Straw” and then “Bake That Chicken Pie” by Collins and Harlan on Vi 5116 was a hit in 1907. “They Gotta Quit Kickin' My Dawg Around” by Byron Harding certainly resembles a song that would be a hit for John Carson in the 1920s.
There were hundreds of songs (see Early Country Timeline) that were recorded before 1922 that would become standards of the early country repertoire. Some were very successful like Alma Gluck's 1915 song "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny" recorded for Victor which reportedly sold over one million copies.
Besides the early recordings of “Arkansas Traveler” and “Turkey in the Straw,” there were some country fiddle recordings made by country fiddlers. To say that old-time fiddler Eck Robertson was the first “country musician” to record commercial sides (Victor on June 30, 1922) is not correct. Charles Ross Taggart (1871- 1953), an American comedian and folklorist who appeared all over the Eastern U.S. as "The Man From Vermont" and "The Old Country Fiddler" from the mid-1890's to the mid-1930's, recorded two songs with Victor; "Rural monologue with violin specialty," and “Violin Mimicry” Victor 17700 in 1914. Another country fiddler Don Richardson, born in Kentucky in 1898, recorded “Arkansas Traveler” on Columbia A2140 in 1915. Eck Robertson stature as a great fiddler isn’t the reason he made the first country recording. Robertson simply was the first country musician to record after the onset of radio in 1922.
String Band and Cowboy Years:
The early years of Country music were dominated by the string band usually made up of guitar, fiddle, banjo and stand-up bass. Occasionally other instruments were added; one of McMichen's early bands had a clarinet; one of the Allen brothers played a kazoo; The Carolina Tar Heels had Gwen Foster on harmonica.
Even solo artists had back-up musicians or evolved to a string band sound. Fiddlin' John Carson huge early recordings were solo- he played the fiddle and sang. Ralph Peer quickly had Carson playing with his own string band.
The Cowboy bands were also string bands back in the 1920s. Otto Gray had one of the first big cowboy string bands. Cowboy songs were included in of most of the early Country Music repertoire. One of Riley Puckett big hits was Red River Valley. Cowboy songs and ballads were and are an important part of Country Music.