Classic Recording Sessions - On This Date (6/17)

The Carter Family

Saturday, June 17, 1933 - 77 years ago

Camden, NJ

Sara Carter: vocal, autoharp, guitar; Maybelle Carter: guitar, vocal; A.P. Carter: vocal

Producer: Ralph Peer

Victor Records

Thursday, June 17, 1937 - 73 years ago

New York, NY

Sara Carter: vocal, autoharp, guitar; Maybelle Carter: guitar, vocal; A.P. Carter: vocal

Decca Records

Today we have 26 songs from the Carter Family from two sessions exactly four years apart. The first session is a significant one for the Carter Family in that it almost didn't happen. This was the first session after Sara and A.P. had separated following Sara's initial "flings" with A.P.'s cousin Coy Bays (who she would ultimately marry), and A.P.'s becoming aware of it. Sara had moved back with her aunt and uncle and initially refused to do any more recordings with the group. A.P. wrote letters back and forth with their producer/manager Ralph Peer until ultimately he convinced Peer to have his wife Anita write a personal letter to Sara making a plea in favor of the recordings. It worked, because Sara realized it was her only way to make money for her and her children. Sara moved back to Maces Springs in advance of the recordings to rehearse with the group, but stayed with Maybelle and Eck's family rather than at home with A.P. and the children. The trip to New Jersey for the sessions (and New York where they would also do a radio broadcast from Radio City Music Hall) could well have been strained, but the performances from the session don't suffer. Several classics, including "Give Me Roses While I Live," "Gold Watch And Chain," and "School House On The Hill" are recorded at today's session. Significantly, another classic Carter Family song recorded at today's session, but that still remains unissued is an early version of "Will The Circle Be Unbroken." The Carters would record two more sessions in 1934 to wrap up their initial run at Victor before moving on to the American Record Corporation (ARC) in 1935.

By our second session, four years later, much has changed. Sara and A.P. are now divorced. They've left ARC for Decca Records where they would do sessions each June for three years running from 1936 to 1938. Today's session is the first day of the second year of the Decca sessions. At ARC they would re-record much of their Victor material, but at Decca all the material was new. Twelve songs were recorded today including the classics, "In The Shadow Of Clinch Mountain" and "Hello Stranger."

It's a lot of Carter Family to listen to, but I hope enjoy both of these sessions as much as I do...

Classic Recording Sessions - On This Date (6/16)

The Blue Sky Boys - 74 years ago (1st session)

Tuesday, June 16, 1936

Charlotte, NC

Bill Bolick: vocal, mandolin; Earl Bolick: vocal, guitar.

Producer: Eli Oberstein

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the debut recordings by Earl & Bill Bolick, the Blue Sky Boys. I'm a big fan of country brother duets, and as much as I love the Monroe Brothers and Delmore Brothers, I'd have to say that my favorite brother act of the '30s has to be the Blue Sky Boys. The Monroes and Delmores played faster and were hotter instrumentalists, but that thing that makes the blending of siblings so sublime seems to be in particular abundance when it comes to the Bolick Brothers. They have such a sweet sound, and that sound went on to influence two of the greatest brother acts of the '50s: Charlie & Ira Louvin, and Don & Phil Everly.

Charles K. Wolfe in his chapter on the Blue Sky Boys from his book Classic Country: Legends of Country Music has the following to say about the session recorded today:

It was a late spring morning on June 16, 1936, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Two teenage boys sat reading a newspaper in a waiting room in the old Southern Radio Building on South Tryon Street. Inside, engineers from the Victor recording company had draped the walls with heavy curtains to create a temporary recording studio. A big moon-faced man named Eli Oberstein was in charge, and he was making records for Victor’s new Bluebird label – a cut-rate record subsidiary that featured blues and country music, and sold in those Depression-era times for 35 cents apiece. He had recently discovered that Charlotte was a good location to find both kinds of talent – he had already recorded hit acts like Mainer’s Mountaineers and the Monroe Brothers there – and now he was racing through another marathon session, cutting as many as twenty or twenty-five masters in a day, and hoping that lightning would strike again.

The two teenagers in the waiting room were named Bill and Earl Bolick. They were from Hickory, North Carolina, and though they were only eighteen (Bill) and sixteen (Earl), they had been playing on radio stations in Asheville and Atlanta for a year. It was an age of duet harmony singing, and groups like the Monroe Brothers (Bill and Charlie), the Callahan Brothers, and the Delmore Brothers were winning radio fans throughout the South. Soon the Bolicks too had begun attracting fans, and while they were at Atlanta’s WGST an offer had come to record for Bluebird. Now that they were here, though, there seemed to be some confusion.

One hour dragged into two, and then three, and still nobody had spoken to the boys. Finally Oberstein brushed through the room and noticed Earl reading his newspaper. “What do you think this is, a reading room?” he snapped. “I don’t care what it is,” Earl snapped back. Oberstein then asked them what they thought they were doing there, and seemed surprised when they said their names were Bolick and they had been told to come and make records. “We understood that you had broken up,” he said. He had given their spot to somebody else. “You’re the boys who copy the Monroe Brothers, aren’t you?” he said. Again the brothers protested; they had replaced the Monroe Brothers on WGST, but they had never even heard them, let alone copied them. “Being that you’re here, I’ll give you an audition,” Oberstein finally said.

Oberstein went back into the little room that he had rigged up as a control room, and the brothers unpacked their guitar and mandolin. They checked their tuning, and then began singing into the big carbon microphone.

There’s a sunny side, where no ills betide,

On the road that we must go,

There are pleasant vales, verdant hills and dales,

Where flowers ever grow.

After a few more lines of “On The Sunny Side Of Life,” Obserstein was running out of his control room. “That’s enough,” he said. “That’s good. That’s nothing like the Monroes. It’s very different, and I think we’ll just go ahead and record you.” By now it was afternoon, and the boys began recording the material they had worked up for the session – all songs that were proven favorites with radio fans, and songs that, the boys felt, were new to records. In addition to “Sunny Side Of Life,” they did nine other pieces, ranging from old Victorian loves songs to prison songs like “I’m Just Here To Get My Baby Out Of Jail.” Of the ten songs preserved that afternoon, five were gospel tunes; the resulting Bluebird records were to write a new chapter in the history of country gospel music.

After the session, Eli Oberstein debated about what name to use for his new discovery. “At that time there were a lot of brothers recording,” recalls Bill. “So he suggested we use another name besides the Bolick Brothers. Eli and I sat down and kicked it around and came up with the name Blue Sky Boys, mainly because we were from the western part of the state, which was known as the Land of the Blue Sky.” Thus was born the name that for many came to stand for the very essence of old-time brother duet harmony singing – the Blue Sky Boys.

What a fabulous start to a recording career! I love these recordings, and I hope you enjoy them too...

Classic Recording Sessions - On This Date (6/10)

Jimmie Rodgers & Sara Carter - 79 years ago

Wednesday, June 10, 1931

Louisville, KY

Jimmie Rodgers: vocal, guitar; Sara Carter: vocal, guitar.

I guess it goes without saying that this is a pretty monumentally historic recording session. Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family both made their recording debuts a little less than 4 years before this session at the legendary Bristol Sessions in August of 1927. The astounding success of the Carter Family, and particularly Jimmie Rodgers, caused Victor to pair the two acts for this session, and the next day's session that featured the entire Carter Family with Rodgers for two sides of skits that try to imagine what it would be like for the Carters to visit Jimmie in Texas, and vice versa for Jimmie in Virginia. Interestingly, the reformed Carters (sans Maybelle, and adding children of A.P. and Sara) would record unusual sequels to these records with Mrs. Jimmie (Carrie) Rodgers for Acme Records in April of 1956. While those records are interesting, to me they can't compare to the wonderful chance we have to hear two of the era's most influential vocalists singing together - when they yodel together, life just lightens up for me a bit. I hope you enjoy these recordings as much as I do...

Classic Recording Sessions - On This Date (6/7)

Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys - 73 years ago

Monday, June 7, 1937

Brunswick Warehouse, Dallas, TX

Bob Wills: fiddle, vocal; Tommy Duncan: vocal; Herman Arnspiger: guitar; Sleepy Johnson: guitar, fiddle; Johnnie Lee Wills: banjo; Leon McAuliffe: steel guitar; Joe Ferguson: bass; Smokey Dacus: drums; Jesse Ashlock: fiddle; Cecil Brower: fiddle: Al Stricklin: piano; Everett Stover: trumpet; Ray DeGeer: clarinet, sax; Zeb McNally: sax; Robert Dunn: trombone.

Porter Wagoner - 53 years ago

Friday, June 7, 1957 (9:00 pm - 1:30 am)

RCA Victor Studio, Methodist Television, Radio & Film Commission, 1525 McGavock St., Nashville, TN

Porter Wagoner: vocal, guitar; Red Gale: vocal; Hank Garland: guitar; Hamilton Wilson: guitar; Don Warden: vocal; Basil Burnette: steel guitar; Ernie Newton: bass; Louis Dunn: drums; Marvin Hughes: piano.

Producer: Chet Atkins

I'm going to let the music of these two sessions do most of the talking today. Other than to pose a point to consider: 20 years span these two sessions, and I think it's interesting to note the huge advancement in country music in that time. Now, take a current hit on country radio, then back up to a random Garth Brooks or Reba track from 1990 and see if that much has changed in the past 20 years. A lot of factors go in to that, I realize, so it's not a perfectly clean comparison. But even still, it's a pretty staggering difference. I hope you enjoy today's two recording sessions.

Classic Recording Sessions - On This Date (5/25)

The Carter Family - 79 Years Ago

Monday, May 25, 1931

Hotel Charlotte, 237 W. Trade St., Charlotte, NC

Sara Carter: vocal, autoharp; Maybelle Carter: vocal, guitar, steel guitar; A.P. Carter: vocal

The Louvin Brothers - 55 Years Ago

Wednesday, May 25, 1955

Session #3759: Castle Studio, The Tulane Hotel, 206 8th Ave. N., Nashville 3, TN

Charlie Louvin: vocal, guitar; Ira Louvin: vocal, mandolin; Chet Atkins: guitar; Ray Edenton: guitar; Lightnin Chance: bass.

Producer: Ken Nelson