This past October marked the twenty-sixth anniversary of the twin cities of Bristol, Virginia and Bristol, Tennessee as the official birthplace of country music as declared by the U.S. government on October 12 1998. The resolution was co-sponsored by Rick Boucher, a Virginian Congressman from 1983-2011. He worked with the sponsor of the resolution, Congressman William L. Jenkins, to ensure the resolution passed both the House and Senate. In 1995, prior to this resolution, Boucher also supported the nominations of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family for the Presidential Medal of Freedom due to their contributions and influence in country music.
The Birthplace of Country Music museum in Bristol, Virginia celebrates not only the city being named as the birthplace of country music but also the event that awarded them the title of the birthplace of country music: the Bristol Sessions.
The Bristol Sessions occurred from July 25 through August 5 in 1927. Ralph Peer recorded seventy-six songs from nineteen performers. Johnny Cash, a legend of country music in his own right and husband of June Carter of the Carter Family, would later call the Bristol Sessions “the most important event in the history of country music.” The Bristol Sessions are often called the “big bang of country music” because of how the Bristol Sessions popularized country music and brought it into the American public.
Ralph Peer was a record producer employed by Victors Records. Prior to that, he was employed by OKeh Records where he recorded Fiddlin’ John Carson in 1923. After listening to a few early country music stars, Peer coined the term “hillbilly music” which later became known as country music.
What made the Bristol Sessions so successful was the superior quality recordings Peer made. Because the recordings captured both the music and singing better than before, the songs became an instant hit when they were released. In 1927, sound waves were recorded by the new Western Electric microphones and an acoustic phonograph. The acoustic phonograph allowed for more comfortable recording as well as remote recordings.
Previously, phonographs were stationary in a recording studio. Because of this, musicians and performers had to be strategically placed and constantly adjusted if an instrument or singer were too loud or too quiet. An interesting note about phonographs prior to 1925 is that string instruments were too quiet to be heard on the recordings. After 1925, the combination of better understanding of positioning, better phonographs, and new microphones, string instruments could be heard on the recordings. This was fortunate timing as string instruments are even now a cornerstone of country music.
Peer set up this new technology in an abandoned hat factory in the city of Bristol. In 1927, Bristol sat on the border of Virginia and Tennessee. Because of previous recordings by Peer, several local musicians in Bristol, including Jimmie Rodgers, now known as the father of country music, and the Carter Family, the first family of country music, showed up to Peer’s makeshift studio and recorded their songs. The Bristol Sessions catapulted country music into the forefront of American culture and cemented it as a professional genre of music.
Special Collections & University Archives at Virginia Tech
The Carter/Cash Family Collection, Ms.2009.090, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
Box 34, Folder 141, Rick Boucher Papers 1968-2017 (bulk 1975-2011), Ms2021-048, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
Box 35, Folder 49, Rick Boucher Papers 1968-2017 (bulk 1975-2011), Ms2021-048, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
Box 8, Rick Boucher Papers 1968-2017 (bulk 1975-2011), Ms2021-048, Special Collections and University Archives, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.
Virginia Tech Libraries
Gleason, Holly. Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives. 1st ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017.
Ken Burns: Country Music. Public Media Distribution, LLC, d/b/a PBS Distribution, 2019.
Wolfe, Charles, and Ted Olson. The Bristol Sessions : Writings about the Big Bang of Country Music. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland, 2005.
Recently, I’ve been working on identifying artifacts and university memorabilia in our collections, and I came across a beautiful, four-stringed tenor banjo and its case. I did not anticipate that an item so innocuous as a musical instrument would lead down a path into learning about the university’s racist past, including minstrelsy and blackface.
To start, I could find no information about the banjo’s former owner, so I investigated the banjo and case themselves for clues. Handwritten on the banjo head is “The Collegians, VPI, Blacksburg, VA.”, and the peghead identifies it as a Bruno banjo. Handwritten on the banjo’s case are the initials, “L.A.H.”
Collegians banjo, c1924
“The Collegians, VPI, Blacksburg, VA”, banjo head, c1924
Banjo peghead, c1924
Banjo case, c1924
L.A.H. initials on banjo case, c1924
Searching through names related to our collections, I found the Lewis A. Hall Papers, Ms1983-009, very promising given his initials and his connection to Virginia Tech. Looking thru the collection, my excitement rose almost immediately when I found a reference to the Collegians – the band the banjo is advertising – in the printed items. Then I opened the folders of photographs and found a beautiful picture of the Collegians themselves, with one man holding this very banjo! A portrait in the collection is of Hall, and it’s clear he’s the same man holding the banjo.
The Collegians letterhead, c1924, Lewis A. Hall Papers, Ms1983-009
Photo of the Collegians, 1923-1924, Lewis A. Hall Papers, Ms1983-009 – from left: Robert B. Skinner (drummer); J.B. Cole (trombone); Arthur Scrivenor Jr. (piano); Lewis A. Hall (banjo, manager, and director); H. Gaines Goodwin (saxophone); Bill Harmon (saxophone); and S.C. Wilson (trumpet, not pictured)
Portrait of Lewis A. Hall, Lewis A. Hall Papers, Ms1983-009
Interested in finding out who else is in the photo, I pulled the Collegians folder in the Historical Photographs Collection. I found a copy of the same photo, dated 1923-1924, identifying the musicians from left: Robert B. Skinner (drummer); J.B. “Yash” Cole (trombone); Arthur Scrivenor Jr. (piano); Lewis A. Hall (banjo, manager, and director); H. Gaines Goodwin (saxophone); Bill Harmon (saxophone); and S.C. Wilson (trumpet, not pictured). This picture is also used in the 1924 Bugle yearbook.
Back of Collegians photo, 1923-1924, Historical Photographs Collection
There were two other pictures in the folder of Hall and the Collegians, dated 1922-1923, from left: L.A. “Lukie” Hall (tenor banjo); J.B. Cole (trumbone); R.S. “Bob” Skinner (traps); W. “Bass” Perkins (clarinet, violin, leader); Tom S. Rice (piano); W.D. “Willie” Harmon (saxophone); F.R. “Piggy” Hogg (saxophone, traps, manager); and S.C. “Stanley” Wilson (trumpet, not pictured).
Collegians photo #2, 1922-1923, Historical Photographs Collection, from left: L.A. Lukie Hall (tenor banjo); J.B. Cole (trumbone); R.S. Bob Skinner (traps); W. Bass Perkins (clarinet, violin, leader); Tom S. Rice (piano); W.D. Willie Harmon (saxophone); F.R. Piggy Hogg (saxophone, traps, manager); and S.C. Stanley Wilson (trumpet, not pictured).
After discovering the owner’s name, I wanted to know a bit more about both Hall and the Collegians. To the latter first – A dance orchestra at VPI formed in 1918 as the Southern Syncopating Saxophone Six. They were later renamed Virginia Tech Jazz Orchestra and known as the College Six. In 1922, they became the Collegians, and in 1931, they finally became the Southern Colonels. Today, the jazz band continues to perform, as part of the Corps of Cadets Regimental Band, the Highty-Tighties.
Second, Lewis Augustus Hall was born Lewis Augustus Hall in 1903 in Norfolk, Virginia. He attended VPI from 1920 to 1924. In addition to playing for the Collegians (also called the Tech Orchestra), he was a member of the Norfolk Club, Cotillion Club, Tennis Squad, the American Society of Mechanical Engineering, and the Virginia Tech Minstrels (more on this below). He also served as athletic editor for The Virginia Tech, the predecessor of the Collegiate Times, assistant manager of basketball, and manager of the freshman basketball team. Finally, he rose thru the ranks of the Corps of Cadets, graduating as Lieutenant of Company F. In 1924, he graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering. Upon graduation, Hall joined the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, retiring as assistant vice-president in 1968. He married and with his wife Virginia had two sons. Hall maintained a connection to Virginia Tech, serving on the board of directors for the Virginia Tech Alumni Association for 15 years and earning the Alumni Distinguished Service Award in 1977. He died in 1982.
As mentioned above, Hall performed in the student club, the Virginia Tech Minstrels. I’ve heard of minstrel shows before and knew that students at Virginia Tech had held them. But this was my first time coming across them inadvertently, so it was a shock to learn that the owner of this banjo was a member of a minstrelsy.
If you aren’t aware, minstrel shows in the United States were a performance typically including skits, jokes, and music – predominantly performed by white people in blackface as a spoof, full of stereotypes and racist depictions, of Black people and their cultures. The 1924 Bugle (pp. 346-347) discusses the group and even depicts members in blackface. The Collegians are also listed as the group’s orchestra and a photo of the group includes Hall holding the banjo.
My research about a mystery banjo took me down a path I could not imagine. I was at first excited to discover the owner’s identity, then horrified to learn about his and the instrument’s connection to racist entertainment. But in the end, the journey led me to learn more about this form of racism and how its legacy continues to impact American society. As the University statement says, “The history of our nation and the Commonwealth of Virginia has a common storyline starting with slavery and segregation, and moving toward our ultimate goal of treating everyone with respect and cherishing the strength that comes from diversity of identities and lived experiences. We, as a society, are somewhere in the middle of this process.”
(This post was edited May 22, 2019, with additional information about blackface and minstrelsy, the statements on offensive imagery in the Bugle yearbooks, and a revised title.)
These Times They Are A-Changin, Bob Dylan, 1964
Did you hear? (Of course, you did.) Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize in Literature a few weeks ago. As the Nobel committee wrote, it awarded the prize to Dylan “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” That is a mighty step up for an already valued and valuable tradition that is even more varied than are Dylan’s songs themselves. Political, personal, complicated, narrowly topical, broad and metaphorical, silly, stupid, catchy, maddening, romantic, lyrical, sentimental, commercial: Whatever human emotion, quality, or experience you may think of, there are songs to go along. And when it comes to reflecting, initiating, or participating in social trends, songs are certainly there, too. So, although the occasion of Dylan’s winning the Prize didn’t, by itself, make me think about the sheet music collections we have here at Special Collections, specifically, collections of “popular” music, it did provide some of the impetus that leads me to write just a bit about some of them.
Sheet music has a long history. Printed sheet music goes back almost to Gutenberg, at least in the West, to about twenty years after his printing press. The variety of printed music is nearly endless–church music, orchestral music, opera, dance music, tunes, lieder–so much so that the best definition of sheet music has to do with its description as a physical object. The Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library at Duke University offers the following:
On this basis then, sheet music is best described as single sheets printed on one or both sides, folios (one sheet folded in half to form four pages), folios with a loose half-sheet inserted to yield six pages, double-folios (an inner folio inserted within the fold of an outer folio to make eight pages) and double-folios with a loose half-sheet inserted within the fold of an inner folio to produce ten pages.
“Honest Old Abe’s Quick Step : for the Piano” (Published, O. Ditson, Boston, 1860)“Take Your Gun and Go, John, Inscribed to the Maine Volunteers” (Published by Root & Cady, Chicago, 1862)
Some of the earliest popular sheet music we have in our collection dates from around the American Civil War. On the left is a tune published in 1860 for Abraham Lincoln’s presidential campaign, Honest Old Abe’s Quick Step. On the right, from just a couple of years later is Take Your Gun and Go, John, a song of resignation and sorrow, sung by a wife as her husband leaves for war.
Don’t stop a moment to think John, your country calls then go; Don’t think of me or the children John, I’ll care for them you know. But take your gun and go John, take your gun and go, for Ruth can drive the oxen John and I can use the hoe. . . . And now goodbye to you John I cannot say farewell; we’ll hope and pray for the best John; god’s goodness none can tell. Be his great arm around you John to guard you night and day; Be our beloved country’s shield till the war has passed away. Then take your gun and go John take your gun and go, for Ruth can drive the oxen John and I can use the hoe. . . .
This song may be from the Civil War, but just about 150 years after its publication, it still is timely. In 2013, it was recorded and released by Loretta Lynn, and although it is on an album of Civil War-era songs, it does continue to speak. Give it a listen.
Moving into the 20th century, the music publishing business increased dramatically as the theater, music, and entertainment industries grew. With the availability of inexpensive color printing, sheet music for popular songs began to feature colorful covers, illustrations that, along with the music and lyrics, offer an additional window into the contemporary currents of the time. Societal norms with regard to gender and race may be represented, as well as less weighty subjects, such as the sudden fashionability of bicycle riding, or the more significant increase in automobile travel, along with all its attendant themes of freedom, mobility, and romance, among others. World events, also, made their way into the popular song of the day. Consider “America, Here’s My Boy.”
“America, Here’s My Boy” (Published by Joe Morris Music Co., New York, 1917)
Before listening to the song, what do we see? I don’t know about you, but the sight of “Every American Mother” offering up her son to face what was, by May 1917, well-known carnage, is remarkable. Also, let’s just take a moment to reflect on how the image of American motherhood–even idealized American motherhood–has changed in a hundred years. But America needed men (and boys) to fight, so here was the message, as proclaimed in the chorus of the song:
America, I raised a boy for you. America, You’ll find him staunch and true, Place a gun upon his shoulder, He is ready to die or do. America, he is my only one; My hope, my pride and joy, But if I had another, he would march beside his brother; America, here’s my boy.
If you’re curious, here’s a recording of the song from 1918 by The Peerless Quartet. I should also mention something about this cover that I hadn’t seen and was pointed out to me by a most perceptive student. Apparently, the United States shares a northern border with another country, but has no such neighbor to the south! Mexico, though officially neutral throughout the First World War, shared a difficult, and often openly hostile relationship with the U.S. at the time. On 28 February 1917, a few months before this song was published, the contents of the Zimmerman Telegram was made public by President Woodrow Wilson. The contents of this communication, intercepted and deciphered by the British in January of that year, was sent from the Foreign Secretary of the German Empire, Arthur Zimmerman, to the German ambassador to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckardt, with instructions to propose a military alliance with Mexico, should the U.S. enter the war against Germany. (OK, it’s more complicated than that, but the deal was to involve return to Mexico of land lost to the U.S. in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.) Anti-Mexican sentiment in the U.S. was already high, and this incident only led to its increase. So, as far as the illustration on the sheet music was concerned, perhaps, geography was taking a back seat to politics.
“Somewhere In France is Daddy” (Published, Howard and LaVar Music, New York, 1917)
Staying with 1917, the title, “Somewhere in France is Daddy,” is just sopping with sadness. As shown on the cover, a young mother, with a framed photo of her soldier-husband in the background, has to explain to her young son why Daddy isn’t home. Daddy, of course, is fighting for home and country, for liberty . . . “somewhere in France” and he “wont come back/ Til the stars and stripes theyll tack/ On Kaiser Williams flagstaff in Berlin.”
It’s not quite at the level of . . . “Please Mr. Conductor, Don’t put me off of your train, For the best friend I have in this whole wide world Is waiting for me in vain; Expected to die any moment, And may not live through the day: I want to bid mother goodbye, sir, Before God takes her away” . . . which I know as a Blue Sky Boys song, and which, deservedly, has won every “Saddest Song contest” I’m aware of. But, as the young boy poses the question, he puts this song right up there:
A little boy was sitting on his mothers knee one day
And as he nestled close to her these words she heard him say
Oh mother dear please tell me why our Daddy dont come home
I miss him so and you do too, why are we left alone
He tried hard not to cry, as she answered with a sigh
Here are five more sheet music covers from songs associated with World War I. The links below will take you to a recording of the song, if available.
“We Don’t Want the Bacon: What We Want is a Piece of the Rhine” (Published, Shapiro, Bernstein, & Co., New York, 1918)
“We’re Going Over” (Published, Joe Morris Music Co., New York, 1917)
“Loyalty is the Word Today” (Published, Great Aim Society Publishers, New York, 1917)
“Over There” (Published, William Jerome Publishing Corp., New York, 1917)
“Hoe Your ‘Little Bit’ in Your Own Back Yard: Where the Boy Scouts Go, ‘Tis Hoe, Hoe, Hoe” (Published, Great Aim Society Publisher, New York, 1917)
“We’re Going Over” (Joe Morris Music Co., New York, 1917) Again, if this Library of Congress link doesn’t work, try this.
“Loyalty is the Word Today” (Great Aim Society, New York, 1917) No recording available
“Over There” (William Jerome Publishing Corp., New York, 1917). If this link from Library of Congress doesn’t work, you can try this.
“Hoe Your ‘Little Bit’ in Your Own Back Yard: Where the Boy Scouts Go, ‘Tis Hoe, Hoe, Hoe” (Great Aim Society, New York, 1917) No recording available
Sheet music may not be what you think of when your looking for a view on culture and society, but it can definitely provide an interesting, if unexpected, part of the picture. What were folks listening to? How was the music presented? How was it received? How did people react to it? When and where was it played? Who wrote it? What’s their story? Special Collections has three collections comprised entirely of sheet music, as well as individually cataloged pieces and occasional pieces in other collections. These links will take you to the finding aid for each collection, which, among other information, will list all the titles in the collection:
“When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World)” (Published, Campbell, Loft, and Porgie, Inc. , 1942)
To end on a more hopeful note, is a song from World War II, written in 1942, in fact. The United States had been at war less than a year, though it had been a long war in Europe already. I didn’t recognize this one from the title, “When the Lights Go On Again (All Over the World),” but once I heard it, I knew I had heard it before. It hit #1 on the Pop charts by early ’43. It’s an interesting illustration on the cover. Of course, where is the source of the light located? And, there is the “Buy War Bonds” logo in the lower right. Here’s how the song starts:
When the lights go on again all over the world
And the boys are home again all over the world
And rain or snow is all that may fall from the skies above
A kiss won’t mean “goodbye” but “Hello” to love
No more hard rain.
Lastly, to the folks who, given the beginning of this post, thought it might be about some great Bob Dylan stuff we have in Special Collections, I offer my apologies.
