August 2024 - The Birthplace of Country Music

From the Vault: Postcards

Museum

August 19, 2024

Posted on August 19, 2024 by Guest Blogger

There have been many different forms of communication throughout history. One that has stood the test of time is postcards. Postcards typically have a picture on the front and space on the back to write a note and address the card to a loved one. While they are still used as a way to communicate, a lot of people, like myself, collect postcards as souvenirs from the places they visit. In 1945, the term deltiology was coined by Professor Rendell Rhoades and his colleagues at Ohio State University. Deltiology is the study and collection of postcards.

There is an Institute of American Deltiology located in my hometown of Myerstown, Pennsylvania, which is about 40 minutes east of Hershey (Yes, the chocolate town). The institute was established and is run by Donald Brown who began collecting postcards in 1943. The collection now contains over one million postcards that are preserved at the University of Maryland. I have been lucky enough to have visited and spend some time at the institute. Almost every room of the institute’s three story house is filled with postcards covering the whole state of Pennsylvania and the other 49 states of America. Today, vintage postcards are also used as a way to tell the history of a place. There are two book series – Images of America, and Postcard History – that use postcards as the basis of their history. Both series even have books on specifically about Bristol – Bristol to Knoxville: A Postcard Tour, Bristol (Postcard History: Tennessee)!

Record cover. Black band on top with Bruce Springsteen's signature in white on top and plane black bottom with a colorful greeting card image in the middle. The card fades top down from orange, yellow, green, to blue and reads "Greetings from Asbury Park N.J." The words Abury Park are filled with images of buildings and scenery. — Photos of Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. Album. Photos taken by Greg Underkoffler.

Historians are not the only people inspired by postcard artwork. Bruce Springsteen took inspiration from postcards for his Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. album cover. He used postcard art because he wanted it to be known that he was from New Jersey. Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. was Springsteens’s first studio album. It was released on January 5, 1973 and includes “Blinded By The Light.” Originally this album did not sell well and peaked at 60 on the Billboard charts. Now it is one of the most recognizable album covers. Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. album cover shows that postcards have a much bigger impact on culture than just a way to communicate. Springsteen is not the only artist to use postcards as inspiration. There are countless songs, lyrics, and covers across all music genres that have used postcards as inspiration.

Front and back of a postcard. Image of a 1920s street on the front and writing and a stamp on the back. — Scans of State Street Postcard from the collection of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. Scan by Julia Underkoffler.

Within the museum’s collection we have several historic postcards of downtown Bristol. This one of State Street was purchased by the museum in 2019. The postage mark notes that it was mailed on August 30, 1937 in Portland, Oregon. The postcard was printed by Asheville Post Card Company out of Ashville, North Carolina and the image was colored by C.T. American Art Colored, which is also known as Curt Teich & Co.

Order card for Taylor Christian Hat Co. with blacks for a customer to fill out order information. — Scan of the Taylor-Christian Hat Company Postcard Donated by Rob Modlin in Honor of Joanne Christian Modlin, Joe Christian, William Christian, Jack Christian; and in memory of Bobby Christian. Scan by Julia Underkoffler

This postcard in the museum’s collection is from the Taylor Christian Hat Company. The 1927 Bristol Sessions were recorded on the second floor of the hat company’s storefront. Instead of a photo postcard this one addresses an order from a customer. This postcard is one of the only artifacts that document the business of the Taylor Christian Hat Company and where the building was located as it is no longer standing in downtown Bristol.

black and white image of a church with a steeple, white clapboard siding, and four pillars in front. — Scan of the Bayless Highway Baptist Church, donated in memory of Alfred Karnes’ youngest daughter Dorcas who treasured it to her passing. Scan by Julia Underkoffler.

Lastly, this postcard was donated by the descendants of Alfred Karnes. Karnes recorded 6 songs at the 1927 Bristol Sessions. The postcard depicts the Bayless Highway Baptist Church located near Starke, Florida. This church was one of the last places where Karnes’ preached before he passed away in 1958.

image of postcard kiosk at the museum. A black shadow box with various postcards is hanging on the wall above the kiosk. — Birthplace of Country Music Postcard exhibit, photo by Julia Underkoffler

In addition to these postcards from the vault we have several postcards on display near the virtual postcard kiosk where you can send a digital postcard to a loved one when you visit the museum!

By Julia Underkoffler, Collection Specialist at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.

Reflections on Ten Years of Docent Tours

Museum

August 10, 2024

Posted on August 10, 2024August 12, 2024 by Guest Blogger

Barbara’s own Docent badge.

In August of 2014 The Birthplace of Country Music Museum opened its doors for the first time. To celebrate our 10 year anniversary, we have asked two of our longest serving volunteers, Mary Geiger and Barbara Smith, to reflect on their time as docents at the museum and share some of their favorite memories from the last ten years. Mary and Barbara were part of the first class of docents for the museum. Docents are museum volunteers who have been specially trained to provide tours.

A group of women sitting around a man at a table, they are Docents and he is Thomas Richardson. — A group of Docents with Thomas Richardson.

The new Birthplace of Country Music Museum was sparkling and we six “brand spanking new” docent graduates were brimming with enthusiasm. Our docent education was intense and in-depth, and we could not wait to share with visitors all that we learned of the museum story. Each docent created their own unique method of presentation; however, brimming with naiveté, it quickly became clear that there wasn’t visitor interest or time to share all our knowledge. A sure sign we had gone too far was the audience’s eyes glazing over! Thus began the 2nd phase of docent education, the mental exercise of paring down one’s knowledge to critical, but manageable information while also aiming for a personable yet interesting presentation. This lesson is an ongoing process even ten years later.

A woman guiding two children through an exhibit at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, and explaining parts of the exhibit to them. — Barbara guides two children through an exhibit.

Content and pared down information were not the only challenges, another challenge was managing to be heard! In our music museum, the docent is almost always talking over background music from carefully placed “sound clouds” in the gallery. While these sound clouds direct the sound into specific spaces of the museum, docents often have to be heard by crowds of thirty or more people that can bleed over into different sound cloud zones during a tour. Luckily, many of our docents were once school teachers and are blessed with “foghorn” voices which can be heard over the loudest clamor! Those of us with softer voices found alternate methods to ensure we can be heard, such as using portable microphones.

A delightful reflection is the experience of watching those artists featured in the museum exhibits react to seeing their contributions. It was fun watching Scythian mimic their poses on the back wall in the Immersion Experience or Crus Contreras, during his tour, encouraging an artist staff member or Paul Thorn and his drummer Jeffrey, both south paws, simultaneously autographing the Green Board.

Two docents smiling for a picture with musician Paul Thorn. — Two Docents meeting with Paul Thorn.

The Alfred Karnes family has held two family reunions in the museum. While talking to Karnes’s last surviving daughter and succeeding generations, we learned more about this fascinating, deep-voiced Baptist minister who married five times, with his 5th wife perhaps last in possession of his never-seen-again harp guitar.

A picture of a large group of people standing on the staircase at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. It is the reunion of the descendants of Sessions musician Alfred Karnes. — The Karnes family reunion.

Recently the two of us shared the joy in touring the Eastman Chemical France Division employees, with Barbara performing the introduction in French!

Our final reflection is the reward in meeting so many diverse visitors over the years, most particularly those who arrive not knowing the museum story or even liking country music and then departing with a newfound appreciation for both. Those are the most enjoyable tours.

Guest Bloggers Mary Geiger and Barbara Smith are volunteers at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.

The Technology That Made the Bristol Sessions Possible

1927 and 1928 Bristol Sessions Radio Technology & Sound

August 3, 2024

Posted on August 3, 2024November 12, 2024 by Guest Blogger

A lot of quality time can be spent in the 78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings section of archive.org, especially if you are old enough to remember 78s or just love exploring old music. One striking thing about the site is how the quality of these recordings gets much better after 1925. Click on the record labels below to hear the difference.

An old record with a weathered label depicting a dog listening to a phonograph over the word "Victor." Underneath, it reads "Keep on the Sunny Side" (A.P. Carter), Carter Family singing with auto-harp and guitar. — “Keep on the Sunny Side,” Carter Family, 1927

An old record with a weathered label with an image of a dog listening to an old phonograph, reading "Victor, Ragtime Annie (Country Dance), A.C. (Eck) Robertson" — “Ragtime Annie,” Eck Robertson, 1924

An old record with a weathered label depicting a dog listening to a phonograph over the word "Victor." Underneath, it reads "Blue Yodel" (Rodgers), Jimmie Rodgers, vocal with guitar. — “Blue Yodel,” Jimmie Rodgers, 1927

An old record labeled "Edison Record: The Sinking of the Titanic, Singing, Harmonica, and guitar. Ernest V. Stoneman, The Blue Ridge Mountaineer." On the sides of the label are an image of a laboratory with the words "A product of the Edison Laboratory" under it, and an image of Thomas Edison. — “Sinking of the Titanic,” Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, 1926. Although the electric microphone had been invented in 1925, Edison refused to adopt it until late 1927.

The technology behind this change in sound quality goes a long way toward explaining why the Bristol Sessions were such a success. In fact, an argument can be made that the Bristol Sessions had to happen after 1925 and before 1930, or they would not have happened at all.

The first device to record sound and play it back was the phonograph invented by Thomas Edison in 1877. Recordings were made on wax cylinders that were sold with the recording machines. These early machines were mostly marketed as dictating machines. During the 1890s some musical recordings were created one at a time and sold to nickelodeons to be played on primitive jukeboxes, but there was no practical process for mass-producing music recordings until after 1900, when Emile Berliner perfected a record player that played discs (instead of cylinders. The signing of opera star Enrico Caruso by Berliner’s Victor Company has been cited by many as the event that launched the modern recording industry (Caruso’s 1904 recording of Vesti la giubba sold a million copies).

An image of men playing in an acoustic recording session. Multiple musicians sit crowded around a large metal horn, playing directly into it so it captures their sound. — Acoustic recording session. Credit: Library of Congress.

In those days masters for commercial recordings were created by musicians who sang or played in front of a large metal horn that funneled sound waves to a vibrating diaphragm. These vibrations were transferred to an attached stylus that etched the sound waves onto a master wax disc. Adjustments to the balance and tone of these purely acoustic recordings could only be made by positioning the musicians. The sound quality was compromised by the narrow frequency range that could be captured (100 to 2500 Hz), and the low volume level of the recordings severely restricted the dynamics.

Even given the compromised sound quality, acoustic phonographs and records were popular. Jimmie Rodgers bought a phonograph in the early 1920s. His wife Carrie later recalled that Jimmie bought records “by the ton” despite their marginal household income. Maybelle Carter’s husband Eck was a U.S. mail clerk, the “best job in the Valley” and loved buying gadgets of all kinds. He was a classical music buff and had a large record collection.

Nevertheless, the poor audio quality of acoustically recorded phonograph records hurt sales, especially starting in the mid-1920s when people started buying radios.

Diagram of a condenser microphone, showing the electronic components in detail. — Diagram of a condenser microphone. Credit: shure.com.

Things changed dramatically when Western Electric, the laboratory complex for the Bell Telephone company, developed the “Westrex” system of electronic recording that used condenser microphones. A condenser microphone consists of a diaphragm and a metal plate that creates an electronic signal. The electric sound produced by this system had a greatly expanded frequency range of 60 to 6000 Hz, and the volume could be boosted by the then-new vacuum tube amplifiers.

Western Electric licensed this revolutionary technology to the two leading American recording companies, Victor and Columbia, in 1925. Victor’s “Orthophonic Victrola” was the first consumer phonograph designed to play electrically recorded phonograph records.

This new technology was a sensation. The entire U.S. record industry had a profit of $123,000 in 1925. In one week in 1926 Victor sold $20 million worth of Victrola players.

This new technology made the Bristol Sessions possible. A giant horn was no longer necessary to make recordings. This meant that musicians no longer had to travel to Victor’s headquarters in New Jersey or other large cities for recording sessions. The recording equipment could more easily be packed into suitcases and transported anywhere a train or truck could go. This notably included places like rural Tennessee and Virginia, where musicians making country, then called “hillbilly” music, lived.

The original note advertising the Bristol Sessions appeared in a Victor Orthophonic ad! Click to enlarge. Credit: Image courtesy of the Bristol Herald Courier

The electronic recording boom of the late 1920s was short-lived. The stock market crashed in October of 1929, which triggered the Great Depression of the 1930s. U.S. record sales went from $104 million in 1927 to $10 million in 1930. This also applied to record sales from Bristol Sessions artists. In his biography of Ralph Peer, Barry Mazor observed:

[Jimmie] Rodgers’ fairly dependable sales in the high-flying half-million-copy neighborhood were over; five to ten thousand copies sold had become the new “good,” and as early as spring 1930 Peer would need to reassure Jimmie that “on a percentage basis your stuff sells at least as much as anybody else’s. In other words, you are still at the top of the heap, but the heap isn’t so big.’”

Although the record sales dropped precipitously, some Bristol Sessions artists, such as Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family, managed to continue selling their music despite the struggling economy. Many others, such as Ernest “Pop” Stoneman, did not record much, if at all, during the Great Depression.
The advent of the Western Electric microphone and Orthophonic Victrola in 1925 directly affected the success and influence of the 1927 Bristol Sessions. Had the sessions taken place after 1930, the Great Depression would likely have hindered the success of the records regardless of the technology used or talent recorded. The “Big Bang” of modern country music ignited when Ralph Peer’s business know how, the talent of the artists who recorded, and the technology that more accurately captured the music all came together in Bristol in 1927.

By Ed Hagen, Gallery Assistant and guest blogger