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Category: 1927 and 1928 Bristol Sessions

Spook Season: Graveyard Hunts for Bristol Sessions Artists

1927 and 1928 Bristol Sessions History Personalities Tourism Uncategorized
October 12, 2024
Posted on by Julia Underkoffler

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

Happy spooky season! This time of year, many people seek out ghost tours and other spooky adventures, many of which take place in cemeteries. People who visit cemeteries for specific or unique tombstones are called “tombstone tourists.” But did you know you can also learn a lot about history in a cemetery? 

Originally founded by Jim Tipton in 1995 to document where famous people were buried, Find a Grave soon opened up to allow a passionate online community to document, recover, and preserve the history held in cemeteries worldwide. Over 250 million graves have now been documented. Anyone can create an account to contribute to this open resource! You can also build “virtual cemeteries” with collections of gravesites from different cemeteries. I have done one for my ancestors on both sides of my family tree and one for the 1927 Bristol Sessions!

So far, there are 43 members in the Bristol Sessions Virtual Cemetery and graves in 7 different states – Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Mississippi, New Mexico, and California. As you explore the cemetery, you will notice that most of the artist’s gravestones are not particularly ornate; they are just simple markers, and some are not marked at all. Now, let’s explore exactly where the session artists are buried!

Large marble statue of a woman standing on a casket in the center of a garden.
Image of Peer’s resting place was added to Findagrave.com by Gardens of Memory841.
  • Ralph Peer
    • Buried next to his wife Monique, who accompanied him on his Bristol Sessions trip, in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California. 
  • Ernest “Pop” Stoneman and his wife Hattie 
  • The Stonemans invited nine of their friends and family members to record with them at the Bristol Sessions. 
    • Pop Stoneman’s older brother George Stoneman
      • Buried in McKenzie Cemetery in Grayson County, Virginia.
    • Hattie’s twin siblings Bolen and Irma Frost
      • Buried in Ballard Cemetery in Galax, Virginia.
    • Kahle and Edna Brewer
      • Buried in Felts Memorial Cemetery in Galax, Virginia. 
    • Iver Edwards
      • Buried in Monta Vista Gardens in Galax, Virginia.
grassy hill with numerous old tombstones.
Image of Old Quaker Cemetery in Pipers Gap, Carroll County, Virginia was added to findagrave.com by Dan.
  • Alexander “Uncle Eck” Dunford  
    • Buried in Old Quaker Cemetery in Pipers Gap, Virginia
  • Ernest Phipps and his Holiness Quartet all stayed near Corbin, Kentucky, and are buried within a four-mile radius of each other.
    • Ernest Phipps and A. G. Baker 
      • Buried in Pine Hill Cemetery in Corbin, Kentucky.
    • Rolan Johnson
      • Buried in Felts Chapel Cemetery in Corbin, Kentucky.
    • Ancil McVay
      • Buried in Rest Haven Cemetery in Corbin, Kentucky.
  • John Preston (J.P.) Nester
    • Buried in Cruise Cemetery in Hillsville, Virginia.
  • Norman Edmonds 
    • Buried in Gardner Memorial Cemetery in Hillsville, Virginia. 
  • The Bull Mountain Moonshiners 
    • Charles M. McReynolds, the grandfather of Jim and Jesse McReynolds
      • Buried in Hazelton Stallard Cemetery in Coeburn, Virginia.
    • William McReynolds  
      • Buried in Hazelton Stallard Cemetery in Coeburn, Virginia.
    • Howard Greear 
      • Buried in the Greear Family Cemetery in Flatwoods, Virginia. 
    • Charles Greear
      • Buried in Greenwood Memorial Gardens located in Coeburn, Virginia.
    • Bill Deane. 
      • The only member of the Bull Mountain Moonshiners I have not yet been able to find is Bill Deane.
Bronze grave marker that says "Mother Maybelle Carter, The First Lady of Country Music. God has picked his wildwood flower."
Image of Maybelle’s resting place was added to findavgrave.com by Randy McCoy.
  • The Carter Family,
    • Alvin Pleasant Carter, and his wife, Sarah
      • Buried in Mount Vernon Methodist Church Cemetery in Hiltons, Virginia, along with their three children,Gladys, Janette, and Joe.
    • Sarah’s cousin, Maybelle Carter
      • Buried in Hendersonville Memory Gardens in Hendersonville, Tennessee, next to her husband (and A.P.’s cousin) Ezra. Their three girls, Helen, June, and Anita, are buried there as well. And yes, June is buried next to Johnny Cash.
  • Two members of The Alcoa Quartet are buried in cemeteries that are about five miles from each other. I have been unable to identify stones for the other two members, the brothers John Edgar and James Herbert Thomas. 
    • William Burrell Hitch
      • Buried in Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Maryville, Tennessee 
    • John Leonard “Lennie” Wells.
      • Buried in Grandview Cemetery in Maryville, Tennessee.
  • The Shelor Family stayed in the Meadows of Dan area and were buried in cemeteries about three miles from each other. 
    • Joe Blackard
      • Buried in the Joseph Blackard Cemetery in Meadows of Dan, Virginia.
    • Joe’s daughter Clarice, her husband Jesse, and Jesse’s brother Pyrhus are all buried in the Meadows of Dan Baptist Church Cemetery in Meadows of Dan, Virginia. 
  • Couple James Whiley and Flora Baker are buried in Baker Cemetery in Dungannon, Virginia.
  • Red Snodgrass and His Alabamians
    • Thomas P. Snodgrass and his brother Ralph Campbell Snodgrass are buried in Sunset Memorial Park in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 
Large headstone with the word "Rodgers" in the middle. with a pot of white flowers and a guitar laid in front.
Image of Jimmie Rodgers resting place was added to findagrave.com by Gregory Leonard Watson.
  • Jimmie Rodgers 
    • Buried in Oak Grove Baptist Church Cemetery in Meridian, Mississippi.
  • Tenneva Ramblers
    • I believe I have found Jack Pierce (Shelby Hills Cemetery) and Claude Slagle (East Hill Cemetery) in Bristol, Tennessee. However, I have not yet been able to locate Jack’s brother Claude or James “Jack” Grant. Except for Jimmy Rodgers, The Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers (soon to be called the Tenneva Ramblers) were all from Bristol. A chance visit to their hometown gave this Asheville-based band an opportunity to audition for the Bristol Sessions.
  • The West Virginia Coon Hunters 
    • Wesley’ Bane’ Boles 
      • Buried in Zion United Methodist Church Cemetery in Nebo, Virginia, and his place of rest is unmarked.
    • Vernal Vest
      • Buried in Trail Cemetery in Princeton, West Virginia. 
    • Clyde S. Meadows 
      • Buried in Big Run Cemetery in Diana, West Virginia. 
    • It is not easy to say for sure where Joe Stephens and Fred Belcher have been laid to rest. Several possible locations have been identified, but with no birth or death dates to go off of, we can’t say for certain.
  • The Tennessee Mountaineers was a church group of around twenty people from Bluff City, Tennessee. Here is where three of the members I have identified so far are buried:
    • Roy Hobbs, the brother-in-law of A. P. Carter 
      • Buried in Blue Ridge Memorial Gardens in Roanoke, Virginia. 
    • Father and daughter duo George and Georgia Massengill (Warren). At 12 years old, Georgia was the youngest participant in the sessions and the only one still alive when the museum opened in 2014.
      • Buried in Morrell Cemetery in Bluff City, Tennessee.
  • Blind Alfred Reed
    • Buried in Elgood Cemetery in Elgood, Virginia.
  • B. F. Shelton
    • Buried in Corinth Cemetery in Corbin, Kentucky.
  • Alfred Karnes 
    • Buried in McHargue Cemetery in Lily, Kentucky.
  • Henry Whitter
    • No stones have been found using what we believe are Whitter’s birth and death dates. However, it is not uncommon for the dates on older graves to be slightly off, and this stone, located in Eden Cemetery in Summerset, Kentucky, is assumed to be Whitter’s most likely resting place.
Image of Whitter’s resting place was added to findagrave.com by NashvilleTony.

Lastly, there are five artists – Walter Mooney, Tom Leonard, Paul Johnson, Charles Johnson, and El Watson – whom we know virtually nothing about beyond their names and that they played at the Bristol Sessions. Hopefully we will find their final resting places one day as we continue to research. 

I have always had an interest in cemeteries, the artistry behind making gravestones, and the preservation of them. I even decided to write my master’s thesis on the similarities between public history practices and cemeteries! Creating a virtual cemetery for the Bristol Sessions artists was a passion project that allowed me to view the content of the museum where I work through my favorite historical lens and it doesn’t stop here! If you are interested in exploring more virtual cemeteries, check out the other two I have made: BCM VIPs – people who have carried on the musical tradition and innovated the sounds of Bluegrass, Country, and American, and Women in Old-Time –  a special cemetery dedicated to the women who were featured in our special exhibit, I’ve Endured: Women In Old Time Music,   which is now traveling. All of these virtual cemeteries are updated regularly as I continue to research, so stay tuned for more!

The Technology That Made the Bristol Sessions Possible

1927 and 1928 Bristol Sessions Radio Technology & Sound
August 3, 2024
Posted on 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

Karma Chameleon: The Ever-Changing Muse of “In the Pines”

1927 and 1928 Bristol Sessions History Music & Songs Personalities
April 24, 2024
Posted on by Charlene Baker

In February Birthplace of Country Music announced In the Pines, a new music experience coming to Historic Downtown Bristol, TN-VA June 1. Dwight Yoakam, Elle King, Paul Cauthen, and Wyatt Flores are slated to perform at the inaugural event, but the inspiration for the concert goes much deeper than the artists who will take the stage that day.  It is a celebration of Bristol’s music legacy, bridging the traditions of the past with the innovation of the present.

In the Pines takes its name from a song recorded for the 1927 Bristol Sessions by the Tenneva Ramblers called “The Longest Train I Ever Saw.” From its origins of Southern Appalachia in the 1870s, “In the Pines” emerges as both a muse and a chameleon, seamlessly adapting its melody and lyrical essence to the unique styles and interpretations of every artist who dares to unravel its enigmatic allure. The song is believed to have been the combination of two songs, “In the Pines” and “The Longest Train;” the writer is unknown. It has been recorded under many titles over the years, with some artists adding their own lyrics.

“In the Pines” and all of its adaptations serve as a metaphor for Bristol’s creative music scene, which draws inspiration from the roots of Appalachia yet continuously evolves into new territory and genres. Below are a few interesting examples of the versatile tune that continues to shape-shift over time:

In 1923, King Oliver‘s Creole Jazz Band released a version for Okeh records entitled “Where Did You Stay Last Night” as a B-side for “Dipper Mouth Blues.” Louis Armstrong and his wife Lil Hardin Armstrong, both members of Oliver’s band before Armstrong left the group to pursue a solo career, are listed as composers of the track. This jazz instrumental stands out in sharp contrast to numerous other versions, showcasing a remarkable level of creativity and innovation that sets it apart as a distinctive and captivating interpretation of the timeless song.

The Tenneva Ramblers, an old-time string band based in Bristol, Tennessee, recorded “The Longest Train I Ever Saw” for producer Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company on the iconic 1927 Bristol Sessions. The Ramblers were briefly a backing band for Jimmie Rodgers under the moniker Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers, Rodgers and the group were supposed to audition for Peer together under that name. Instead, Rodgers auditioned as a solo act. There’s some controversy as to why the band split, but Rodgers’ solo performances for Peer would be his first recordings. The Tenneva Ramblers, sometimes performing as the Grant Brothers, remained active on various radio stations until the 1950s but never achieved the level of stardom enjoyed by Rodgers.

“Father of Bluegrass” Bill Monroe recorded “In the Pines” in 1941 and 1952 as an anthem of heartache and sorrow–a man “pining” for the girl who cast him aside. The crooning “who hoo hoo hoo” vocal harmonies mimicking the sound of a train whistle in that distinct “high lonesome sound,” combined with Monroe’s innovative bluegrass instrumentation, helped elevate the song to that of a country standard for decades to come.

In 1944 Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly, first recorded “(Black Girl) Where Did You Sleep Last Night” for release on the New York-based label Musicraft Records. Though he is responsible for the wider popularization of the song, he is often incorrectly cited as its author. Lead Belly’s interpretation was inspired by the 1917 transcription collected by Cecil Sharp and he went on to record several more versions of the track. It has been documented that when performing the song live Lead Belly adjusted the lyrics to “Black girl” for black audiences and “My girl” for white. His haunting depiction of a cheating lover and a grizzly decapitation is in stark contrast to Bill Monroe’s more G-rated tale of lost love, perhaps made darker by Lead Belly’s own past as a convicted murderer.

Joan Baez is an icon and activist who, during the folk music revival of the 1960s, marched for social justice and change during a time of segregation and political unrest in the United States. Baez’s rendition of “In the Pines” shares lyrical similarities with Lead Belly’s version, yet her voice and the contemporary context in which she sang it infused the song with a novel significance for the era. Baez’s iteration was a commentary on racism and violence against Black people from a woman’s perspective. The Black girl referred to in the song is fraught with anguish over the gruesome killing of her father and the disappearance of her lover as she mourns–or pines–her life away, leaving her cold and distant from an unjust world. Joan performed the song live during her concerts from 1961 to 1963, a volatile time in the civil rights movement, but it was not released until 1982. “In the Pines” appears on the album “Very Early Joan,” which contained 23 other previously unreleased live recordings.

Kurt Cobain‘s raw interpretation of “In the Pines” not only paid homage to Lead Belly, but also served as a poignant symbol of the grunge era’s cultural ethos. Prior to the performance Kurt erroneously credits Lead Belly as the writer of “In the Pines,” while declaring him the band’s favorite performer. By infusing the song with his own emotive intensity during Nirvana‘s iconic MTV Unplugged performance in 1993, Cobain brought this traditional folk tune to a new generation. It resonated deeply with Gen X in what is known as the “grunge” era,  which was defined by a sense of non-conformity and disillusionment of society norms. Tragically, Cobain’s performance of the song stands as a haunting reminder of his artistic legacy, forever tied to his untimely death at the age of 27 just a few months after the show aired.

Xavier Dphrepaulezz, a.k.a. Fantastic Negrito, recorded a searing version of  “In the Pines” for his Grammy Award-winning album The Last Days of Oakland, released in 2016. Growing up in Oakland, California, Xavier was one of 14 children. After leaving home at the age of 12, he went into the foster care system. He hustled the streets of L.A. to survive and lost a brother and a cousin to gun violence. “In the Pines” resonated deeply with Xavier. In his version of the song, he added the verse “Black girl, Black girl, your man is gone/ Now you travel the road alone / And you raised that child all by yourself / Then the policeman shot him down” to emphasize the trauma Black women face when their lives are impacted by such senseless acts. The haunting video below is the accompanying “docu-narrative” featuring one such mother whose son was tragically killed.

International Guitar Month Part 1: Guitars of the Carter Family

1927 and 1928 Bristol Sessions History Instruments Personalities
April 2, 2024
Posted on by Guest Blogger

By Ed Hagen,  volunteer gallery assistant and guest blogger at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.

The Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, Virginia celebrates Bristol’s rich musical heritage surrounding the 1927 Bristol Sessions, a series of recordings that launched the careers of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. With April being “International Guitar Month”, this two part blog post will take a deep dive into the guitars of these famous musicians and stories surrounding these instruments. 

The first Carter guitar

Maybelle Carter is remembered today as one of the most influential country guitar players of all time. Maybelle learned to play guitar on a Stella guitar. “Stella” is one of many brand names used by the Oscar Schmidt guitar company, a major manufacturer of budget guitars in the 1920s, often sold by catalog or door-to-door and were cheap and affordable instruments.  Maybelle’s brother had purchased the guitar when Maybelle was thirteen. She was still playing the Stella five years later when the then unknown Carter Family made their first records at the Bristol sessions. 

We don’t know much about that guitar. The pictures we have of it are quite grainy (we only know for sure that it was a Stella because Maybelle, in interviews years later, identified it as such).

Two photos of the original Carter family showing Maybelle’s Stella guitar.

Maybelle’s L-5

Shortly after the Bristol sessions, with record royalties coming in and show bookings picking up, Maybelle’s husband Eck bought her a customized 1928 Gibson L-5 guitar. Carter family reminisces and Internet sleuthing indicate that the guitar was ordered at Lamb Music, then a Gibson affiliate, in Kingsport, Tennessee.

From the 1929 Gibson Catalog
Maybelle and her 1928 Gibson L-5 are on the left side of this publicity still of The Carter Family from the collection of the Center for Popular Music, Middle Tennessee State University.

This was an extraordinary purchase for a rural Virginia family in the late 1920s. Introduced in 1923, the L-5 was the very top of the Gibson guitar line and cost $275 ($5,000 in 2023 dollars). 

Note the white strip between the crossbars of Maybelle’s tailpiece, something I have never seen on a Gibson archtop. I’ve exchanged emails with early Gibson guitar expert Paul Alcantara, who maintains the superb “Pre-War Gibson L-5 . He believes that it was a label or advertising insert from the music store. 

Maybell Carter’s truss rod cover

Another unusual feature of Maybelle Carter’s L-5 tells us that it was a custom order. The truss rod cover on the headstock has fancy inlay with Maybelle’s name, misspelled as “Mae Bell Carter.” I had assumed that this was something done later by a local craftsperson, but Paul Alcantara has the inside story on his Web site. It was likely crafted by William C. Schrier, who did similar etchings and engravings for Gibson from 1928 to 1931, working independently from the basement of his home. Examples of his work, including Maybelle’s truss rod cover, can be found here.

A 1928 Gibson L-5 in original condition would be quite valuable today. Working musicians back in the day would be more interested in a guitar’s playing condition than its originality, though, and would replace parts on the guitar from time to time. Maybelle certainly did this. By the 1960s (and perhaps earlier) we can see that the tailpiece had been replaced with a “triple parallelogram” tailpiece (Gibson used these with midrange guitars like the L-7 and ES-175 models), and the tuners had been replaced with Kluson tulip tuners.

 

 

More Carter guitars

The original Carter family – A.P., Sara, and Maybelle – broke up in the early 1940s. Maybelle’s three daughters, Helen, June, and Anita, had sung with the original Carters over the years. Maybelle loved show business, and took her daughters out on the road as “Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters,” where they had great success, eventually landing a spot on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

 

 

 

Maybelle’s daughter Anita playing her mother’s  1928 L-5 in 1966, and a picture of the guitar now at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Note the replaced tailpiece and tuners. Source: https://www.tennessean.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/music/2016/06/21/nashville-then-mother-maybelle-highlights-park-concert-in-june-1966/86186754/

Here’s a picture of the group in 1944. Maybelle is playing a blonde Gretsch Synchromatic 400, the very top of the Gretsch guitar line. These were big guitars, 18″ wide, with “cats-eye” sound holes, stairstep bridges, harp tailpieces, gold-plated parts, and a chili-pepper inlay on the headstock.

 

Maybelle’s 1928 L-5 had a 16” lower bout and dot inlay. In 1934 the Gibson company “advanced” the L-5, giving it a 17” body and block inlays. This picture, taken in the late 1940s, shows Maybelle playing a post-1934 17” L-5.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland also has a Maybelle Carter guitar that they date to 1964; If that’s accurate, there were at least three L-5s acquired by the family over the years.

A 1966 photo of Maybelle on the 1928 L-5, Anita on the autoharp, and Helen on a 17” L-5. Source: https://www.tennessean.com/picture-gallery/entertainment/music/2016/06/21/nashville-then-mother-maybelle-highlights-park-concert-in-june-1966/86186754/ 

 

 

 

 

Part two of this blog will be posted next Tuesday, April 9th and is all about Jimmie Rodgers’ Oscar Schmidt Guitar. 

 

Would you like to read more about Maybelle Carter’s 1928 L5? See also:

Instrument Interview: Maybelle Carter’s Guitar – The Birthplace of Country Music

Lamb’s Music Store may have sold famous guitar | Local News | timesnews.net