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From The Vault: The 1927 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue

Collections Museum

August 18, 2021

Posted on August 18, 2021November 18, 2022 by Julia Underkoffler

Want to know what’s behind our closed museum vault door? With “From the Vault,” we take you behind the scenes to learn more about some of the interesting objects in our museum collections.

Long before the invention of the internet and being able to purchase goods online, you would have to travel to the nearest store or market to get the items you wanted, or even make them yourself. But that all changed with the introduction of mail-order shopping – and today being National Mail-Order Catalog Day makes it the perfect time to dive into that history and our collection to explore this history more!

Back in the 1800s, the railroads were hugely important in America, used for passenger travel, freight transport, and within specific industries like timber and coal. For Richard Warren Sears, the railroad was also his way of life. He worked as a railway station agent in North Redwood, Minnesota, which is also where Sears got into the merchandise industry. One day, he bought a shipment of watches after its delivery was refused by a jeweler. Sears then sold the watches to other station agents for a low price, making a profit for himself in the process. He had so much success with this initial foray into retail that he soon created his own company called R. W. Sears Watch Company.

A black-and-white portrait of a white man with dark hair and a big moustache. He is wearing a dark suit and patterned tie. — Richard Warren Sears. From Wikimedia Commons

In 1887 Sears met Alvah C. Roebuck, a watch repairman, and they moved the company to Chicago. In the same year, they also sent out their first mail-order catalog, which sold jewelry, diamonds, and of course, watches. Together in 1893, they created a new mail-order business that they called Sears, Roebuck and Company, and they began selling even more types of goods. The railroad again played a role in Sears’ business as trains, as well as the postal service’s Pony Express, helped to transport the merchandise they sold.

This advent of mail-order catalogs was transformative for customers. As the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue expanded and the goods for sale continued to grow, you could buy anything from jewelry and watches to musical instruments and houses! In 1897 – 30 years prior to the 1927 Bristol Sessions – customers could order an Edison phonograph from the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue, and the guitar that Maybelle Carter used on those Bristol recordings was also from the catalog. Besides guitars, the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue also sold violins (or fiddles), banjos, ukuleles, mouth organs (harmonicas), accordions, cornets, trombones, saxophones, trumpets, mellophones (French horns), clarinets, piccolos, flutes, drums, cymbals, triangles, tambourines, pianos, and all the accessories you could ever need for your instruments!

A catalog page for a 10-room Colonial style house showing a drawing of the front elevation of the house with manicured gardens in front. Below the drawing is a plan of both floors, along with a textual description of what can be found in the house. — An illustration and plan for a Colonial-style house for sale in the 1921 Sears Modern Homes Catalogue. Public domain image

Here at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, there is a facsimile of the 1927 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue on display in the permanent exhibits, along with other copies in the museum vault. As a museum intern this summer, I focused on the museum’s collections, which gave me the chance to thoroughly inventory the vault, and this catalog always seemed to draw me in. I grew up in the age of the internet, where you can buy everything and anything – to me, the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue seems like the past version of Amazon!

Even though the Sears, Roebuck Catalogue was discontinued before I was born, I have many memories of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and parents telling me about receiving these catalogs, especially right before the holidays. The Christmas holiday issue in particular – called the Sears Wishbook – would include even more products than normal, especially toys and other gifts. My relatives would always tell me that they would circle the items that they wanted, and their parents would plan their present shopping from there.

The Sears, Roebuck Catalogue is a great example of a collections item that on first glance doesn’t seem to be about music – or even history – but that connects to the 1927 Bristol Sessions story and also reveals historical and economic context to the time in which the artists from those recordings lived.

Julia Underkoffler is a senior at Shepherd University in West Virginia, majoring in Historic Preservation and Public History. She was a Birthplace of Country Music Museum intern this past summer, when she worked on the museum collections, within the museum’s frontline team, and on various other curatorial tasks.

Putting the Band Back Together!: Using Cutting-Edge Technology to Recover Sounds From the Past

Collections Museum Radio Technology & Sound

January 6, 2020

Posted on January 6, 2020October 19, 2021 by Rene Rodgers

At the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC) in Andover, Massachusetts, we recently completed an especially rewarding project for the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. The museum honored us with the task of recovering nine previously unheard, live recorded songs performed by The Stanley Brothers & The Clinch Mountain Boys on the Farm and Fun Time radio show, circa 1950, from a damaged transcription disc – a project supported by the Virginia Association of Museums’ “Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts” in 2018.

We were so thrilled to be a part of this project for two reasons in particular. One, despite our northern orientation, The Stanley Brothers happen to have quite a fan base here! And two, we always welcome a challenge, and this disc delivered.

The *Farm and Fun Time* disc showing signs of delamination. © Birthplace of Country Music; donated by Glen Harlow via Dean Casey

The damage seen on the disc in the image above is called delamination, and it means the grooved lacquer coating is separating from the aluminum base. Any missing piece of the lacquer is a loss of the audio content. Additionally, a delaminating disc cannot safely be played with a stylus because the physical contact will cause further damage.

Therefore, in order to safely retrieve the audio from the disc, we used a non-contact, optical-scanning technology called IRENE. With IRENE, we take microscopic images of the grooves, and those images are analyzed in software to produce an audio file. The concept is fairly simple, but the process can be challenging for damaged media like this.

First, we carefully “puzzled” the separated pieces of lacquer back together on the disc. We did this by lining up the grooves as best as possible, without touching the grooved surface. The added challenge here is that delamination occurs with a loss of plasticizer. The lacquer becomes brittle, shrinks, and can warp. This means that the grooves won’t be perfectly aligned. A slight offset of the grooves might not seem dramatic to the human eye, but on a microscopic level (which you can see in the images), the disruptions can be quite dizzying.

After puzzling, we imaged the disc with a Precitek CHRocodile CLS Confocal Microscope. This “camera” captures the horizontal motion of the grooves by measuring the groove’s depth. The disc is carefully mounted on a platter that rotates beneath the camera as the grooves are imaged. The image resolution is based on the disc’s original recording speed and the desired specifications for the resulting audio file. Other factors, such as the disc’s reflectivity and surface wear, dictate other imaging parameters – like the optical sampling rate and exposure.

The process creates a high-resolution TIFF image file of the surface of the disc, where you can see the extent of the damage and misaligned grooves due to delamination:

Image of the grooves on the disc resulting from the IRENE imaging process with the 3D camera. © NEDCC

One of the biggest challenges for us is getting the software – called Weaver – to follow the correct path of the groove as it shifts along the breaks. To enable this software to properly track the grooves on delaminating discs like this, we painstakingly plot the trajectory of the groove in a process called manual tracking. With proper tracking enabled, Weaver can mimic the motion of a stylus through the grooves to produce an audio file.

Weaver is a modular program built on a series of plug-ins, and our work involves selecting and adjusting settings within a set-of plug-ins. Each plug-in enables or performs a different analysis function to produce audio. For example, the VerticalFlip plug-in flips the image. This was necessary because these discs were originally recorded from the inside-out, and our cameras are only configured to scan in one direction. Flipping the image and then reversing the resulting audio file gives us the same results if we had played the record from the inside as it was originally intended. A series of tools like this allow us to manipulate the images in a variety of ways to accommodate different types of media and the unique damage they may have incurred during their lifetime.

A TIFF image of the grooves being processed for audio in the Weaver software after it has been “manually tracked.” © NEDCC

Our goal is to produce a digital file that most accurately represents the audio on this disc in its current condition. On damaged discs like this, there can be brief moments where the audio drops out due to a missing piece of lacquer. Though there is some damage on the Farm and Fun Time disc, the “raw” audio from the Weaver software is remarkably listenable. And the true measure of success for this project: it’s also danceable!

In addition to the raw audio, we created separate listening copies for this project that have been processed with historically-accurate playback equalization and some restoration work to reduce the noise and to get rid of the clicks and pops. Though this process is subjective, we did our best to respect the content. The “cleaned-up” audio is more listenable but still reminds us of the disc’s condition and the music’s place in history.

The quality of the original recording plays a large role in the fidelity of the audio we’re able to capture. In this case, it probably helps that the recording took place in a studio with professional audio engineers. And the musicians were pros too – they knew how to approach the microphone when it was their time to sing or take a solo.

Here’s a short clip to get a sense of the result:

Clinch Mountain Boys – Nine Pound Hammer sample (from WCYB Farm & Fun Time Transcription Disc)

That we were able to image the disc before it incurred any further delamination or other damage was also critical for the quality of the resulting audio. Lacquer-coated instantaneous discs are some of the most inherently fragile formats in archival collections. Delamination is one of the major preservation threats, and it can progress relatively quickly.

The museum is owed much appreciation for their efforts to save the disc before it was too late, and we’re grateful to have had the opportunity to help preserve this audio treasure! And for your chance to hear the first reveal of the songs from this rescued disc, be sure to attend the live Farm and Fun Time show in the museum’s Performance Theater on February 13 or listen online via Radio Bristol’s Facebook page!

You can learn more about the Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s valiant efforts to save the disc, including how the disc was carefully packaged and transported to NEDCC, here. You can learn more about IRENE at NEDCC here.

From the Vault: Without a Yodel – The Manuscripts of W. E. Myer and His Lonesome Ace Label

Collections History Music & Songs

July 14, 2019

Posted on July 14, 2019October 19, 2021 by Rene Rodgers

Yodeling? Maybe for Jimmie Rodgers, but not for the little-known W. E. Myer.

William Evert Myer (1884—1964) was an entrepreneur from Richlands, Virginia, who tried his hand at producing a successful record label called Lonesome Ace. Sadly he felt the crushing blows dealt by the Great Depression instead. A man of many interests and talents, Myer taught school, studied law, and worked on the accounts of a coal company before following his musical dream. He sold phonographs and records in his store and also wrote several songs – or “ballets” as he called them – preserving them in a set of manuscripts that were recently donated to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s collections.

Black-and-white portrait of W. E. Myer as a young man -- dark hair, dark suit, high collar and striped tie. — William Evert Myer. Gift of Dwight Dailey and Robyn Raines, in memory of their great-grandfather W. E. Myer

Unlike much of the rest of the listening public at this time, Myer didn’t like Jimmie Rodgers’ popular yodeling sound. Indeed, he immortalized his thoughts on this subject with his Lonesome Ace record label. Each record was blazoned with Charles Lindbergh’s plane The Spirit of St. Louis and bore the motto “WITHOUT A YODEL”! Lonesome Ace’s promotional material also declared: “Every song has a moral,…and all subjects are covered without the use of any ‘near decent’ language which is so prevalent among many of the modern records.” Myer’s quirky label and his work to release records were the culmination of all of his hopes: a removal of yodeling from the lexicon of American popular music and a desire to shares his musical loves.

Myer’s strong opinions led him to seek out more well-known musicians as a way to market his own songs. Most of all, he wanted his songs to be performed by musicians he liked, and one of his grandest notions was to have the famed country-blues musician Mississippi John Hurt set lyrics that Myer wrote to music. He sent Hurt several of his compositions, and Hurt set three of them to music he chose: “Waiting for You” and “Richlands Woman” set to his own melodies and “Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me,” ironically set to Jimmie Rodgers’ “Waiting for a Train.” This last song was a wild mixture of country, blues, and legendary sea creatures that was later recorded by musician Tom Hoskins in 1963.

Typed lyrics to "Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me," including copyright date of 1929 and the note "By William E. Myer." The lyrics included 6 verses and a chorus, and there is a pencil-written number 15 at the bottom of the page. — “Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me” tells the sad tale of a man who is unhappy in his home life and missing a sweetheart so he looks to burial at sea as sweet respite amongst the mermaids. Gift of Dwight Dailey and Robyn Raines, in memory of their great-grandfather W. E. Myer

Myer also approached traditional musician Dock Boggs, a banjo-frailing, hard-drinking coal miner from a musically inclined family in West Norton, Virginia. Boggs had recorded with The Magic City Trio, led by Fiddlin’ John Dykes, with New York’s Brunswick Records in March 1927, the same year as the Bristol Sessions. During the succeeding years, he did well playing in his local community for various dances and events, much to the chagrin of his wife. And In 1929 Boggs recorded with the Lonesome Ace label, producing four sides of Myer’s “ballets” with his own choice of tune, but following Myer’s advice with “False Hearted Lover’s Blues” by setting it to Myer’s suggestion of Boggs’ “Country Blues.” Even with Boggs’ skill and Myer’s entrepreneurship, the Great Depression led to the decline of the record label and Dock’s career as a musician. Myer declared bankruptcy in 1930 after releasing only three records, and Dock pawned off his banjo to make ends meet.

However, this was not the end of Dock Boggs or of W. E. Myer’s music. During the folk revival of the 1960s, Boggs was rediscovered by folk musician and folklorist Mike Seeger, who traveled to Virginia and located Boggs at his home near Needmore. Boggs had recently purchased another banjo, and after Seeger heard him play it, he convinced Boggs to perform at various folk festivals and clubs. This rediscovery brought a renewed love by the American public for the music of Dock Boggs, which continues through today.

Myer, though not revitalized by the folk revival, continues to be known because of his association with Boggs and other important musicians. The stories told to us by his family underline what a remarkable character Myer was, and his manuscripts, which are now part of the museum’s collection, highlight this even further. With song titles like “Old Rub Alcohol Blues” and “Milkin’ the Devil’s Billy Goat” – and one of my personal favorites “The New Deal Won’t Go Down,” which supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal program – it is clear that Myer’s songs reflected a wide range of interests and stories! And while Myer’s Lonesome Ace may not be well-known or prolific, it certainly played a noteworthy role in the folk music of Southern Appalachia – even “without the yodel”!

The typewritten lyrics to "Milkin' the Devil's Billy Goat," including the copyright date of 1929 and "By William E. Myer" at the top of the page. The song consists of 7 verses and the chorus. — The lyrics of “Milkin’ the Devil’s Billy Goat” chastises and judges “tattlers.” Gift of Dwight Dailey and Robyn Raines, in memory of their great-grandfather W. E. Myer

Along with the William E. Myer manuscripts, the donors generously gave the museum several other items related to their great-grandfather, including the collector’s edition of The Rise and Fall of Paramount Records Vol. 2 (1928-32), which contains the duets by Emry Arthur and Della Hatfield of the two Myer’s songs they recorded.

From the Vault: A Father’s Photographs

Collections History Museum

May 7, 2019

Posted on May 7, 2019October 19, 2021 by Rene Rodgers

When you think of a specific site associated with country music, the first place that comes to mind is more than likely the Grand Ole Opry. In 2018, Lawrence Inscho, one of our regular contributors to Radio Bristol, donated a personal connection to this iconic venue to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.

But first some background: Lawrence’s father William Lawrence Inscho Sr. served in World War II as a staff sergeant. After Pearl Harbor, he was stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska – with the Alaskan Aleutian Islands as early targets of the enemy, the US military’s position there played a strategic role in the defense of the country. He was eventually stationed in Memphis, Tennessee, and during his service, he went to Nashville for a needed surgery. He met a young woman there and later married her.

Left: Portrait of William Lawrence Inscho Sr. in his military uniform. Right: Picture of Inscho Sr.'s Leica camera. — Left: Staff Sgt. William Lawrence Inscho Sr. Right: The camera used by Lawrence’s father in the 1940s. Courtesy of Lawrence Inscho

The Grand Ole Opry has played host to so many greats of country and bluegrass music over the years, almost too many to count. In the summer of 1945, Inscho Sr. took a series of photographs at the revered Grand Ole Opry stage. The younger Lawrence likes to imagine that these photos were from his parents’ honeymoon.

For us, the photos taken by Inscho Sr. are a true treasure trove, documenting performances from the heyday of the Grand Ole Opry and country music. Some of the most well-known musicians that played at the Opry, like Bill Monroe and Uncle Dave Macon, have their likenesses preserved in these images. Others not quite as famous, like Zeke Clements, are remembered here as well. It’s a real thrill to see these important musicians as we take a gander at some of the photograph collection!

One of the lesser known monuments of country music and the Grand Ole Opry was Pee Wee King, seen here on the far left. Despite his Polish-German musical heritage (he was born Frank Julius Anthony Kuczynski), he co-wrote “The Tennessee Waltz,” which became a standard of the country music genre, and toured and made movies with Gene Autry. King joined the Opry in 1937, and he brought a rebellious side to this traditional venue by defying the Opry’s ban on drums, horns, the accordion, and electrical instruments. In doing so, he was one of the first people to introduce those instruments to country music at the Grand Ole Opry. He also wore the flamboyant, rhinestone-covered suits of Nudie Cohn, introducing this style to many country music artists. These suits became very popular within the genre, and the likes of Elvis Presley also later wore them. Pee Wee King was truly one of the great pioneers of country music.

Several musicians and background people on the stage with a Prince Albert tobacco advertisement hung on the wall behind them. The Duke of Paducah is center stage, dressed as a woman. — The Duke of Paducah (center). Photo credit to William Lawrence Inscho Sr.

One of the more unusual musicians featured in these photos was Benjamin Francis “Whitey” Ford, known on stage as The Duke of Paducah. A banjo picker, he founded the Renfro Valley Barn Dance stage and radio show with two other musicians. But he was also a well-known country comedian whose tagline “I’m goin’ back to the wagon, boys, these shoes are killing me!” became a standard. His jokes also influenced the classic country TV show Hee Haw. The Duke later shared the occasional show bill with none other than Elvis Presley.

Eight musicians and background people on the Opry stage, playing a variety of instruments. Zeke Clements is front and center playing the guitar at the mic. — Zeke Clements (third from right in white shirt and hat). Photo credit to William Lawrence Inscho Sr.

Zeke Clements, also known as “The Dixie Yodeler,” had some fascinating ventures during his lifetime. One of the bands he was in, Otto Gray and his Oklahoma Cowboys, was the first nationally famous cowboy western band. And one of his most prominent successes was writing the song “Smoke on the Water.” Clements also took acting roles as singing cowboys in multiple B-Western films in the 1930s and 1940s. He even voiced one of the yodeling dwarfs in the 1937 Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He was quite the character in early country music!

Four musicians, all wearing hats of various styles, on the Grand Ole Opry stage, gathered round the central mic. Far left: mandolin player, near left: Curly Bradshaw playing harmonica, near right: Bill Monroe playing guitar, and far right: Stringbean playing banjo. — Photo credit to William Lawrence Inscho Sr.

When people think of bluegrass, they think of Bill Monroe, one of the greatest bluegrass musicians that has ever been. This rare early photo of Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys is significant for a few reasons. First, it shows the group before Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs joined. It also shows Monroe playing his Gibson F7, an instrument he played before he turned to his iconic 1923 Lloyd Loar-signed Gibson F5. Further, this is the only known performance photo of the man playing the harmonica, Curly Bradshaw. He only performed shortly with Monroe, and before the discovery of these photos, the only known photo of him with Monroe was a 1944 publicity photo.

At this time, the man on the right, David Akeman, better known as Stringbean, was also a member of the Bluegrass Boys. A banjo player and in the cast of the Hee Haw television series, Akeman was later famously murdered, along with his wife, in his home near Ridgetop, Tennessee, due to a hidden sum of money that was rumored to be in the home. This photo is one of the most fascinating in the Inscho photograph collection.

The Opry stage decorated with a backdrop for Purina Chows for Poultry and Livestock. Four musicians, plus a man in the background, are seen, including Dorris Macon on guitar and Uncle Dave Macon on banjo. — Photo credit to William Lawrence Inscho Sr.

This last photo shows an old-time element of the show Inscho Sr. saw at the Grand Ole Opry in 1945. It features Dorris Macon playing the guitar and Uncle Dave Macon sitting in the middle with his banjo. A vaudeville performer, Uncle Dave Macon was known for his lively and lengthy performances, which led to him becoming the first star of the Grand Ole Opry.

These photographs by Inscho Sr. reveal a once-in-a-lifetime experience where he and his wife got to see a great show with musicians of huge talent and fabled status perform. This experience was special to Inscho Sr., and the memories and record of them are now special to his son. We feel very privileged that Lawrence chose to share these photographs with us – it is personal stories and objects like these that make up a truly special part of the museum’s collections.

* If you want to hear more from Lawrence Inscho, check out Kris Truelsen’s On the Sunny Side show on Wednesdays. From 10:00 to 11:00 AM every Wednesday, Lawrence shares music primarily from his personal collection, a significant portion of which came from his father.