Category: Education

© by Matt Ringressi & Lonnie Salyer with assistance from Gary Reid and Corbin Hayslett

Welcome back for Part II of the Twin City Story. We ended Part I as the relationship between George McGraw, owner of Twin-City Records, and Hobert Stanton owner of Rich-R-Tone Records seems to have transitioned.

Following the release of Twin-City 1010 we see a slight change in artistic style for the label stocks. Stanton’s involvement with Twin-City likely ended here, as there is no evidence of the following releases having been produced by him, and a number 1011 bridging this gap still has not been documented. Indeed, starting with the Christmas-themed disc by Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia natives the Casteel Brothers (issued in December 1952), the layout of Twin-City labels also changed from a solid white background to more colorful shades of green, yellow, or blue.

In the meantime, McGraw had accepted a position at station WRVA in Richmond, Virginia in August 1952. He remained on this station until the Spring of 1953, when he returned to work in Bristol, on station WCYB.

All the while, he continued to put out records, with another 7 or 8 released during 1953, including a second release by the Casteel Brothers.  An amazing black gospel record by the Silver Star Quartet of Richmond was released in early 1953. An article on the 1953/06/24 issue of the Bristol Herald Courier reports on the release of Elmo Morton’s comedy song Elmo’s Nightmare. Elmo Morton was a local Bristol newsprint comedian and radio/television personality who would release three records on the label. The stint in Richmond helped expand the talent pool available to McGraw, including country musicians Shorty Mayton from Petersburg, Virginia, and Bill Wiltshire from Richmond. 

At this point in the timeline, the Twin-City label seems to start fading out, with no releases for several months. It is likely McGraw was focusing his energies in other ventures, including opening his own record store, Cuzzin Don’s Record Corral, which was inaugurated in Bristol on October 10th, 1953.

With the new year, the label seems to have had a final burst of life. At some point in the Spring, a release by Frank Hart from Elizabethton, Tennessee, was issued. Interestingly, the catalog number (1020) overlaps with a previous issue by Bill Wiltshire and his Haymakers, denoting a lack of organization while the label remained dormant for some time. The label layout is radically different, with dark red text on a pale-yellow background. The font used differs, too.

Both songs on Twin-City 1020 are originals by Hart and have a copyright filing date of 1954/03/29, substantiating a Spring 1954 release date for this record.

Then, conceivably in the same time frame, Twin-City 1021 is issued…its content, those John Reedy tracks that were recorded all those years before, originally intended for release on Rich-R-Tone! The very tracks that served as a catalyst for McGraw to kickstart the idea of having a record label of his own eventually came to be Twin-City’s swan song.

This final record is now regarded as one of the holy grails of Bluegrass records, with only three copies (two being not damaged) accounted for as of this writing.

It is worth noting that these two last records, just like the first few, were pressed by Shaw Processing in Cincinnati, but had a new account number assigned, #7. Reasons for this might be multiple, but it is likely McGraw had closed his previous #192 account some months earlier, and simply reopened another for these releases. While an account number this low 

might seem counterintuitive or might seem to suggest a much earlier release date, in-depth 

research by the author has revealed that the reassignment of previously closed accounts was common practice for Shaw starting in 1954. Indeed, account #7 had been assigned to the Nashville-based Bullet label between 1950 and 1953, and was then re-assigned to Twin-City whenever the final two releases were planned.

Just a mere months after the release of the John Reedy disc, in July 1954, McGraw is once again hospitalized to correct a metal plate on his hip and leg. It is at this point that the Twin-City label’s existence was terminated for good. In this short time, Twin-City Records released 21 records and research into matrix numbers leads us to believe a record #1011 was also released and needs documentation. 

Later in the 1960s, McGraw would return to the record-making business by starting the Mart and Salem labels…but that’s another story.

Updated Twin City Discography

Guest blogger Matt Ringressi is a professional musician, bluegrass historian, and renowned 78rpm record collector based in Switzerland. He Co-Wrote the companion book in the Bear Family Records Box Set “The Rich-R-Tone / Folk Star Story” and his band The Truffle Valley Boys recently released their newest record. Additional info & Matt’s bio can be found at mattringressi.com

Guest blogger Lonnie Salyer hosts Diggin’ With Big Lon on Radio Bristol on Thursdays at 5:00pm—6:00pm. Big Lon is an avid local record sleuth and aficionado who holds the annual Kingsport Fun Fest vinyl record event Big Lon’s Vinyl Record Expo. Check out his collection on Facebook at Big Lon’s Crateful Dig. 

© by Matt Ringressi & Lonnie Salyer with assistance from Gary Reid and Corbin Hayslett

Hey gang, this is Big Lon, host of Diggin’ With Big Lon on Radio Bristol. Back in January of 2018, I was asked to submit a guest blog for the Birthplace of Country Music website. At the time, I selected research I’d performed on Bristol label Twin-City Records. I was new to record collecting and still developing an appreciation for the research involved to get to the story behind obscure record labels. Over the years since that opportunity, I’ve befriended other like-minded collectors with that same passion and drive. One of those passionate friends, bluegrass musician, 78 rpm record collector, and historian Matteo Ringressi shares this love for Twin-City Records.

Matt shared his Twin-City research a couple of years ago after he became the owner of the famed John Reedy release that had been in the longtime collection of 78rpm legend Joe Bussard. It’s well past time for an update. I’ve added some info and tidbits to Matt’s research, along with an updated discography. Numerous folks have helped expand the knowledge base on Twin-City, including Gary Reid and Corbin Hayslett.

One of a handful of seminal post-war regional labels dedicated to showcasing local groups, Twin-City Records has acquired an almost-mythical status among record collectors over the past few decades.

Its story, however, has never been fully told – not until now.

Let’s take it from the beginning, and introduce the figure of George Donald McGraw, known professionally as “Cuzzin Don” (and later as “Jolly Don”). McGraw’s autobiography reveals he was born in Maine in 1922. After having been abandoned as a child and rescued by a party of hunters, he had faced a myriad of health issues that forced him to be bedridden for most of his adolescence. He was relocated to the Peabody Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, where he remained until age 17, all the while learning a variety of skills, from more musical (he taught himself to play ukulele, guitar, and harmonica as well as to sing) to utilitarian ones like swimming or using a typewriter. When discharged, he worked office jobs in Boston until he opted to head for warmer climates and moved to Richmond, Virginia. There, he found work as a singer and disk jockey on a radio station. Shortly thereafter, he relocated once again to Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia, where he was hired on a trial basis by station WOPI in 1949. It wasn’t long, however, until he was given a full-time contract by the station.

This is where McGraw’s story merges with that of James Hobart “Jim” Stanton.

Stanton was the owner of Rich-R-Tone records, another regional label that had enjoyed some success producing the first records of later-to-be legendary bands like the Stanley Brothers and Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper, among others. Today, Rich-R-Tone is considered among the most influential labels of its kind, and its story is better told elsewhere (most notably, in the box set “The Rich-R-Tone | Folk Star Story”, recently released by Bear Family). Stanton had used station WOPI as a base of operations of sorts for Rich-R-Tone, with most of the label’s early sessions being recorded there, and after being hired as a deejay there, McGraw had served as session engineer on several of these. From a 1982 interview with historian Charles Wolfe, we learn that right around this time, Stanton had made agreements with a regionally popular Bluegrass band from Harlan, Kentucky, John Reedy and the Stone Mountain Hillbillies, to record for him. The session was held, as per canon, at station WOPI with McGraw behind the controls.

The exact date of this session has proven to be an enduring and fascinating mystery among music scholars: in a 1973 interview with the Rounder Collective, John Reedy recalled it taking place on the same day the Stanley Brothers cut the song “The White Dove” and that “Twin-City Records sent Carter and Ralph over to get him.”

Historian Gary Reid, however, has noted how improbable Reedy’s version of events is.

Carter and Ralph Stanley recorded the song “White Dove” as part of their first Columbia session held on March 1, 1949 at Castle Studio inside the Tulane Hotel in Nashville, TN. The drive from Harlan (where Reedy and his band would have been living at the time) to Bristol is eastbound, while Nashville, Tennessee, is 300 miles in the opposite direction. This would have meant a huge detour for the Stanley Brothers, who on that day were in the studio in Nashville – five hours way from Bristol (by today’s driving standards) – from 12:30 in the afternoon until 5:15 in the evening.

It is possible that Reedy’s memories were inexact, and he recalled the Stanley Brothers driving to a session when in fact they were driving to Bristol themselves for their WCYB Farm and Fun Time broadcast, perhaps after a show date somewhere in Kentucky. The Stanley Brothers’ tenures on WCYB, again per Reid, were multiple: a first one from December 1946 until July 1948, then again from January to September 1949, and then again from February to ca. May 1951, with a fourth stint possibly between January and July 1950. By this logic, the Reedy session could have happened in any of these time frames between 1949 and 1951 – this author posits early-to-mid 1951 being the most likely. Whatever the case, two tracks were recorded, both of sacred nature: a quartet “Somebody Touched Me” and an original by Reedy’s wife, Frances, a solo entitled “Driftwood”.

For whatever reason, Stanton decided not to release the tracks. Instead, he opted to give them to his friend McGraw, who was beginning to have thoughts about starting his own label.

McGraw certainly knew Stanton could have provided the help needed for such a venture – a veritable pioneer in the “custom” recording business, Stanton had launched Folk Star, a Rich-R-Tone subsidiary dedicated to vanity pressings (and one of the first of its kind in the United States) in 1949. Two years later, he expanded his business, incorporating Rich-R-Tone together with Acme, a label started in the early 1940s by Rev. Clifford Spurlock. During this time frame, he started producing more and more custom releases for other customers.

Preparations began for the launch of McGraw’s label. In the early Summer of 1951, McGraw switched over to station WFHG, and by the start of the fall he had already recorded a number of sessions he was planning to issue himself, including one to his own name and one by bluegrass musicians Ronnie Knittel (Greeneville, TN) and Baskell Rose (Chuckey, TN).

A name was chosen: Twin-City Records, a homage to the geographical area that was its home base. Stanton contracted the Shaw Processing in Cincinnati, Ohio, one of the leading independent record processing / pressing plants in the States at the time, and contracted them to press his records. He was given account number #192.

It appears the first handful of releases on the label were pressed by Shaw in rapid succession in the fall of 1951, but didn’t hit the market until the Spring of the following year, as a date-stamped copy of the first release (Twin-City 1001) testifies. This first release by McGraw under the moniker Cuzzin Don featured Abingdon, Virginia radio personality Cousin Zeke.

In the first year of its existence, Twin-City released about a dozen records by local artists, in musical stylings as diverse as Country, Bluegrass, and Gospel. Willie Sexton And The Whitetop Mountain Boys from nearby Damascus, Virginia cut a remarkable country record titled “Hobo Blues” and an extremely rare release titled “Crazy Feeling” by Lloyd (Dong Dong) Bell, aka Ding Dong Bell who was living in Bristol at the time performing on the WCYB Tennessee Hill-Billy Hay-Ride with Bonnie Lou and Buster. Bonnie Lou was his sister. “Kirk” on the writing credit for B-side “Poor Hobo” most likely is Knoxville, Tennessee native Red Kirk, also known as “The Voice Of The Country” who had already released two Billboard Top 20 country hits on Mercury Records and was part of the Bonnie Lou and Buster band.

Stanton’s involvement with Twin-City likely ended here, so we’ll pick up the story of the next phase of Twin-City next time. Stay tuned for Part II coming soon.

Guest blogger Matt Ringressi is a professional musician, bluegrass historian, and renowned 78rpm record collector based in Switzerland. He Co-Wrote the companion book in the Bear Family Records Box Set “The Rich-R-Tone / Folk Star Story” and his band The Truffle Valley Boys recently released their newest record. Additional info & Matt’s bio can be found at mattringressi.com

Guest blogger Lonnie Salyer hosts Diggin’ With Big Lon on Radio Bristol on Thursdays at 5:00pm—6:00pm. Big Lon is an avid local record sleuth and aficionado who holds the annual Kingsport Fun Fest vinyl record event Big Lon’s Vinyl Record Expo. Check out his collection on Facebook at Big Lon’s Crateful Dig.