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 the1927 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.
Jimmie Rodgers’ Oscar Schmidt Guitar
The three “Jimmie Rodgers guitars” at the BCMM: Martin 2-17, Oscar Schmidt, and Blue Yodel.
Jimmie Rodgers was the biggest solo star to emerge from the 1927 Bristol sessions. The Birthplace of Country Music Museum is proud to exhibit the three “Jimmie Rodgers” guitars pictured above. The most famous guitar by far is the one on the right, the “Blue Yodel” 1928 Martin 000-45 (read a previous blog post about this guitar here). The guitar on the left, a Martin 2-17 parlor guitar, was not owned by Rodgers but closely resembles the guitar Rodgers played at the Bristol sessions (the actual Bristol Sessions guitar is in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville). The one in the middle, an Oscar Schmidt model with fancy “tree of life” inlay on the fingerboard, is one of Rodgers’ guitars (it has his signature). It is no doubt the guitar with the best stories.
The original Oscar Schmidt company, founded in 1871, sold guitars at prices most people could afford. By the 1920s it was manufacturing 150 different instruments at five different manufacturing plants under its own and a number of other brand names (notably the Stella brand; Maybelle Carter played a Stella at the Bristol sessions). Rodgers’ Oscar Schmidt was a fancy one, likely purchased in 1928 after his career started to take off.
In February 1929 Jimmie Rodgers, headlining a tent show touring the South, played his hometown, Meridian, Mississippi. A 17-year-old Western Union messenger boy named Bill Bruner was in the audience. Bruner was a Jimmie Rodgers fanatic who bought all of Rodgers’ records when they came out. He would spend hours learning the songs note by note and copying Rodgers’ guitar and vocal style, and sometimes played them at a local café.
Rodgers suffered from the tuberculosis that would take his life just four short years later. There were good days and bad days, and this was one of the bad days. He collapsed in his dressing room and the owner of the show would have to tell an unhappy crowd that Rodgers was ill and could not perform.
But here is where things get interesting. It turns out that a tent show clown had heard Bruner play at the café, knew that he was in the audience, and told the show owner that the kid was pretty good. Much to Bruner’s (and his date’s) astonishment, Bruner was escorted backstage and given cab fare to go home and retrieve his guitar.
So after the audience was told about Rodgers being too sick to play, the show owner told them that “we have another Meridian boy who is also a fine entertainer. He sings and plays in Jimmie’s style, and we think he deserves a chance to show what he can do.” The crowd was restive. Then he told the crowd that anybody who wanted to could have their money back if they were dissatisfied after hearing “Bill Bruner, the Yodeling Messenger Boy.” This settled things down a bit.
You can guess the rest. Bruner gave a sensational performance, was called back for six encores, and nobody asked for a refund. The following evening he was invited to Rodgers’ dressing room, where Rodgers gave him $10, decent money in those days. Bruner started to leave but was summoned back, and Rodgers gave Bruner the autographed Oscar Schmidt guitar.
Bill Bruner with Jimmie Rodgers Oscar Schmidt guitar, ca 1953.
Bruner went on to have a minor vaudeville career and made a couple of records with his prized Jimmie Rodgers guitar. In 1953 Meridian put on a Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Day Gala. The concert featured performances by Country and Western stars Roy Acuff, the Carter Family, Lew Childre, Cowboy Copas, Jimmy Dickens, Jimmie Davis, Tommy Duncan, Lefty Frizzell, Bill Monroe, George Morgan, Moon Mullican, Minnie Pearl, Webb Pierce, Marty Robbins, Jimmie Skinner, Carl Smith, Hank Snow, and Charlie Walker. It was the final performance for the original Carter Family (A.P., Sara, and Maybelle).
Bruner appeared as well, playing the Jimmie Rodgers guitar. Caught up in the excitement of the event, Bruner presented the guitar to another 17-year-old singer, Jimmie Rodgers Snow, the son of country western star Hank Snow, “because I felt like that was what Jimmie would have wanted me to do.”
Jimmie Rodgers Snow went on to have a career as a country western star in the 1950s, palling around with folks like Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, but gave it up in 1958 to study for the ministry. For many years he preached at the Evangel Temple in Nashville, often referred to as “The Church Of The Country Music Stars” (below is a short YouTube clip of Snow preaching about the connection between rock and roll and juvenile delinquency).
During all of this, the Oscar Schmidt guitar was displayed in the Snow home, nailed to a wall. Years later it was taken down, leaving an outline of the guitar on the painted wall.
The next time you stop by the Museum, take a close look through the sound hole at the back of the Oscar Schmidt. You will see a small shaft of light. The nail hole is still there!
Getting the word out takes on a special significance when one talks about the method that the visual word is produced. Many have heard of the history of printing, that Gutenberg produced the first movable type in Europe. Some know that over the following five hundred years, printers used a variety of technologies, from monotype to linotype and letterpress to offset printing to our modern digital processes. Yet few recognize the threads that run through the centuries of printing that are reflected in the current exhibit at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum entitled, “A Cardboard History of Blue Ridge Music.”
A variety of posters which have come from the Sign of the George Press at King University, Bristol, TN. The Chandler and Price press, workhorse of the Sign of the George Press.
These posters that anchor the exhibit were produced with handset and letterpress printed type, some from small local print shops and some from more established print shops, such as Hatch Show Print in Nashville. The posters used primarily wooden type, which could be up to 5” in height to grab your attention. Some of the smaller type up to 1” were metal. Both types would have been arranged and fastened together to be printed on presses that had their origins in the early days of printing, both presses that were flat bed operated manually and presses that were motorized.
In the early days of country music, hand bills that could be put up in stores and stations advertised the location of music shows. The posters of this collection are primarily from the 40s through the 70s and advertised concerts and small festivals. They were printed on thick cardboard, were cheap and easy to produce, and were expected only to last from the time of posting to the time of the show and then thrown away. The fact that many have survived is a tribute to both the stability of the printed form and the diligence of those who recognized their historical importance.
Letterpress printing is a trade that has gone out of favor with the coming of more modern techniques, but has reemerged as a craft in the art field. When many of the old shops closed or were converted, often the type was scrapped, the presses were sold for their weight in cast iron, and the typecases ended up as showcases for knick-knacks. For those materials and equipment that survived, the current recognition of hand-crafted art will prolong the legacy of the printing trade.
Letterpress refers to both the type of medium which is being printed, as well as the technique and presses which are used for printing. In this context, the letters are individual or monotype. This means that each letter has to be uniquely selected and arranged to form the words. These lines of type are then firmly locked into a frame, which is then printed on a press.
Composing a body of type before printing.
Pictures that accompany the text can be made mechanically or by hand, cut from wood, linoleum or engraved. When the copy is set and prepared, ink is applied by rollers, either by hand or mechanically on the larger presses. Unique to this process is that the letters are created and set in reverse, essentially backward, so that when the impression is made it comes out right side up and readable.
Locally in Bristol at King University, the Sign of the George Press has had a resurgence with the support of the Digital Media Art and Design Department. The Press was started by Dr. George P. “Pat” Winship in the late 60s as a way to show his English students the methods that authors like William Shakespeare had to manage to get their literary works into print. Dr. Winship had a small press when he was growing up as the son of a rare books librarian and he continued the press by accumulating type and presses from the printshops that were going out of or away from the letterpress business as they modernized. The press at King is operated by Winship’s son David, a retired public-school educator who grew up with the press.
Lee Jones, left, and Joe Strickland, right, at the press with students. Both are professors with the DMAD (Digital Media Art and Design) Department at King University.
The Birthplace of Country Music Museum will offer a hands-on workshop at the Museum on March 16, which will allow participants the opportunity to learn about letterpress printing, produce a poster of their own, and to tour the exhibit. Participants will also have the opportunity to tour the Sign of the George Press on King University campus to get a close up look at the printing process.
Poster advertising has been used as a marketing tool since the late 1800s. Companies and businesses would advertise anything from places to shop, war propaganda and music events. Since these posters were often made of paper and glued to an outside surface, like a telephone pole or outside of a business storefront, many early posters ads did not survive and are often highly sought after by many collectors.
Letterpress is one of the most recognizable forms of concert posters in Country music styles. Letterpress printing is a technique, which has been used for centuries, of printing multiple copies of the same design by inking a raised surface and stamping it on a piece of paper. Similar to a stamp, the letters and designs are replaceable. The design is held together with a frame and is placed opposite of how the poster will be hung. To learn and make your own letterpress poster sign up for a Letterpress workshop with BCM and King University on March 16, 2024.
Photo by Julia Underkoffler. On loan from the Tom Murphy Collection, a part of Cardboard History of the Blue Ridge.
The company that would later become Hatch Show Print was founded in 1875 and became infamous in the country music industry for their work with the Ryman Auditorium and the Grand Ole Opry starting in the mid-1920s. You can join us for a Speaker Session on April 9, 2024 with guest Celene Aubry from Hatch Show Print to learn more!
Today, however, many posters are produced digitally. There is still a deep nostalgia for letterpress posters.
Fifth Annual Fiddlers Convention
Donated to BCMM in 2017, this poster advertises the fifth annual Fiddlers Convention and North Carolina State Championship held at Cool Springs School in Statesville, North Carolina on November 19, 1966. Dwight Barker, a radio and TV personality, was the M.C. for the convention. There were cash prizes for the top three best bands, best banjo players, and most promising talent, as well as trophies to the state champions.
Photo by Ashli Linkous. Donated in honor of all the musicians that participated.
Roy Acuff for Governor Poster
Donated at the request of the late William Wampler in 2016. The poster was produced for Acuff’s Tennessee Governor campaign in 1948, when he accepted the Republican nomination. Although he did not win the Governorship these posters survived and reproduction prints are still being sold by Hatch Show Print. The copy in our collection was signed by Acuff on August 26, 1972.
Photo by Ashli Linkous. Roy Acuff poster donated at the request of the late William Wampler.
Mountain Stage/BCMA
A signed poster from a partnered show between Mountain Stage, a live radio program in West Virginia, and the former Birthplace of Country Music Alliance (BCMA) organization. In 2013 BCMA and Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion merged to create the Birthplace of Country Music Inc. organization. This event was on August 21, 2011 and included Jim Lauderdale, John Lilly, Red Molly, The David Mayfield Parade, Vince Gill, and hosted by Larry Groce.
Photo by Ashli Linkous. From the Birthplace of Country Music’s Institutional Archives
Orthophonic Joy
Orthophonic Joy is a collection of reimagined recordings of the original 1927 Bristol Sessions songs. This album was produced by Carl Jackson, a Grammy award winner and used as a benefit for the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. The album includes Emmylou Harris singing “Bury Me Beneath the Willow”, Dolly Parton singing “When They Ring Those Golden Bells”, Sheryl Crow singing “The Wandering Boy,” and Brad Paisley and Carl Jackson singing “In the Pines.” This CD can be purchased in the museum store.
Photo by Ashli Linkous. From the Birthplace of Country Music’s Institutional Archives.
Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion Festival Posters
Starting in 2001 the Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion festival (BRRR) was created to celebrate the rich musical heritage that was popularized by the 1927 Bristol sessions. Occurring on the second weekend in September every year, BRRR has seen countless legendary musicians on the lineup, like The Del McCoury Band, Little Jimmie Dickens, Jim Lauderdale, who made his first appearance in 2004, and Marty Stuart just to name a few. Each year the organization gets a different artist to create and design the festival poster. Over the last 20 plus years we’ve had artists including Willard Gayheart, Charles Vess, and Leigh Ann Agee and many more. Only so many of these posters are printed every year and once they are gone, they are gone! Below are some of my personal favorites.
2001 Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion Poster
The first year highlights the train station which helped many artists get to Bristol in 1927 to record with Ralph Peer and make Bristol what it is today!
Photo by Julia Underkoffler. From the Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s Institutional Archives
2005 Bristol Rhythm and Roots Poster
I love all of the artists that were included in this poster. It is a great way of showing the impact Bristol has had to music.
Photo by Julia Underkoffler. From the Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s Institutional Archives
2006 Bristol Rhythm and Roots Poster
This poster was designed by Charles Vess. I absolutely love how the colors complement each other and the tree roots making a treble clef.
Photo by Julia Underkoffler. From the Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s Institutional Archives.
2021 Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion Poster
This will always be one of my favorite BRRR posters because it was my first BRRR.
10th and 20th Anniversary Posters
These are two special posters we came out with for the 20th anniversary. This is a great way to display all of the first 20 years of festival posters.
Photos by Julia Underkoffler. From the Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s Institutional Archives.
Several years of Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion posters are still available for purchase at the museum store.
The Birthplace of Country Music Museum opened its doors to the public on August 1, 2014 with a weekend of music, history and culture, food, friends and family, and so many amazing visitors. Through the past several years, as we’ve seen changes and growth; hundreds of exhibits, outreach activities, and educational and public programs; and a pandemic, we are proud and excited to be celebrating our 10th anniversary! We’ll be sharing stories, images, and videos to mark this milestone throughout the year, but today we wanted to share ten things you might not know about the Birthplace of Country Music Museum:
1. Archaeology in a Country Music Museum?
The museum is in a historic building from the 1920s, formerly a Chrysler distributorship owned by Frank Goodpasture Sr. The building was later used for entertainments like sporting matches, musical concerts, and dances, and it also once housed a cab company, barbershop, shoe store, and newsstand. All of these different uses meant that when the building was being renovated to become the museum, the construction crew found lots of archaeological curiosities from the building’s previous lives – from an intact Edison lightbulb (now hanging in the porch area of our permanent exhibits) to pieces of china to an empty bottle of Dr. H. S. Thacher’s Cough and Croup Syrup!
Creating a museum is a big job, and creating the content and exhibits is turned over to a company who does that work for a living. At the early planning stages, that was the intent, but it soon became apparent that we had numerous local scholars, experts, and musicians on our doorstep who had the expertise to do this work. And so a local content team was pulled together – led by ethnomusicologist Dr. Jessica Turner, the team included scholars and musicians from East Tennessee State University (Roy Andrade, Dr. Lee Bidgood, Amythyst Kiah, and Dr. Ted Olson) and King University (Ryan Bernard); former Birthplace of Country Music Alliance director Bill Hartley; and researcher/writer/editor Dr. René Rodgers (me!) and Sarah Tollie. Over the course of two years, this team met regularly – along with the museum’s architects Peyton Boyd and Michael Haslam, the exhibit design team at studioMUSarx, and Hillmann & Carr, the media producers – to discuss the textual panels, images and objects, and audio-visual elements that would fill the permanent exhibit space with engaging content. This decision to stick with local community members to tell the important history of the 1927 Bristol Sessions and our regional music heritage has resulted in a museum where these stories are explored with passion, deep knowledge, and personal connection, making the museum experience that much richer to our visitors.
3. Wax People
Lots of museums have dioramas with taxidermy animals or scenes/exhibits with wax museum figures. And early in the content development process, we considered two such scenes – one of The Carter Family recording in the makeshift studio on State Street and one of a producer or DJ and a band in a radio station. These wax figures can be wonderfully realistic but sometimes also just a little bit creepy – akin to dolls and all of the associated weirdness we feel with them! In the end, the cost of the wax people was out of our budget, but most importantly, after discussion and ambitious speculation, we decided to figure out how to turn what was meant to be a simple radio station exhibit into an ACTUAL live, working radio station – and Radio Bristol was born!
As we began thinking about this 10th anniversary, we started digging into our institutional archives to stir up some memories – and we found a treasure trove of stuff! One of the coolest was a stash of blueprints from past iterations of the museum design before we got to the museum we know and love today. Some things stayed pretty similar across designs, but there were also some surprises. For instance, one plan showed a second exterior marquee-style sign above the Moore Street side door bearing the words “Playing Tonight: Bill Hartley,” which would have been a great addition! Another plan illustrated a different configuration for the first-floor theater, one where there were 11 rows of seats in front of the stage in a typical theater configuration. This layout would have given the room around the same number of seats that we have today, but our current configuration is much more intimate and engaging for audiences. Finally, the biggest surprise was a plan for a third floor to be built onto the original two-story building – this space would have included offices and other administrative areas, but it was ultimately nixed as this type of construction is not allowed on buildings where historic tax credits are used to help fund the work.
Early in the museum’s life, we were excited to be recognized by peers and scholars in the museum and history fields. For instance, in 2015 the museum won the Past Presidents’ Award of Excellence from the Tennessee Association of Museums; that same year, the poster design for the Birthplace of Country Music Museum’s grand opening won in the American Alliance of Museum’s Publications Design Competition. In 2016 we were honored with an American Association for State and Local History Leadership in History Award.
Any historic building can be spooky at night when the lights are low and you might be the only one in a particular space – there are mysterious creaks and pops, dark corners, old photographs and objects, and often overactive imaginations at play. The display case dedicated to the story of Bristol’s own hometown musical hero, Tennessee Ernie Ford, frequently helped to put chills down our spines when an 8-track tape would regularly fall over with no real explanation as to why. Its mount had been built specifically for its dimensions, the mount’s attachment wasn’t loose on the back of the case, the case was sturdy and not easily moveable… Was the ghost of Ernie Ford communicating with us? Was it the ghost of a music geek who was sharing their contempt for the oft-maligned 8-track format? We’ll never know!
One of the biggest pleasures of working at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum has been the connections we have made with family members of the 1927 Bristol Sessions artists. Over the years, these relationships have helped us to tell the stories of these musicians in more detail and with more interest; they’ve shared objects and photographs with us that have enhanced our exhibits; and we’ve enjoyed spending time with them and seeing their own joy of their relatives being recognized and celebrated in the museum. At the museum’s grand opening, Georgia Warren, the last surviving member of the artists who recorded at the 1927 Bristol Sessions, and Roni Stoneman, daughter of Ernest Stoneman, participated in the ribbon cutting. Two branches of Alfred Karnes’ family connected through the museum’s Green Board, and then later held reunions at the museum. Charles McReynolds’ grandson, Jesse McReynolds, played his fiddle on Radio Bristol’s original Farm and Fun Time show. Blind Alfred Reed’s grandson brought his fiddle to the 90th anniversary of the Sessions where it was admired by Ralph Peer II, Ralph Peer’s son. The family of Jimmie Rodgers loaned us his Blue Yodel guitar in 2023, recently extending that loan through 2027 and the Bristol Sessions’ 100th anniversary! We hope these connections and relationships continue to grow, and that family members always hold the museum and the story we tell in their hearts.
8. Design Details
When designing the museum’s exhibits, the studioMUSarx team and their partners did an amazing job creating engaging displays and panels. But what’s even cooler are some of the hidden design details that can be found throughout the museum. For instance, different tonewoods were used in the downstairs theater – for those who don’t know, tonewoods are different types of wood that are used for acoustic string instruments due to their tonal qualities. Similarly, the floor of The Museum Store is made of curly maple, a wood often used when crafting guitars. Another great design detail can be seen on the reader rail in front of the radio station booth where the material used to cover speakers has been used behind the cut-outs on the rail. There are many more of these wonderful details to be found in the museum – but you’ll have to wait for a blog on another day to learn about them all!
Being a historic building, there were several elements of the original construction that we had to keep in place. One of the coolest is truly behind the scenes so not experienced by our visitors, but always appreciated by staff. In the loading bay of the museum, you can see the very top of the original ramp that led from the Goodpasture building’s first floor to its second. This was the ramp that the distributorship’s workers would have used to drive cars up to the second-floor showroom. The museum’s architect and contractors were allowed to take out the majority of this ramp during the renovation, but the top of it was kept in order to preserve the physical connection to the building’s history.
As a music museum, each room is filled with music, which requires sophisticated acoustic engineering solutions – for instance, overhead acoustic panels that direct sound downward to minimize its bleed into other areas of the space (I think of these as “sound umbrellas”!). But because it is a museum, those solutions also needed to be integrated in innovative ways into the exhibits and different spaces. In the downstairs theater, some of the speakers are hidden behind patterned acoustic tiles, while the upstairs theater has acoustic fabric on the walls to help deliver the film’s sound. Sound drivers were originally attached to the backs of the acrylic panels of the foyer sculpture, turning this piece of art into a giant speaker. Similarly, sound drivers/speakers have been placed under the pews in the chapel theater space so that when you sit in there to watch the film, you can actually “feel” the music! Steve Haas, the museum’s acoustical engineer, even created a creative acoustic activity for our educational programs – a sound driver and amplifier that we often use to show how sound travels through different materials creating different levels and quality of sound.
Dr. René Rodgers is the Head Curator of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum. She has been with the organization, first as a freelance writer/editor and later on the curatorial team, since 2012.
