Birthplace of Country Music Museum Archives - The Birthplace of Country Music

East Tennessee Fiddlers and Their Fiddles

1927 and 1928 Bristol Sessions Collections History Instruments

September 14, 2023

Posted on September 14, 2023December 6, 2023 by Julia Underkoffler

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

Fiddle me this: What’s the difference between a violin and a fiddle? One has strings, and the other has strangs!

East Tennessee is known for its music, and in particular, it was home to several well-known and influential old-time and bluegrass fiddlers. The museum is fortunate to have three fiddles on loan that were owned and played by Charlie Bowman, Edd Vance, and Benny Sims, all of which are currently on special display in our permanent exhibits. Instruments – and other objects – like these help us to tell the stories of the music, people, and cultural heritage that make our region so special.

Fiddlin’ Charlie Bowman was born on July 30, 1889 in Gray Station, Tennessee. Bowman started playing music from a young age – he started recording as early as 1908 on a neighbor’s Edison Cylinder phonograph, and by the early 1920s, he was regularly being hired to play at square dances and political rallies. When Bowman started to enter fiddling contests around the area, other local fiddlers got quite mad because Bowman just kept on winning!

A black and white image of Charlie Bowman. He is seated on a small bench and holding a fiddle in his lap. He is wearing a collared shirt. The image is old and not completely clear, his face is slightly fuzzy. — *Charlie Bowman, from the Lewis Deneumoustier Collection, Archives of Appalachia, East Tennessee State University*

In 1928, when the Columbia record label came to Johnson City, Tennessee, to do a location recording session, Bowman and several other musicians, including his daughters, recorded six songs. He also traveled the East Coast vaudeville circuit with his daughters and his band – in 1931 alone, they played 249 days of the year. Bowman was later hired to perform by B. Carroll Reece, who served as representative for the first district of Tennessee. They stayed lifelong friends, and Bowman even wrote “Reece Rag” for Congressman Reece. Alongside his solo career, Bowman was also a member of the Hill Billies and the Blue Ridge Ramblers.

The museum has two Bowman family instruments on loan: Charlie’s fiddle and his daughter Jenny’s accordion, which is currently on display in the museum’s special exhibit, I’ve Endured Women in Old-Time Music.

Edd Vance – more commonly known as Red – was born on November 19, 1923 in Sullivan County, Tennessee. Red became recognized in East Tennessee for his old-time fiddling skill, and he performed at The Down Home, a well-known musical hub in Johnson City, Tennessee.

Red followed in the footsteps of his father, Dudley Vance, who was born on March 12, 1880 in Bluff City, Tennessee. During the second week of May 1925, Dudley played at the first Mountain City Fiddlers’ Convention, held at a local high school. This event featured famous fiddlers Charlie Bowman, Fiddlin’ John Carson, Fiddlin’ Cowan Powers, Charlie Powers, and G. B. Grayson. Dudley famously beat everyone with his rendition of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” Two years later, Dudley and his brother traveled to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to record three records for Okeh Records, under the band name Vance’s Tennessee Breakdowners. These were the last professional recordings done by Dudley. The museum has Edd Vance’s fiddle and several other items related to Dudley and Edd Vance on loan from their descendants.

*Edd “Red” Vance’s fiddle shows the wear of a lifetime of skilled fiddling. On loan from the descendants of Edd and Dudley Vance. © Birthplace of Country Music; photographer: Ashli Linkous*

Benny Sims was born on August 4, 1924 in Sevier County, Tennessee. Sims was drafted into the U.S. Army Air Corps and was stationed in Foggia, Italy during World War II. While in Italy, Sims played with the U.S. Air Force Orchestra. He played fiddle with the Morris Brothers, but he is best known for his time performing with Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. Sims recorded with Flatt & Scruggs over 25 times as part of the Bluegrass Boys, including on their famous “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”

*The cover of a music book, “Fiddle Favorite” by Benny Sims, pictured.*

After Sims left Flatt & Scruggs, he went to work for WNOX in Knoxville and WJHL-TV in Johnson City until he retired in the early 1960s. When he retired from the music industry he worked at Life & Casualty Insurance Company and gave private fiddle lessons. Just months before Sims’ death in 1995, the Birthplace of Country Music Alliance held a tribute to him at the Paramount Center for the Arts. Today, East Tennessee State University awards the Benny Sims Scholarship to one Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Roots Music Student each year.

This fiddle is on loan from Benny Sims’ family and is believed to be the one that he played on the “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” recording. On loan from the descendants of Benny Sims; © Birthplace of Country Music Museum; photographer: Ashli Linkous

The Carter Family on the Border Radio

History Museum

September 1, 2023

Posted on September 1, 2023December 6, 2023 by Guest Blogger

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

Here at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, we celebrate the 1927 Bristol Sessions that launched the recording careers of a number of traditional music acts, notably Country Music Hall of Fame artists Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family.

Three members of the Carter Family pose for a promotion photo taken in black and white. Maybelle Carter is seated holding a guitar and facing the camera. She is wearing a unique coat with a wooden clasp at the collar. Seated beside her is Sara Carter - she is holding an auto harp instrument in her lap and pressing the keys. She is wearing the same outfit as Maybelle, a unique coat with a wooden clasp at the collar. Leaning behind them is A.P. Carter, he is wearing a dark suit jacket and tie. — *The original Carter Family: Maybelle, A. P., and Sara Carter*

The Carter Family is now considered to be the “First Family of Country Music” after gaining commercial success and stardom from their 1927 Bristol Sessions recordings. The original group was a trio made up of A. P. Carter, his wife Sara Dougherty Carter, and Sara’s cousin Maybelle Addington Carter, who was married to A. P.’s brother Ezra “Eck” Carter. All three members of the Carter Family were born and raised in SouthWest, Virginia in an area called Poor Valley, Virginia (also known as Maces Springs) and were steeped in mountain musical traditions. Sara was the lead singer of the group – unusual for the time period – singing and playing guitar and autoharp, with Maybelle singing, playing lead guitar, and creating her own style of guitar playing known as the “Carter scratch”. A.P. Carter acted as songcatcher and band leader singing harmony vocals. In November 1927 and following months, the Victor record label released all six songs from the Carter Family’s Bristol Session recordings, and by the end of the 1930’s the group had sold over 300,000 records. As their popularity grew due to the success of the 1927 recordings, for years the group then recorded over 250 songs under the RCA Victor label, Decca and the American Record Corporation, had regular performances and saw great commercial success. But business slowed a bit during the 1930s as the Depression badly hurt consumer spending for things like record players and records. In addition to a collapsing economy, the Carters’ ability to tour was also hampered by the breakup of A. P. and Sara’s marriage, which was finalized in 1936, but the group still continued to record and perform together, even after Sara’s marriage to Coy Bays (A.P.’s cousin).

During the mid- late 1930’s, the Carter Family had a unique opportunity to take a job on the border of the U.S. and Mexico on the XERA radio station in Del Rio, Texas. The Consolidate Royal Chemical Corporation had contacted them with an offer to perform on their border radio station XERA daily. XERA was a 500 kilowatt border blaster, and the station’s location in Mexico had a powerful broadcasting signal with the ability to reach much of the U.S. with its broadcasting ability. With the possibility of reaching a national audience through XERA’s station, the Carter’s took the gig, which led to their next surge in popularity. This opportunity took them from their quiet country home in Southwest Virginia to living just across the Mexican border in Texas.

This is where this story gets odd: John Romulus Brinkley was the station manager at border radio station XERA and also the infamous “goat-gland doctor.” A “doctor” with specious credentials, Brinkley achieved fame and fortune in Kansas in the early days of radio by advertising surgical clinics where he performed xenotransplantations of goat testicles into humans. This supposed cure for male impotence was the foundation of a medical quackery empire worth millions of dollars. Chased out of Kansas and other states by outraged medical boards, he set up business across the border in Mexico, where the American limits on radio station power did not apply. Brinkley’s million-watt station XERA could be heard all the way to Canada and in 48 U.S. states.

a black and white image of a women and a man looking directly at the camera performing surgery on a person laying on a table with a white sheet placed over their body. The women is wearing a surgical hat, and round glasses. The man is to her right and also wearing a surgical hat and round glasses, and is holding a surgical tool in his hand and gloves — *“Doctor” John Romulus Brinkley performing a surgical procedure, date unknown. Image via LegendsofAmerica.com.*

In 1938, Brinkley’s Mexican based border radio station XERA featured obscure hillbilly acts who played on the Good Neighbors Get Together show. That show aired for four hours every night, and again the following morning. For six months out of the year in 1938 and 1939, the Carter Family and their children lived in Del Rio, Texas performing regular spots on the radio with the sessions being recorded. They were offered $75 a week – serious money at the time. The Carters agreed and took the opportunity despite A. P. and Sara’s uncomfortable domestic situation. During a radio segment in February of 1939, Sara dedicated a song, “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blues Eyes” to Coy Bays who was living in California – shortly afterwards the two were married and Sara moved to California. Brinkley’s empire was eventually brought down by a series of lawsuits and a federal mail fraud prosecution. He died bankrupt and penniless in 1942.

At this point the next generation of Carters appear in our story: A. P. and Sara’s children Gladys, Janette, and Joe, and Eck and Maybelle’s children, Helen, June, and Anita. The Carters did not want to disrupt their children’s schooling, so only the youngest child, five-year-old Anita, went with them the first year. Anita was part of the act and, as you can imagine, the other children, living with relatives in Virginia and listening to XERA at night, got very jealous. In subsequent years all of the children made the trip and sang on the radio shows.

A black and white image of three young girls, Anita, June and Helen Carter. The Girls are singing and dressed in the same overall dress outfit with bows at their necks. Helen is standing, singing and playing a guitar, June is in the middle touching an autoharp on a table in front of her, and Anita is smiling and singing. — *Maybelle’s daughters left to right: Anita, June and Helen during a 1941 photoshoot with Life Magazine that was never published. Image from Life.com*

The border radio shows were a great success. Young listeners to these radio programs included future country stars like Johnny Cash, Chet Atkins, Tom T. Hall, Waylon Jennings, and Buck Owens.

Each show was repeated the following morning. In those days, this was done by recording the evening show direct to “transcription disks”, a special phonograph record intended for, or recorded from, a radio broadcast. Nobody at the time thought much of the historical value of these disks. One story has it that they were sold to a Mexican contractor who used them as roofing tiles. Miraculously, seventeen disks with seventy-eight songs from the 1939 season were discovered in a San Antonio radio station in 1963 and were issued as LPs. The LPs are long out of print, but the recordings are available for purchase on the Internet in CD and mp3 formats, and are also posted on YouTube. Take a listen to these recordings here via this YouTube playlist.

The recordings are interesting alternate takes of previously recorded Carter Family songs, but also include previously unreleased songs. The border transcriptions are a bit shorter than the Carters’ commercial recordings on the Victor label, typically two minutes rather than three minutes long (perhaps shortened to save room for commercials), but the performances are flawless.

The original Carter Family disbanded in the 1940s, still performing together on occasions. Maybelle Carter and her daughters began performing as a separate act as “Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters” featuring Anita, Helen and June and also performed under the groups original name “The Carter Family”, after 1960. The musical legacy of the Carter Family is one that continues to play an impact on musicians and fans of music to this day.

This blog post is a condensation of a colorful story told at much greater length in the XERA chapter of the excellent book about the Carter Family by Mark Zwonitzer and Charles Hirschberg, Will You Miss Me While I’m Gone. Another source was Ed Kahn, The Carter Family on border radio (University of Illinois Press 1996).

Quick-Witted Women: Comedy and Country Music

Museum Music & Songs

August 16, 2023

Posted on August 16, 2023August 15, 2023 by Toni Doman

Left to right: Promotional images of Roni Stoneman as “Ida Lee” from Hee Haw from the Birthplace of Country Music Museum archives, Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon as Minnie Pearl sporting her signature hat and price tag courtesy of the Grand Ole Opry archives and Cynthia Mae Carver as Cousin Emmy courtesy of Georgia State University Digital Collections

Toni Doman-Vandyke is Grants Coordinator and Curatorial Specialist at the Birthplace of Country Music

August 16th is National Tell A Joke Day! Comedy and country music have a long and enduring history. From the extravagant days of vaudeville variety act performances in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to early barn dance radio programs of the 1930s, comedians and musicians were regularly featured.

The logo for the television show Hee Haw, a variety show featuring country music and humor in the fictional “Kornfield Kounty”

Comedians brought their wit – be it silly, old-fashioned, and sometimes crude – to the stage to entertain audiences, oftentimes with humor focused on a rural country lifestyle. Some of the first comedians to be a part of the WSM’s Grand Ole Opry program in the 1930s included Sarie and Sally, a female comedic duo, and arguably the Opry’s most well-known comedian, Minnie Pearl, who later went on to be a cast member of Hee Haw, which ran for 25 seasons from 1969 until 1993. Humor can break down boundaries, engage and entertain people, and has the ability to connect listeners and audiences deeply through a shared experience of laughter. Comedy is deeply intertwined with the genres of and relating to country music, with many memorable funny and satirical songs by musicians through the years. Today contemporary artists still carry on the tradition of writing ironic, satirical and humorous songs.

I’m a huge fan of side-splitting country songs, with some of my earliest musical memories include “discovering” Ray Stevens and “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival“,and listening to every whimsical goofy tune by Roger Miller (personal favorite: “My Uncle Used to Love Me But She Died”). Upon doing research for this blog post, I found that most “funny country songs” are written and performed by male artists. However, female performers – despite historically facing challenges, such as the assumption that women aren’t funny and gender discrimination surrounding what might be appropriate for a female performer to sing or speak about on stage – have made their comic mark in the country genre too. Therefore, to celebrate National Tell a Joke Day, here’s a roundup of music and stories by some of my favorite funny female country music comedians and entertainers. From Cousin Emmy to Dolly Parton, women have been getting the last laugh for years!

Lulu Belle and Scotty – “Store Bought Teeth”
How are false teeth like stars?
They come out at night!

This novelty song about “store bought teeth” by Lulu Belle (born Myrtle Eleanor Cooper) and Scotty Wiseman features comical lyrics of problems that might just occur should you have fake teeth and you dig into the taffy candy (not advised). Lulu Belle and Scotty were known as “The Sweethearts of Country Music” first meeting one another on the WLS National Barn Dance in the mid 1930s. Together they both had successful careers in country music performing across the Midwest and even appeared in seven films.

“Well a feller called and said his name was Slim, and he wanted me to work for him
And I said boy I always aim to please
So I signed upon the dotted line and everything was just going fine
Then he led me to a 90 foot trapeze

Well he handed me some kites like them folks wear
And he pulled me way up in the air
Then hollered “hang on by your teeth and wait!”
And then it happened the things I feared
When the screaming stopped and the dust had cleared
The only thing hanging was my plate

Store bought teeth and taffy candy
Store bought teeth and taffy candy”

Cousin Emmy on Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest
What kind of music do balloons hate?
Pop.

Cynthia Mae Carver, known professionally as Cousin Emmy, began playing music as a young girl, mastering the fiddle, banjo, guitar, harmonica, ukulele, and musical saw, and even playing music on a rubber glove. She performed on local radio stations, and in 1935 she won the National Old Time Fiddlers’ Contest, which brought her better gigs and eventually larger radio markets in Knoxville, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri. Very few recorded performances exist of Cousin Emmy, though this excerpt from the 1944 film “Swing in the Saddle” by Lew Landers features one of her stage performances during her career heyday. The video below features another rare recording from Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest, a program focused on folk music. At mark 7:30 of the video, you can catch Cousin Emmy playing “You Are My Sunshine” on the rubber glove!

Roni Stoneman – “Going Up Cripple Creek”
How can you tell the difference between all the banjo songs?
By their names.

Veronica “Roni” Stoneman is an accomplished banjo player and comedian, and she was a long-time cast member of Hee Haw from 1972 to 1990, known for playing the skillet-wielding “Ida Lee Nagger” character, as seen in this YouTube clip. She is the 14th child and youngest daughter of Ernest and Hattie Stoneman, old-time artists who recorded at the 1927 Bristol Sessions. With a career spanning a lifetime in music and stage performances, Roni is a true entertainer. This video of “Going Up Cripple Creek” features a performance by the Stoneman Family from 1967, with Roni playing the banjo with a stoic attitude and expression-less face, totally out of character (but still a hilarious performance) from her normal upbeat and energetic stage personality.

Mother Maybelle and The Carter Sisters – “Well I Guess I Told You Off”
Did you hear about the cow that tried to jump the fence and missed?
Utter disaster.

Some of my absolute favorite funny recordings feature Mother Maybelle Carter and The Carter Sisters with tunes like “Root Hog Or Die”, “Too Old To Cut the Mustard” and “Well I Guess I Told You Off” when sisters Helen, June, and Anita each take turns singing lines of the chorus. Their amusing performances always make me laugh!

The three daughters of Maybelle Carter began performing with her publicly as The Carter Sisters after the original Carter Family (A. P., Sara, and Maybelle) disbanded in 1943. The Carter Sisters appeared on numerous radio and television shows, performed live, and became regulars on the Grand Ole Opry. June, in particular, honed her comedic skills with the group, bringing a folksy charm and humor to many of their stage performances.

“If brains were thousand dollar bills
I’d tell you what we’d bet
You wouldn’t have enough
To buy a cup of coffee yet

Well, that ain’t the way I heared it
But here’s a thought for you
Your’s might as well be coffee grounds
For all the thinking they’ll do

Well I guess I told you off
That ought to hold you for a spell
Furthermore if you don’t like it
You can pack tonight, get out of sight
And go jump in the well!”

Dolly Parton – Songwriter and Storyteller
“I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb…and I also know that I’m not blonde.” – Dolly Parton

Finally, this clip features legendary living musician and singer-songwriter Dolly Parton, highlighting her character and charisma through humor and storytelling – a regular hallmark of her shows and appearances. With a successful career spanning over 50 years, she released her first album Hello I’m Dolly, in February of 1967, which included her first hit, “Dumb Blonde,” a song that called out female stereotypes. Soon after she was invited to be the regular “girl singer” on The Porter Wagoner Show. At the six-minute mark in the video below, Dolly dives into a witty and humorous tale as a guest on The Tonight Show, cracking the entire audience up by the end of her tale.

If you liked the female artists and their featured funny songs, check out these additional hilarious comedic country songs by female artists: