The year was 1927. Charles Lindbergh became the first individual to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean; famed New York Yankee slugger, Babe Ruth, hit sixty home runs in a single season; the Ford Motor Company ceased production of its “Tin Lizzie’ in favor of their highly popular Model T automobile; “The Jazz Singer” signaled the end of silent movies, ushering in the first motion picture with a sound track; and Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry launched its first radio broadcast.

In the spring of that same year, two relatively forgotten events occurred in Johnson City that would factor into the equation that eventually propelled a struggling unknown singer into the role as the “Father of Country Music.” His name… Jimmie Rodgers. Also known as “The Singing Brakeman” and the “The Blue Yodeler,” the singer would become the first nationally known star of country music, influencing future generations of wannabe vocalists. His career was succinct yet significant, cut short at age 35 after a losing battle with tuberculosis.

Jimmie’s brass plaque in the Country Music Hall of Fame proclaims “Jimmie Rodgers' name stands foremost in the country music field as the man who started it all.” The epitaph on his statue at the Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Museum in Meridian, Mississippi reads… “His is the music of America. He sang the songs of the people he loved, of a young nation growing strong. His was an America of glistening rails, thundering boxcars, and rain-swept nights, of lonesome prairies, great mountains and a high blue sky. He sang of the bayous and the cornfields, the wheated plains, of the little towns, the cities, and of the winding rivers of America.”  

The then-struggling performer made two visits to Johnson City to take advantage of some opportunities afforded him by the city’s rich musical heritage. By this time, he and his wife, Carrie, were residing in Asheville, North Carolina, where he had become a regular entertainer over radio station WWNC.

Rodger’s first trip to Johnson City transpired soon after he became knowledgeable of the upcoming 52^ndDistrict Rotary Clubs’ annual convention being held on April 24-26. As an added attraction, the service club featured entertainment.Upon arrival, the future “blue yodeler” was given an opportunity to perform on several entertainment programs being offered to the attendees during the three-day event.

In addition to Rodgers, numerous other talents arrived from across the area, including a very popular group from Bristol, the Tenneva Ramblers, choosing their abbreviated name from the fact that the city’s main street is divided between Tennessee and Virginia. The spirited group consisted of Claude Grant (lead vocals, guitar), Jack Grant (mandolin), and Jack Pierce (fiddle). Greatly impressed with this band, Jimmie invited the three young chaps to return with him to Asheville to broadcast over WWNC, giving the slightly embellished impression that he was rapidly becoming a celebrity. The Ramblers were overwhelmed at the thought of performing with Rodgers over radio; they reasoned the exposure would bring them fame and wealth.

However, the popular band had to decline Jimmie’s enticing offer because they were heavily booked with numerous musical venues across the region. Sensing the trio might later reconsider his offer, Rodgers gave them specific instructions on how to contact him after he returned to North Carolina. At the conclusion of the Rotary convention, the future superstar drove back to Asheville, returning to the airwaves with another performer, Otis Kuykendall. However, this two-person arrangement yielded very little listener support, resulting in low wages for the pair.

The “Singing Brakeman” was in a quandary, trying to find his niche to satisfy the craving appetites of a rapidly increasing number of country music fans. He began to lean heavily toward his roots, favoring basic folk or “hillbilly” music, a word that had become identified with this musical genre after Al Hopkins used it in January 1925 to name his Virginia-based string band. Rodgers was unaware that, at that precise moment, country music record pioneer, Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company, was making preparations to record local area talent using a portable field unit. 

After the Tenneva Ramblers finished their planned engagements, they hurriedly contacted Jimmie who told them the radio offer was still valid. Without haste, they packed their few belongings and headed toward Asheville in a worn-out jalopy, riding on slick tires and traveling over unpaved mountainous roads so steep, winding, and treacherous, they were almost impassable.

The Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers

Upon arrival, the Ramblers and Rodgers immediately acquired a new name: the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers, firmly establishing the performer as the leader of the assemblage. Their radio stint would prove to be a brief one; the station bosses did not like the music they were playing and singing. Thus they began working anywhere they could find appearances, all the while earning a paltry income. Times were not good for the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers. 

In June 1927, the group made a second visit to Johnson City, this time attracted by news of an upcoming Trade Exposition and Tri-State Fair (now called the Appalachian District Fair). In the midst of the massive crowds and merriment was the promise of continuous musical entertainment… and money.

Rodgers’ big break came during a stop-over in Bristol with his group to visit their families. While strolling through downtown, he observed crowds of people lining up outside a vacant building on the Tennessee side of State Street, there to audition for Ralph Peer, who had selected Bristol as his site of operation. The train of opportunity the singer had been searching for had finally arrived.

When Jimmie approached his band members about auditioning for Peer, he unexpectedly found them somewhat disinterested, thinking they had nothing worthy of putting on wax. However, they agreed to it because of their dismal financial situation. Nonetheless, just prior to the try-out, the group became engaged in a heated argument over the name that would be used on any future records and summarily disbanded. The three Bristol boys quickly returned to their old designation, the Tenneva Ramblers, and auditioned separately for Peer.

Not to be deterred by the sudden loss of his band, Jimmie sang solo and was afforded the opportunity to record two songs: “”The Soldier's Sweetheart” and his future classic, “Sleep, Baby, Sleep,” receiving $100 for two hours and twenty minutes of studio work. Without even realizing it, Jimmie was on his way toward superstardom, with appearances and additional recording contracts just around the corner. Sadly, he would have just six brief years to establish his legacy.

Had Jimmie Rodgers not come to Johnson City in 1927, not met the Tenneva Ramblers at the Rotary Club convention, not returned for the fair, and not visited Bristol with his band, it is quite possible that he would not have known about or had the opportunity to participate in the now famous “Bristol Sessions”.

Rodgers could have become just another country music hopeful in the annals of time, fading into obscurity, instead of achieving the prestigious title of the “Father of Country Music.” Bristol may claim most of the accolades for his monumental success, but Johnson City justifiably deserves at least a share of the credit.  

For most of this century, the upper East Tennessee region has truly been blessed with a profusion of high-quality old-time musicians. The mere mention of “old-time music” conjures up images of a string band, casually dressed in characteristic mountain attire, playing distinctive deep-south non-amplified toe-tapping dance music on their well-worn and sometimes hand-me-down instruments.

This simple phrase evokes such language as “Appalachian style,” “authentic,” “acoustical,” “old fashioned,” “grass roots,” “hillbilly,” “pre-bluegrass, ”and “rural American.”

The late folklorist Alan Lomax, an ethnomusicologist once affiliated with the Library of Congress, painted a much broader picture of the genre, defining it as music rich in “cultural continuity,” giving its listeners a feeling of security, symbolizing the places where they were born, and evoking their earliest childhood satisfactions. Indeed, this expansive description denotes more than just instruments and ethnicity; it extends into the more complex social and natural environments that nurtured this important musical style.

Several nearby cities were noteworthy in promulgation of old-time music, the most legendary probably being Mountain City’s annual Fiddlers Convention that originated in 1925. Bristol’s offerings included WOPI’s “Saturday Night Jamboree,” WCYB’s “Farm and Fun Time,” and Ralph Peer’s 1927 “Bristol Sessions” for the Victor Talking Machine Company.

Knoxville established its niche with WROL’s “The Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour” and WNOX’s “Midday Merry-Go-Round” and “Tennessee Barn Dance.” Elizabethton’s Bonnie Kate Theatre hosted WJHL’s “Barrel of Fun”; Kingsport followed suit with WKPT's “Saturday Night Hayride.” Throughout the years, Jonesborough, the oldest town in Tennessee, has routinely sponsored music concerts on the square in front of its bravura downtown Court House.

Not content to simply play “second fiddle” to its neighbors, Johnson City has made its own significant contributions to old-time music, producing a hotbed of some of the best musicians in the country. Between 1920 and 1950, several downtown establishments, most of which have been demolished and long forgotten, made a number of offerings to the city’s music culture. Their important stories unquestionably merit being remembered and revered by the populace.

In the 1920s, an outdoor event frequently occurred on Saturday nights along the east side of Fountain Square (opposite the railroad tracks). The occurrence was within a few yards of where Henry Johnson, the city’s founder, wisely built a dwelling in 1854 in anticipation of the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad being built through the area. After the merchants closed and locked their stores on Saturday nights, the locals would begin filtering in from miles around to play their music, drawing huge crowds of appreciative spectators. Fitting the mold of modern day jam sessions, these musicians spanned the talent range from the most experienced celebrities to the least skilled aspirants, all equally welcomed to participate.

The Deluxe Theatre

In the spring of 1924, the Deluxe Theatre at 148 West Main Street was a beautiful new vaudeville complex with its massive thirty-foot stage, twelve dressing rooms, elaborately decorated balcony, eight guest boxes, and 1250 plush seats. This highly functional building regularly hosted old-time music shows, including “high class” fiddle contests at which the fiddlers sat in a long row across the stage, neatly dressed in surprisingly formal attire, and facing a panel of stern-looking judges along the front row seats.

Contestants would alternately be beckoned to center stage where they would anxiously play a specially selected fiddle tune, and then sit back down and wait, hoping to take home the top prize, and more importantly, the pride that accompanied it. The theatre edifice would later carry such names as the Capital Theatre, the Tennessee Theatre, and finally the Capri Theatre before being razed in 1985.

On October 16, 1928, the Brading-Marshall Lumber Company’s business office at 312 East Main Street became the scene of a myriad of local musicians, each auditioning for a potential record contract with Columbia Records. A slender middle-aged man, with a straggly beard, listened intently as each individual or group played music, in hopes of being invited back that same week for a recording session in their rented temporary makeshift studio.

Frank Buckley Walker, head of Columbia Records’ “hillbilly” recordings’ division, was known by Johnson Citians simply as “Uncle Fuzz”. He acquired his unusual nickname from having always grown a beard before making such audition trips, perhaps believing that he could better relate with the people he was recording. Walker had learned from Ralph Peer of Okeh Records (later switching to Victor Records) that the best way to capture the true inherent nature of these musicians was to record them in their natural environments. Historians would later tag his pioneering efforts as the “Johnson City Sessions.”

During 1929, the management of the Watauga Swimming Pool, located at the corner of West Market Street and Watauga Avenue, learned that they could boost their sales by hiring old-time musicians, giving their customers another reason to patronize their natatorium. The Johnson City Chronicle incorporated a clever advertising promotion by awarding to two lucky subscribers two free tickets, forcing the readership to closely scrutinize the classified ads in order to locate the two small ads containing the names of the winners. This pool would later be known as the Sur Joi and the Carver Pool.

In the 1930s, both the Majestic Theatre at 239 East Main Street and the Sevier Theatre at 117 Spring Street ventured into “big time” vaudeville by occasionally hosting New Year’s Eve celebrations, incorporating a wide variety of local talent. One notable program at the Majestic Theatre featured the grumpy “Old Man Depression of 1932”, yielding at the stroke of midnight to the young and pretty “Miss Prosperity of 1933”, bringing a cheering standing ovation from the audience, who displayed their underlying hope for economic recovery after several years of lingering depression. 

In the 1940s, the City Hall building at 200 West Market Street was the site of weekly Saturday night shows, carrying such names as “The Railsplitters’ Jamboree” and “The Smokey Mountain Jamboree”. The city government would open the doors to its main auditorium, allowing performers to play their music on stage, usually to a packed house, and often featuring an unusual diversity of acts, ranging from a song jamboree to a miniature circus.  

Johnson City produced numerous other musical venues including the Big Burley Warehouse’s “Barn Dance,” concerts at “Mountain Home’s” Memorial Hall, Rich-R-Tone’s Recording Studio, WETB’s live broadcasts of local entertainers, the annual “Gray’s Station Fair,” and countless others. Johnson Citians can take great pride in the fact that their city has continuously fostered old-time music, with the rewards being a new bumper crop of talented musicians, both young and old, emerging onto the playing field almost daily — keeping the tradition alive.