Johnson City Sessions

The songs outlived the auditions. Frank Walker's Columbia crew set up in a makeshift studio and, in 1928 and again in 1929, recorded dozens of local acts, including Clarence Ashley's clawhammer "Coo Coo Bird" and Charlie Bowman and His Brothers' "Roll on Buddy," now a bluegrass standard. Clarence Greene cut "Johnson City Blues." Scholars treat the sessions as important early country music, and their records later reached revival musicians such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Doc Watson.

What the plaque says

Johnson City Sessions In October 1928 Frank Walker of Columbia Records hosted recording auditions at 334 East Main Street. Charlie Bowman and his brothers, Clarence Greene, and the Roane County Ramblers were among the artists recorded. These sessions pioneered the art of remote recording, designed to record undiscovered talent in the area. Walker returned to Johnson City in October 1929 for a second round of recordings that included Clarence "Tom" Ashley.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sycamore Shoals State Historic Park — 5.7 mi
  A shoal on the Watauga River where the Transylvania Company bought about 20 million acres from the Cherokee in March 1775, Dragging Canoe refused, and the Overmountain Men mustered in 1780.
• Rocky Mount Museum — 6.1 mi
  William Cobb's log house at Piney Flats, where Governor William Blount ran the Southwest Territory from 1790 to 1792, now a living-history museum set in 1791 with a reconstructed cabin for the enslaved.
• Jonesborough Historic District — 6.9 mi
  Tennessee's oldest town, chartered in 1779, where Elihu Embree printed The Emancipator in 1820 and a hay wagon by the courthouse started the National Storytelling Festival in 1973.
• Unicoi County Heritage Museum and the Erwin Rail Yard — 11 mi
  A museum in the old fish hatchery superintendent's house in Erwin, a Clinchfield railroad town where the elephant Mary was hanged in 1916 and Black residents were driven out in 1918.

More markers nearby

• Johnson City Incorporated December 1, 1869 — 0.2 mi
• East Tennessee & Western North Carolina (ET & WNC) Depot — 0.3 mi
• Langston High School — 0.4 mi
• State Flag — 0.4 mi