Bristol's State Street and the 1927 Sessions

State Street in Bristol is also the Tennessee-Virginia line, and in the summer of 1927 the Tennessee side of it held one of the most consequential rooms in American music. Ralph Peer, a producer for the Victor Talking Machine Company, set up a makeshift studio on the upper floors of the Taylor-Christian Hat Company building, at 408 State Street. Between July 25 and August 5 he recorded 76 songs by 19 performers or groups. The building was razed years ago. A Tennessee state marker unveiled in 2009 now stands at 410 State Street.

Peer paid $50 a side and 2.5 cents for each record sold, and he kept the publishing rights, an arrangement that became the template for later recording contracts. Ernest Stoneman, a Virginian, recorded first, on July 25. A.P., Sara and Maybelle Carter recorded on August 1 and 2, with Sara singing lead and 18-year-old Maybelle playing an influential guitar style. Jimmie Rodgers recorded alone on August 4, after a quarrel with his band, which recorded as the Tenneva Ramblers. El Watson recorded on July 28, and a Black blues duo, Steve Tarter and Harry Gay, came to the 1928 follow-up sessions.

The Birthplace of Country Music Museum stands a few blocks away on the Virginia side. It opened in 2014 and carries the story indoors, and a low-power radio station, WBCM, broadcasts from inside it. A mural of Peer and the artists he recorded is in downtown Bristol. The Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion fills the street with bands on the third weekend of September.