Rural Rhythm : The Story of Old-Time Country Music in 78 Records

Music historian Tony Russell explores a collection of records of early country music from the 1920s and ’30s, unlocking and revealing their hidden stories. The seventy-eight essays on selected 78rpm discs explain what they tell us about the musicians who sang and played the songs and tunes, the listeners who absorbed them, and the development of the genre—old-time music—in which they found a home. To illuminate their world, the author details how they were recorded, the intentions and interventions of the companies that made the recordings, and their fates once they were issued. There are songs, and stories of songs, about home and family, love and courtship, marriage and separation, childhood and schooldays, old age and death, crime and punishment, farms and floods, chain gangs and chain stores, wagons and automobiles, dogs and mules, drink, disasters, jokes, journeys, money, memories, and much more. Drawing on new research, contemporary newspapers, and previously unpublished interviews, Rural Rhythm charts the tempos and styles of rural and small-town music-making, and the gearshift that accelerated country music from the barndance pace of the 1920s to the hyperdrive of late-’30s proto-bluegrass and Western Swing: from “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane” to “New San Antonio Rose.” At the same time, it notates the larger rural rhythm of life in these years in the South, Southwest, and Midwest, with its recreations, its rituals, and its oddities, to produce a narrative that blends the musical and social history of the era. "Levee Breaking Blues"--Parts I and II / Happy Bud Harrison (Vocalion 5332) (1929) -- "Over the Hills to the Poorhouse" / W. C. Childers (Champion 45166) (1929) -- "Haunted Hunter" / Billie Maxwell (The Cowgirl Singer) (Victor V- 40241) (1929) -- "Lonely Cowboy"- Parts 1 and 2 / Arthur Miles (Victor V- 40156) (1929) -- "Sugar Hill"/ "Fresno Blues" / "Dad" Crockett/ Johnny & Albert Crockett (Brunswick 372) (1929) -- "Tim Brook" / Carver Boys (Paramount 3199) (1929) -- "Tennessee Coon Hunt"/ "Hen Cacklin' Piece" / Whit Gaydon (Victor V- 40315) (1929) -- "Where the Sweet Magnolias Bloom" / Taylor-Griggs Louisiana Melody Makers (Victor V- 4184) (1929) -- "Three Men Went a Hunting" / Byrd Moore and His Hot Shots (Columbia 15496- D) (1929) -- "Down on Penny's Farm" / The Bentley Boys (Columbia 15565- D) (1929) -- "The Fate of Rhoda Sweetin" / Charles Freshour and The Lonely Eagles (Paramount 3247) (1929) -- "Cotton Mill Girl" / Earl McCoy and Jessie Brock (Columbia 15499- D) (1929) -- "The Roamin' Musician" / Bill Tuttle (Columbia 15697- D) (1929) -- "That's the Blue Heaven for Me"/ "Since I've Grown So Used to You" / George E. Harris (Columbia 15543- D) (1930) -- "Streak o' Lean- Streak o' Fat" / A. A. Gray and Seven Foot Dilly (Vocalion 5430) (1930) -- "Salvation Is for All" / Rev. Edward Boone (Gennett 7248) (1930) -- "The Bald Headed End of the Broom"/ "The Nick Nack Song" / Ridgel's Fountain Citians (Vocalion 5455) (1930) -- "Forty Per Cent" / Earl McCoy, Alfred Meng and Clem Garner (Columbia 15622- D) (1930) -- "I've Got the Chain Store Blues" / Allen Brothers (Victor V- 40276) (1930) -- "My Father Doesn't Love Me" / Louis McDaniel--Gid Smith [Lewis McDaniel] (Timely Tunes C- 1560) (1930) -- "Flat Wheel Train Blues"-- Nos. 1 and 2 / Red Gay and Jack Wellman (Brunswick 523) (1930) -- "Got the Jake Leg Too" / Ray Brothers (Victor 23508) (1930) -- "The Night Herding Song" / Marc Williams (Panachord 25510) (1930) -- "Eleven More Months and Ten More Days"--Parts 1 and 2 / Colt Brothers acc. Rex Cole Mountaineers (Panachord 25029) (1931) -- "When Katie Comes Down to the Gate"/ "A Little White Rose" / Murphy Bros. (Superior 2716) (1931) -- "Prosperity Is Just Around Which Corner?"/ "What Are You Squawkin' About?" Carson Robison Trio (Conqueror 7935) (1932) -- "That's My Rabbit--My Dog Caught It" / Walter Family (Champion S- 16653) (1933) -- "Chinatown, My Chinatown" / Milton Brown and His Brownies (Decca 5166) (1935) -- "Bankhead Blues" / Nations Brothers (Shelton and Marshall) (Vocalion 03118) (1935) -- "Feels Good"/ "Let Me Play with It" / Hartman's Heart Breakers (Bluebird B- 6481) (1936) -- "Those Rambling Blues" / Steelman Sisters (Melotone 6- 11- 69) (1936) -- "Courtin' "/ "V-8 Blues" / Three Tobacco Tags (Bluebird B- 6730) (1936) -- "Wondering" /Riverside Ramblers (Bluebird B- 6926) (1937) -- "The Last Letter" / Rex Griffin (Decca 5383) (1937) -- "Hello Stranger" / The Carter Family (Decca 5479) (1937) -- "Cotton Mill Blues" / Lester (The Highway Man) [Lester "Pete" Bivins] (Decca 5559) (1938) -- "Guitar Blues"/ "Sweet Hawaiian Chimes" / The DeZurik Sisters (Caroline and Mary Jane) (Conqueror 9252) (1938) -- "Truck Driver's Blues" / Cliff Bruner and His Boys (Decca 5725) (1939) -- "New San Antonio Rose" / Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys (Vocalion/ Okeh 05694) (1940) "Blue Yodel" / Jimmie Rodgers (Victor 21142) (1927) -- "Combination Rag" / East Texas Serenaders (Columbia 15229- D) (1927) -- "Davy"/ "Greenback Dollar" / Weems String Band (Columbia 15300- D) (1927) -- "Handy Man"/ "I Tickled 'Em" / New Arkansas Travelers (Victor 21288) (1928) -- "Hog Eye" / Pope's Arkansas Mountaineers (Victor 21295) (1928) -- "The Bluefield Murder" / Roy Harvey and North Carolina Ramblers (Brunswick 250) (1928) -- "A Fiddler's Contest" / The Tennessee Ramblers (Brunswick 257) (1928) -- "Rye Waltz"/ "Medley--Scottische" / Bob Skiles Four Old Tuners (Okeh 45211) (1928) -- "Hallelujah! I'm a Bum"/ "The Bum Song" / "Mac" (Harry McClintock) (Victor 21343) (1928) -- "Home Again Medley" / Red Mountain Trio (Columbia 15260- D) (1928) -- "A Red- Headed Widow Was the Cause of It All"/ "Don't Get One Woman on Your Mind" Willard Hodgin (Banjo Joe) (Victor 21485) (1928) -- "Stay in the Wagon Yard" / "Peg" Moreland (Victor V- 40008) (1928) -- "Eleven Cent Cotton Forty Cent Meat"--Parts 1 and 2 / Bob Ferguson [Bob Miller] (Columbia 15297- D) (1928) -- "Lindy"/ "Louise" Proximity String Quartet (Columbia 15533- D) (1928) -- "When the Roses Bloom for the Bootlegger" / Earl Shirkey and Roy Harper [Roy Harvey] (Columbia 15326- D) (1928) -- "Just Over the River"/ "Beautiful" / Garland Brothers and Grinstead / (Columbia 15679- D) (1928) -- "The Lost Child" / Stripling Brothers (Vocalion 5321) (1928) -- "Who Broke the Lock on the Hen- House Door?"/ "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain When She Comes" / H. M. Barnes and His Blue Ridge Ramblers (Brunswick 310) (1929) -- "Wimbush Rag"/ "Barrow County Stomp" / Theo. and Gus Clark (Okeh 45339) (1929) -- "Birmingham Jail"/ "Six Months Ain't Long" / Ezra Hill and Henry Johnson [Robinette and Moore]/ Marlow and Young [Rutherford and Foster] (Champion 15750) (1929) -- "Henry Ford's Model A"/ "Married Life Blues" / Oscar Ford (Columbia 15437- D) (1929) -- "Flop Eared Mule"/ "Lynchburg Town" / The Highlanders (Paramount 3171) (1929) "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" / Fiddlin' John Carson (Okeh 4890) (1923) -- "Silly Bill"/ "Old Time Cinda" / The Hill Billies (Okeh 40294) (1925) -- "Woman's Suffrage" / George Reneau (Vocalion 14999) (1925) -- "The Death of Floyd Collins"/ "Little Mary Phagan" / Vernon Dalhart (Columbia 15031- D) (1925) -- "When the Work's All Done This Fall" / Carl T. Sprague (Victor 19747) (1925) -- "Seneca Square Dance"/ "Echoes of the Ozarks" / Fiddlin' Sam Long (Gennett 3284) (1926) -- "Wish to the Lord I Had Never Been Born" / Luther B. Clarke Accomp. by Blue Ridge Highballers (Columbia 15096- D) (1926) -- "Where We'll Never Grow Old"/ "Pictures from Life's Other Side" / Smith's Sacred Singers / (Columbia 15090- D) (1926) -- "Let Me Call You Sweetheart"/ "Sweet Bunch of Daisies" / McMichen's Melody Men (Columbia 15111- D) (1926) -- "I'm a Stern Old Bachelor" / Chubby Parker (Silvertone 5012) (1927) -- "Going Slow"/ "Spartanburg Blues" / Homer Christopher and Raney Van Vink (Okeh 45117) (1927) -- "Carbolic Rag"/ "Stone Mountain Wobble" / Scottdale String Band (Okeh 45118) (1927) -- "Chain Gang Special"/ "Walk Right in Belmont" / Watts and Wilson (Paramount 3019) (1927) -- "Gray Eagle"/ "Forked Deer" / Hill's Virginia Mountaineers [Taylor's Kentucky Boys] (Silvertone 8183) (1927) -- "The Picture on the Wall"/ "My Carolina Girl" / Georgia Yellow Hammers (Victor 20943) (1927) -- "You Can't Make a Monkey out of Me" / Eva Quartette with W. J. Smith (Gennett 6239) (1927) -- "A Corn Licker Still in Georgia"--Parts 1 and 2 / Clayton McMichen, Riley Puckett, Gid Tanner, Lowe Stokes, Fate Norris, Bob Nichols, and Bill Brown (Columbia 15201- D) (1927) "Many words have been dedicated to biographies and histories of early country music and its creators, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the actual songs at the heart of these narratives. In this groundbreaking book, music historian Tony Russell turns the spotlight on a vast archive of recordings from the 1920s and 1930s and uncovers the hidden stories of how they were recorded, the interventions of record companies that shaped them, the musicians who played them, and the listeners who absorbed them. In seventy-eight essays on selected 78rpm discs that draw on new research, contemporary newspapers, and previously unpublished interviews, readers will meet songs about home and family, love and courtship, crime and punishment, farms and floods, chain gangs and chain stores, journeys and memories-in other words, almost every facet of the human experience. In this way, Rural Rhythm not only charts the tempos and styles of rural and small-town music-making and the development of the country genre but also retraces the larger rhythms of rural life in the American South, Southwest, and Midwest. What emerges is a narrative that ingeniously blends the musical and social history of the era"-- Provided by publisher There are many biographies and histories of early country music and its creators, but surprisingly little attention has been given to the actual songs at the heart of these narratives. In this groundbreaking book, music historian Tony Russell turns the spotlight on seventy-eight original 78rpm discs of songs and tunes from the 1920s and 1930s, uncovering the hidden stories of how they came to be recorded, the musicians who sang and played them, the record companies that marketed them, and the listeners who absorbed them. In these essays, based upon new research, contemporary newspaper accounts, and previously unpublished interviews, and copiously illustrated with rare images, readers will find songs about home and family, love and courtship, crime and punishment, farms and floods, chain gangs and chain stores, journeys and memories, and many other aspects of life in the period. Rural Rhythm not only charts the tempos and styles of rural and small-town music-making and the origins of present-day country music, but also traces the larger rhythms of life in the American South, Southwest, and Midwest. What emerges is a narrative that ingeniously blends the musical and social history of the era.