Nashville 1928 Various Artists – Complete Recorded Works

In 1928 Victor Records decided to record the Opry artists it had “found”. The Victor crew arrived in Nashville in the last week of Setember. The first session with the Blinkley Brothers Dixie Clodhoppers was unrewarding. But after the weekend Victor tried again, devoting Monday to four sides by the Gully Jumpers and Tuesday to remaking the Blinkley’s four songs and cutting four more. Over the following weeks artists such as the 45 year old fiddler Theron Hale and his daughters, another family group the Polin-Woods Tennessee String Band, the Crook Brothers String Band and the fiddler Blind Joe Mangrum recorded for Victor. Most of these were issued and can be heard on this Document Records release. Victor for it’s part called none of these Nashville bands back for further recordings and the company did not record in the city again for almost two decades. By then the Grand Ole Opry and country music itself had moved a long way from the cheerful amateurism whoose spirit is so vividly captured on the small pile of discs by the Crooks, the Binkleys and their kind.