Commercial recordings of country music had begun in 1922. Among these very early artists were
Vernon Dalhart, who recorded the million-selling "
Wreck of the Old 97";
Ernest Stoneman from
Galax, Virginia;
Henry Whitter;
A.C. (Eck) Robertson, who recorded the first documented country record along with Henry C. Gilliland ("Sallie Gooden" b/w "Arkansaw Traveler"); and
Uncle Dave Macon. However, any "hillbilly" artists who recorded had to travel to the
New York City studios of the major labels, and many artists, including Dalhart, were not true "hillbilly" artists but instead crossed over from other genres.
Okeh Records and later
Columbia Records had sent producers around the South in an attempt to discover new talent. Peer, who worked for Okeh at the time, recorded
Fiddlin' John Carson using the old acoustic method (known for its large intrusive sound-gathering horn) in 1923, at the behest of the
Okeh dealer in
Atlanta, Georgia, Polk Brockman. Despite Peer's belief that the record was of poor quality, the 500 copies made of "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" and "The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going to Crow" sold out in weeks. This experience convinced Peer of the potential for "hillbilly" music. Peer left Okeh for the Victor Talking Machine Company, taking a salary of $1 per year. However, Peer owned the publishing rights to all the recordings he made. Peer's arrangement of paying
royalties to artists based on sales is the basis for record contracts today, and the company he founded,
Peermusic, remains in existence today. The birth of electrical recording in 1925 allowed records to have a sound better than radio, which had threatened to reduce the recording industry to irrelevance in the early 1920s. This new method allowed softer instruments such as
dulcimers, guitars and jaw harps to be heard, and it also meant recording equipment was somewhat more portable – and as such, recordings could be made nearly anywhere (the cumbersome acoustic equipment was not really portable.) Peer asked Ernest Stoneman, who had recorded for Okeh, how to find more rural talent. Stoneman convinced Peer to travel through southern
Appalachia and record artists who would have been unable to travel to New York. Peer recognized the potential with the mountain music, as even residents of Appalachia who did not have electricity often owned hand-cranked
Victrolas, or other phonographs. He decided to make a trip, hoping to record blues, gospel and "hillbilly" music. Artists were paid $50 cash on the spot for each side cut, and 2½ cents for each single sold. In February and March, he made a trip recording blues and gospel music, and decided to make another trip. He decided to make a stop in
Savannah, Georgia and
Charlotte, North Carolina. He settled on Bristol (at the urging of Stoneman) as a third stop, because with
Johnson City and
Kingsport, Tennessee, it formed the
Tri-Cities, the largest urban area in the Appalachians at the time. In addition, three other record companies had held or were scheduling auditions for Bristol. So Peer set out with his wife and two engineers for Bristol. ==The Sessions==