• Track Listing

"The single most important event in the history of country music." That’s not us or Bear Family talking—that’s what Johnny Cash called this matchless storehouse of traditional American music. Victor Records went to Bristol, Tennessee in ’27 and made the first recordings of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers—plus ballad singers, string bands, harmonica masters, gospel quartets, street evangelists, rural raconteurs and more. Here’s the first collection of every surviving track from those sessions and their ultra-rare 1928 follow-ups. A 128-page, LP-sized hardcover book with unpublished photos and details about the artists and tracks joins "The Wandering Boy," "The Poor Orphan Child" Carter Family; "Sleep Baby Sleep," "The Soldier’s Sweetheart" Jimmie Rodgers; "No More Good-Byes," "I Am Resolved" Ernest V. Stoneman; "Shine on Me" Ernest Phipps and more! Bear Family.