{"id":3684,"date":"2025-10-31T20:00:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T00:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3684"},"modified":"2025-10-28T11:19:41","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T15:19:41","slug":"the-1925-asheville-sessions-the-spark-before-the-bang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?p=3684","title":{"rendered":"The 1925 Asheville Sessions: The Spark Before the Bang"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4Whq4FVwdw4?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>In August 1925, two years before the famed Bristol Sessions, Ralph Peer and Okeh Records set up a temporary studio on the rooftop of Asheville\u2019s brand-new Vanderbilt Hotel.<\/p>\n<p>Over ten sweltering days, local musicians cut sixty test records, capturing the raw sounds of traditional Appalachian ballads, banjo tunes, and old songs. Though often overlooked, these Asheville sessions lit the spark that would explode two years later in Bristol, igniting the Big Bang of country music.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve not done so already, be sure to subscribe to the Stories podcast on Spreaker, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or on your favorite podcast app.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for watching.<\/p>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_3701\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-3684-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68013095\/download.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68013095\/download.mp3\">https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68013095\/download.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68013095\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?powerpress_pinw=3684-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/dts.podtrac.com\/redirect.mp3\/api.spreaker.com\/v2\/episodes\/68013095\/download.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"download.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_subscribe_links\">Subscribe: <a href=\"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/?feed=podcast\" class=\"powerpress_link_subscribe powerpress_link_subscribe_rss\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Subscribe via RSS\" rel=\"nofollow\">RSS<\/a><\/p><!--powerpress_player-->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In August 1925, two years before the famed Bristol Sessions, Ralph Peer and Okeh Records set up a temporary studio on the rooftop of Asheville\u2019s brand-new Vanderbilt Hotel. Over ten sweltering days, local musicians cut sixty test records, capturing the raw sounds of traditional Appalachian ballads, banjo tunes, and old songs. Though often overlooked, these [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,82,12],"tags":[1356,1365,1370,1355,1362,1129,1117,1368,1364,1366,1371,1361,1367,1360,1357,1124,1369,1358,1359,1363],"class_list":["post-3684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainers","category-music","category-the-roaring-20s","tag-1356","tag-appalachian-ballads","tag-appalachian-banjo","tag-asheville-sessions","tag-bascom-lamar-lunsford","tag-bristol-sessions","tag-country-music-history","tag-early-recording-industry","tag-ernest-stoneman","tag-field-recordings","tag-folk-songs","tag-henry-whitter","tag-hill-country-records","tag-kelly-harrell","tag-okeh-records","tag-old-time-music","tag-phonograph-records","tag-ralph-peer","tag-vanderbilt-hotel","tag-wade-ward"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6TX4A-Xq","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3684"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3718,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3684\/revisions\/3718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storiesofappalachia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}