A century ago, Asheville helped change how American music was heard.
In August 1925, engineers from the New York–based OKeh General Phonograph Corporation hauled a portable, acoustic‑horn recording setup into the brand‑new George Vanderbilt Hotel on Haywood Street. Led by artist‑and‑repertoire pioneer Ralph Peer, the team did something bold for its day: they recorded musicians on location, close to where the music lived.
For ten days, Peer relied on local newspapers and word of mouth to spread the invite. Fiddlers, banjo players, guitarists, autoharpists, singers, and family groups streamed into downtown Asheville from across Western North Carolina and Southwest Virginia, ready to test themselves before the horn. When the OKeh crew packed up, they left town with about 60 wax masters—a time capsule of sounds that would ripple through the century.
Why the Asheville Sessions Matter
If the 1927 Bristol Sessions are considered “the Big Bang of Country Music,” then Asheville “lit the fuse.”
The 1925 Asheville Sessions predated the famous Bristol recordings by two years and introduced the world to a wide range of Southern Appalachian music traditions. They were:
- The first commercial recordings made in Appalachia, and the first of any genre made in North Carolina.
- Ralph Peer’s first field effort to document and market rural Southern music near its source.
- A vivid snapshot of a region in musical transition, as traditional forms flowed toward the emerging commercial genre later called country music.
Most important: the repertoire wasn’t a single sound. Alongside fiddle tunes, ballads, blues, gospel, and stringband music, vaudeville numbers and early jazz tracks underscored just how varied the city’s music scene already was.
Who Stepped to the Horn
The 1925 lineup bridged homegrown heroes and traveling performers. Among the artists captured on those crackling 78 rpm discs:
- Bascom Lamar Lunsford, the influential performer, collector, and promoter of mountain music, recorded from his deep repertoire (“Sherman Valley,” “Fate of the Santa Barbara”).
- J.D. Harris, widely admired as a premier fiddler, cut his showpiece “The Cackling Hen.”
- J.D. Weaver played “Hog Drivers” and “Arkansas Traveler.”
- Ernest Helton picked “Royal Clog” in a three‑finger banjo style, a precursor to the approach later popularized by Earl Scruggs.
- From farther afield came Fisher Hendley (Piedmont banjo and radio performer), Kelly Harrell (from Fieldale, VA—“Wreck of the Old 97,” “Peg & Awl”), and Ernest “Pop” Stoneman (autoharp, harmonica, vocals), who would become patriarch of the famed Stoneman Family.
- Wade Ward, now iconic among clawhammer banjo players, made his first recordings.
- Emmett Miller, the Georgia vaudevillian whose repertoire helped seed American popular music, performed “Lovesick Blues”—a song later made legendary by Hank Williams.
- Two artists tied closely to Bristol—Henry Whitter and Ernest Stoneman—were already here in Asheville in 1925, connecting the dots between these landmark sessions.
All told, about 60 wax masters were recorded in Asheville that year, documenting a pivotal moment as traditional Appalachian music was beginning to evolve into the emerging commercial genre that would become known as country music.
Restoring a Legacy
Recording on site in 1925 was hands‑on and physical.
Performers leaned toward a large recording horn, balancing distance and volume while engineers cut grooves into warm wax. With no electricity yet in the process, the takes captured breath, bow scrape, handclap, and room noise—imperfections that now feel powerfully alive.
For decades, many of these fragile recordings were nearly impossible to hear. But in 2025, a century after the original sessions, Rivermont Records and the North Carolina Arts Foundation worked with Grammy-nominated producer and sound engineer Bryan Wright to bring the Asheville Sessions back to life.
Using rare original discs sourced from collectors around the world, Wright meticulously restored 28 tracks for a new album: Music from the Land of the Sky: The 1925 Asheville Sessions. The release also features in-depth liner notes by renowned music historians Ted Olson and Tony Russell, who have previously curated similar collections from the Johnson City, Knoxville, and Bristol Sessions. Their research helps explain why Asheville was ready in 1925: a crossroads city with deep traditions, open ears, and an appetite for the new.
Another key figure in the centennial effort, Wayne Martin of the North Carolina Arts Foundation, has spent decades documenting Western North Carolina’s music (from Etta Baker to the Madison County ballad singers) and advancing arts education across the region, including through the Blue Ridge Music Trails of North Carolina.
This reissue allows listeners to experience the earliest echoes of Asheville’s sound, complete with the hiss, hum, and heart of music recorded on location a century ago.
A Living Music City
The Asheville Sessions didn’t freeze a moment in amber. They launched a lineage. From porch pickers and church choirs to experimental electronics and indie rock, Asheville today is a place where tradition and invention share the same stage.
This November, the 100th Anniversary of the Asheville Sessions will be marked with concerts and community events. A series of contemporary recordings by artists reinterpreting songs from the original sessions will follow in 2026.
From 1925’s acoustic horn to today’s recording studios like Drop of Sun and Citizen Vinyl, Asheville’s music remains rooted in the mountains yet wide open to the world.
Listen & Explore
Pre-order the restored Asheville Sessions on CD or vinyl →
Join the 100th Anniversary events this November →