In 1927, a record producer set up equipment in a historic building on State Street — the road that is itself the Tennessee-Virginia state line — and recorded 76 songs by 19 artists over a matter of days. Those sessions, including the commercial debuts of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, are what Congress recognized in 1998 as the birthplace of country music. The Carter Family themselves came from Hiltons, Virginia, thirty-five minutes out, where a daughter of A.P. and Sara Carter later established the Carter Fold — a rustic shed running weekly traditional music nights, the stage where Johnny Cash gave his final public performance. Back in Bristol, a Smithsonian-affiliated museum now holds the full story, and each year a three-day festival draws tens of thousands to the same downtown street where the recording happened. The state line still cuts down the middle of the asphalt. The music came from both sides.
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