Birthplace Of Country Music's First Hit Is Being Threatened By Modern Construction

[left-of-center2012]

Nashville may be the country music capital, but the industry for which its famous began in Atlanta. Now, a grassroots drive to preserve a historic downtown building is highlighting Atlanta's somewhat forgotten role in early roots music. At 152 Nassau Street in Downtown Atlanta, an unmarked two-story rose brick storefront houses a piece of Atlanta's music history. This was the site of a pop-up recording studio in 1923.

"Recording executives from New York came down to the South to record jazz, gospel, blues and country music," architect Kyle Kessler says as he stands outside the building. Kessler is part of Historic Atlanta, a preservation group trying to stop the planned demolition of this building to make way for a Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville high-rise hotel restaurant.

Behind the recording was a man named Ralph Peer. Lance Ledbetter, who runs Atlanta outfit Dust to Digital, says Peer was really good at discovering new talent. "He had this idea to come down to the South and try to record people from the region that maybe they couldn't find you know from their offices in New York," Ledbetter says of Peer.

Peer's big discovery in Atlanta in 1923 was Fiddlin' John Carson, a well-known musician in Atlanta's Cabbagetown neighborhood. "He won so many of the contests that they banned him from entering anymore, says music history buff and Cabbagetown resident James Kelly. "He was amazing."

Carson played and sang an old minstrel tune, "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane," in the studio. According to Ledbetter, Carson's record was a hit. The first pressing sold out almost instantly.

"The sales here in Atlanta and throughout the South just start to explode. People were buying these records like crazy ..."Ledbetter says. "And Fiddlin' John Carson in 1923, when he made that recording, it opened the doors on what country music was to become."

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/04/720062310/the-birthplace-of-country-musics-first-hit-is-being-threatened-by-modern-constru

[left-of-center2012]

1. The Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane