The Mountain City Fiddlers’ Convention Celebrates 100 Years

Photo Courtesy of Roy M. Andrade The tiny Appalachian town of Mountain City, Tennessee (population around 2,500), sits in the northeastern corner of the state, about halfway between Bristol, Tennessee, and Boone, North Carolina.  At 2,418 feet, it is the highest incorporated town in Tennessee, and the county seat for Johnson County, in one of the state’s most rural and rugged areas.  In the early twentieth century, the remote hills at the convergence of Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina rang with the sounds of fiddles, guitars, and banjos when homegrown music was the predominant source of entertainment.  By the mid-1920s, with the advent of radio and live performance programs such as the WLS National Barn Dance in Chicago and WSM’s Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, this “hillbilly” music was poised to go mainstream.  In July 1927, Victor’s Ralph Peer traveled to Bristol to make the first recordings of future stars such as the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers.  Those