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The first commercial recording of what can be considered country music was “Sallie Gooden” by fiddlist A.C. (Eck) Robertson in 1922 for Victor Records. Columbia Records began issuing records with “hillbilly” music (series 15000D “Old Familiar Tunes”) as early as 1924. A year earlier on June 14, 1923 Fiddlin’ John Carson recorded “Little Log Cabin in the Lane” for Okeh Records. Vernon Dalhart was the first country singer to have a nationwide hit in May of 1924 with “Wreck of the Old ‘97”. The flip side of this record was “Lonesome Road Blues”, which also became very popular. Other important early recording artists were Riley Puckett, Don Richardson, Fiddlin’ John Carson, Al Hopkins, Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers and The Skillet Lickers. The steel guitar entered country music as early as 1922, when Jimmie Tarlton met famed Hawaiian guitarist Frank Ferera on the West Coast.
In the time of the Great Depression came a new rise in the populatiry of Country Music. This is due to the origins of the genera itself having been always associated with reflecting social change. Things really started to pick up for country music in the landmark recording sessions that took place in Bristol, Virgina in 1927, it was there where Hall of Fame country singers Jimmy Rodgers from Mississippi and the Carters from Virginia recorded “The Soldiers Sweetheart” under the brilliant conductor Ralph Peer. This was the first time that America had the chance to embrace country music during the Depression The reason that America flocked to country music in the 1930s was due to the way the music was easily to relate to.