Bristol was one of the stops on a two-month, $60,000 trip that took Peer through several major southern cities and yielded important recordings of blues, ragtime, gospel, ballads, topical songs, and string bands.
Despite Peer's belief that the record was of poor quality, the 500 copies made of "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" and "The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going to Crow" sold out in weeks.
Peer recognized the potential with the mountain music, as even residents of Appalachia who didn't have electricity often owned hand-cranked Victrolas, or other phonographs.
He settled on Bristol (at the urging of Stoneman) as a third stop, because with Johnson City and Kingsport, Tennessee, it formed the Tri-Cities, the largest urban area in the Appalachians at the time.
sang bass, and 18-year-old Maybelle played guitar with an unusual and subsequently influential style that allowed her to provide both melody and rhythm.
The Victor Company released the first Carter Family record, "Poor Orphan Child" and "The Wandering Boy," on 4 November 1927.
In those twelve days in 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee, Peer had managed to fully introduce America to the authentic music of southern Appalachia.
In 1987, the Country Music Foundation issued a Grammy Award-nominated two-LP set, The Bristol Sessions, with 35 tracks.
In 2011, Bear Family Records issued a Grammy Award-nominated five-CD box set The Bristol Sessions: The Big Bang of Country Music 1927-1928 containing 124 tracks and a 120-page hardcover book.
In 2015, Sony Legacy Recordings released Orthophonic Joy: The 1927 Bristol Sessions Revisited as a benefit for the Birthplace of Country Music Museum.
[11] The two-CD set pays homage to the original 1927 sessions with 18 songs updated by some of country music's biggest stars, such as Dolly Parton and Brad Paisley.
WSM disc jockey and country music historian Eddie Stubbs narrates 19 tracks that tell the story of the 1927 recording sessions.