[1] As they grew up they were influenced by local jazz and blues artists such as the guitarist and Mississippi river boat performer May Bell and the street singers the Two Poor Boys.
[2] By the early 1920s, they were performing in small coal-mining communities in the South doing medicine shows and Vaudeville onstage.
The brothers threatened to bring a lawsuit against Columbia but in the end they decided to move to Victor Records instead.
Working with the A&R man Ralph Peer - who had been instrumental in bringing both Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family to fame - the Allen Brothers recorded their biggest hit "A New Salty Dog" in 1930.
In the 1960s, when the Allen Brothers were rediscovered by folk revivalists, Austin had already died in South Carolina in 1959 but Lee appeared onstage a few times in Tennessee.