As long as I can remember, I’ve been enamoured with the small mountain town of Bristol, Tenn./Va. Growing up I idolized NASCAR drivers like Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt who mastered the half-mile bullring just south of town, but it wasn’t until adulthood when I fell in love with it all over again and came to know it as the birthplace of country music.
That happened during my inaugural trip there in 2021 to attend the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, where I not only got to see performers like Sierra Ferrell and Charley Crockett for the first time, but also became immersed in the town’s history in music. After numerous return visits on travels to and from my native Kentucky, I finally made it back to Bristol last week to celebrate a quarter century of the festival, acknowledge the 1927 sessions that became the Big Bang of Country Music, and get hyped for the rising stars who will be guiding the tradition forward for years to come.
Arguably the biggest connection between country music’s past and present at the gathering was Old Crow Medicine Show, who closed out the festival on Sunday evening with the unmatched energy we’ve all come to know and love from frontman Ketch Secor. Watching Secor’s jubilant dancing and other onstage antics is just as, if not more entertaining than the band itself, which has been blazing trails and growing the reach of roots music for even longer than the festival has been around.
That longevity led to a catalog spanning set highlighted by hits like “Cocaine,” “Alabama High Test,” and of course, “Wagon Wheel.” However, its grandest moment came when Secor officially kicked off the 100-year celebration of the 1927 Bristol recording sessions by Ralph Peer with a touching cover of Jimmie Rodgers’ “Waiting for a Train.” Despite the song being recorded in Atlanta in 1928, Rodgers is widely regarded as the biggest breakout star of the Bristol Sessions alongside The Carter Family, making the song’s inclusion a poignant recognition of the city’s historical role in country music and how it still has its finger on the pulse of that tradition to this day.
But Old Crow’s homage was far from the only celebration of country music’s most influential figures throughout the weekend. Rising star Maggie Antone was joined by her partner and bandmate, Garrett Murph, for a duet on John Prine and Iris Dement’s “In Spite Of Ourselves,” Sierra Ferrell drummed up her rendition of John Anderson’s “Years,” Meels and Darrell Scott both honored Dolly Parton with performances of “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?” and “In The Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad),” and The Creekers got grassy on The Steeldrivers’ “Blue Side of the Mountain.”
Even though these songs aren’t direct connections to those who participated in the 1927 sessions, I can’t help but feel like their significance and perhaps even their mere existence wouldn’t be a thing if Peer hadn’t traveled to Bristol that one fateful summer and lit the fuse for what became country music’s big bang. But that butterfly effect doesn’t stop with just country music. The “roots” element of Bristol Rhythm & Roots was on full display during the festival’s 25th iteration with acts like Los Lobos, who got the crowd dancing on “La Bamba.” Additionally, Jim Lauderdale — who in 2021 had a stage next to the Sessions Hotel in downtown Bristol renamed in his honor — lauded George Jones and Gram Parsons with his original tune “The King of Broken Hearts” that another legend, George Strait, went on to record in 1992.
Then there was the southern rock and soul sounds of Caitlin Krisko & The Broadcast and The Band Loula.
The former is a group I first stumbled upon a decade ago during my first big solo music trip to attend the Suwannee Springfest in Florida, where I recall being blindsided by Krisko’s immaculate voice that channels the very best of powerhouse vocalists like Susan Tedeschi and Bonnie Raitt. The band’s Saturday evening Bristol set from the Lauderdale Stage was no exception, with Krisko and company tearing into originals like “Keep on Trying” and “Something Sweet” from its new record Heirloom in addition to a cover of the Ray Charles classic “Drown In My Own Tears.”
On the flipside, one of my biggest surprises of the weekend came with The Band Loula. I recall first having the North Georgia group put on my radar last year when I interviewed Trisha Yearwood and she praised the band and specifically vocalist Logan Simmons as a woman to watch in country music, but Bristol Rhythm & Roots was my first time actually getting to see them. Taking to Cumberland Square Park, the group wasted no time during the heat of the day in getting hot and sweaty with their self-described “swampgrass” on cuts like Roberta Flack’s 1973 classic “Killing Me Softly With His Song” and their haunting original “A Little at a Time.”
But without a doubt my favorite set from the entire weekend belonged to River Shook. Only added to the festival a day prior to taking the stage (when Sunny Sweeney withdrew following a death in her family), Shook reveled in the last-minute gig that marked their first show back in Bristol since performing at the Reunion in 2018 with their former band, Sarah Shook & The Disarmers. The Sunday afternoon set saw the group performing its grungy alt-country songs both new and old like “Good as Gold,” “Country Angel,” “Sidelong” and “F**k Up,” with guitarist Blake Tallent cutting through the midday heat like a knife through butter with his simmering guitar solos that left Shook’s songs sounding more vibrant and polished than ever before.
Then following their full-band set, Shook and Tallent appeared inside the Birthplace of Country Music Museum for a pop-up duo set to be featured on an upcoming edition of the BGS Sessions. There they served up raw and acoustic versions of tunes like “Lost Without Your Love” and the new, unreleased “California Dreaming,” pulling back the curtain and offering a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the raw origins of their music in the process.
All of this contributed to Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion being one of my favorite festivals of the year alongside Laurel Cove Music Festival back home in Kentucky. With a mix of racing and music history, the diverse sounds that converge at the festival and the quaint, walkable downtown where the only traffic comes by foot, there’s truly something for everyone in Bristol — no matter which side of the state line you stand on.
Photo Credit: Billie Wheeler (Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor and Chance McCoy)
