Sourwood Mountain is a widely recorded tune in pre-WW II country music. This transcription is based on a performance by Taylor’s Kentucky Boys, recorded on August 27th, 1927, in Richmond Indiana. The track was released on the Gennett-affiliated labels Silvertone and Supertone. The Supertone release was credited to Hills Virginia Ramblers.
Sourwood Mountain2 thoughts on “Sourwood Mountain”
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Silvertone and Supertone were not affiliated with Gennett Records. They were budget brand record labels associated with the Sears Robuck company stores and more prominently a mail order company par excellence serving especially in the 1920s country people. Gennett was a relatively small company which like several other early recording operations, an outgrowth of a piano making company. It was what was called a Stencil labor. Most of its recordings of all kinds were sold to other labels, especially to the big wide-distribution labels associated with Sears, Montgomery Wards, and other budget record sellers. These stencil recordings were never released under the names of the original performers, not even Roberts who was one of the more famous record selling musicians, but under fictional names. It is not clear whether Taylor or Roberts even knew Gennett was doing this or whether they received any of the money.
On the other hand, Gennett told Roberts it was OK if he recorded for other labels as long as he used another name and may have even directed him to go to Chicago which is where Roberts was for the April 1927 session of Taylor’s performers for Gennett, making records under a number of different names for several different labels
This recording is the only one of the Taylors KY recordings that anyone has been able to find from the August 1927 recordings. There were 3 others I believe that were unissued as this is formally unissued by Gennett. Gennett did not release this as such as far as we know, but did sell it to a stencil label probably without telling Taylor or Roberts. The other August Taylor recordings not issued might have been due to technical problems. There is also some speculation that Roberts was angry at Taylor . It has also been speculated that Roberts did not like performing with other fiddlers. However, there are several recordings from this session where he plays fiddle along with Jim Booker Jr that were released. Jim Booker Jr. does not play on this recording. The fiddler besides Roberts here is his younger brother Joe Booker. It was once thought by some that the Jim Booker who fiddled on the 1927 April and August Gennett recordings was the Jim Booker, but he died in 1903. Likewise, it was thought by some that Jim Booker was the father of Joe and John Booker who accompany Roberts on his fiddle selections in this August 1927 session, but Jacqueline Cogdell DjeDje working with the Booker family has placed a geneology on Ancestry.com for all the Bookers that indicate that they were all brothers.