By Burgin Mathews

Illustration by Kelsey Freeman

This story appears in Birmingham magazine's July 2016 Issue. Subscribe today!

"Southern Artists To Make Records," the headline announced: "Making Of Phonograph Discs Is Birmingham's Latest Industrial Effort." Gennett Records--a subsidiary of the Starr Piano Company in Richmond, Ind.--had come to Birmingham with a load of recording equipment, a team of engineers, and plans to set up a temporary recording unit.Martin Ringelberg, assistant manager at Birmingham's Starr piano showroom, had written Gennett repeatedly: his city--his letters enthused--offered a wealth of recording opportunities, a logical base of operations from which Gennett could access and record a wide range of Southern music styles. His pitches succeeded, and in the summer of 1927, visiting technicians set up shop on the third floor of the Starr store on Third Avenue North.

Ambitions were high for Birmingham. The Birmingham News imagined the city becoming "a musical center of the South," drawing in new streams of profit and fame. George Soule, chief recording engineer for the Birmingham sessions, spoke auspiciously: "The nation looks to the South," he told the press, "for its Dixie melodies, its jazz orchestras, its 'hot' music. Our initial reception here in Birmingham has been beyond our expectations."

Unfortunately, the Gennett sessions did little to advance the careers of the musicians who participated, and Birmingham wasn't reborn into the mighty music hub the paper envisioned. But the recordings made that July and August--nearly 170 sides, altogether--represent a unique time capsule and cross section of the city's musical culture. A remarkable range of artists lugged their instruments up the stairs over the showroom to take their shots at fame.

There was champion fiddler Wyzee Hamilton, with a band the label dubbed "Hamilton's Harmonians." Hamilton also provided the musical background for a couple of novelty verse recitations penned and performed by Luther Patrick, a lawyer and comic writer from the little Alabama town of Needmore. Patrick would later serve as a U.S Congressman, and publish three collections of his homespun country verse; he was known even to write wills and divorce papers in rhyme. For the Gennett session he recited an ode to cornbread ("No matter," he urged, "where you gets to grazin', don't you never go back on your raisin'--that's cornbread!") and a rustic soliloquy titled "Grandfather's Liver (Ain't What It Used To Wus)." The Short Creek Trio recorded a series of country fiddle numbers. John D. Foster and Jesse James, a mandolin-guitar duo from Tennessee, recorded four sides, including this reflection: "When I Was Single My Pockets Would Jingle."

There was a diversity of sacred recordings. The explosive Rev. J.F. Forest gathered members of his congregation around the mic for eight "Negro Sermon[s] with Sistern and Bretheren": fiery exhortations punctuated by the group's shouts and moans. Several white gospel quartets--the Eva, McDonald, and Woodlawn Quartets--all put their faith on wax. From nearby Moody, Ala., J.T. Allison's Sacred Harp Singers recorded two hymns from the "Sacred Harp" shape-note songbook. And the Dunham Jubilee Singers, a popular black gospel quartet, re-christened themselves for their session the Dunham Jazz Singers, singing a cappella on a secular tune they called "A Mamma Blues: Honey Turn Your Damper Down."

Then there were the blues. Vocalist Bertha Ross, accompanied by the Bessemer Blue Pickers, delivered a short series of back-in-the-alley, barrelhouse blues. Wiley Barner cut two sides, the entire output of his recording career. ("If you want to lose your woman," he sang on one, "take her to Birmingham.") There were another two sides from a driving guitarist named William Harris. ("How you percolating now?" another voice asks Harris during his guitar break; "Boy," says Harris, "I ain't percolating. Wait 'til I get sloppy drunk.") Bessemer harmonica-great Jaybird Coleman cut the haunting "Man Trouble Blues" and the lighter-hearted plea "Ah'm Sick and Tired of Telling You (To Wiggle That Thing)." Then there was Daddy Stovepipe, accompanied by the whistling of "Whistlin' Pete." Stovepipe had played with mariachi bands in Mexico and traveled as a one-man band with the Rabbit's Foot Minstrels, and he'd later record some fantastic jug band sides with his wife, Mississippi Sarah; born in Mobile in 1867, he was by some accounts the earliest born blues musician to put his voice to record.

The Gennett sessions also produced Alabama's first jazz reco

rdings. The Triangle Harmony Boys cut three infectious instrumentals: "Canned Heat Blues," "Chicken Supper Strut," and "Sweet Patootie." From Montgomery came a group of Tuskegee grads known as the Black Birds of Paradise, one of the state's leading jazz bands. Popular with white and black audiences alike, they were known to put on a lively show--bandleader "Buddy" Howard could play trombone as well with his feet as he could with his hands. Birmingham bandleader Frank Bunch brought to the studio his Fuzzy Wuzzies, an ensemble of this city's best young players; among their output was the "Fourth Avenue Stomp," a gutbucket homage to Birmingham's black entertainment district, the heart of the Birmingham jazz scene. Pianist George Tremer recorded an original rag, "The Spirit of '49," interspersed with kazoo and vocal sound effects.

Birmingham had its white jazz bands too, though in those days they seldom crossed paths with their black counterparts. The Gennett sessions produced four peppy dance tunes by Eddie Miles and his Orchestra, frequent entertainers at the swanky Cascade Plunge resort and the brand new Club Florentine ballroom downtown. Dunk Rendleman and the Alabamians cut two covers of then-current pop songs and one low-down and growling "Mean Dog Blues."

Sadly, early record companies like Gennett offered little compensation for their performers, and Birmingham musicians who expected any real reward came away from the experience disappointed. In most cases, instead of royalties, Gennet offered a nominal flat-rate payoff for its sessions, sometimes as little as $5 a musician; other players were promised royalties that never came. Most of these Gennett artists never held in their hands the records they'd waxed, and few received their promised royalties.

Gennett effectively buried many of the recordings, leasing them to other record labels which gave the performers arbitrary pseudonyms: the Short Creek Trio became "David Meek and his Boys" (there was no David Meek in the band); Jaybird Coleman was rechristened "Rabbits Foot Williams," Bertha Ross "Aretha Martin," The Black Birds of Paradise "Them Birmingham Night Owls." In many cases, one group's song would be released on the reverse side of another group's record and both groups given new names. There was little glamor for the Gennett artist.

Despite the rarity today of these records, reproductions of most are available to the curious, on CD compilations or online. They represent a unique resource for anyone with an interest in roots music or in the history and culture of Birmingham. Listen today and you can hear--through the scratches, pops, and hisses--the sounds of our city, nearly a century ago.

Burgin Mathews is the host of The Lost Child, a roots music radio hour on Birmingham Mountain Radio. Listen here to his radio companion to this article, featuring an hour of Gennett's Birmingham recordings.