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The First Country Record Is Still Amazing
Plethora of Pop Debut Challenge
Most historians consider the 78 rpm made in 1922 by fiddler A. C. (Eck) Robertson (one side by himself and the other a duet with fellow fiddler Henry Gilliland) as the first recorded country music. Robertson’s solo performance of “Sally Gooden” (already a traditional tune) exhibits such energetic virtuosity that it has set a standard for fiddling, one often imitated but unsurpassed after 99 years.
“Listening to ‘Sallie Gooden’,” Tony Russell writes in Country Music Originals, “you feel the hair rise on your neck…. [The song] is not just good for its time, it is great for all time, a small but perfect masterpiece of American music.”
In promoting Robertson’s first two records, RCA notes the “almost continuous double stopping” (playing two strings at the same time — a hallmark of later bluegrass fiddling), using the lower note as a drone (as with bagpipe playing) and the top note for the melody (cited in Country Music Originals).
Robertson continued playing through the 1960’s (including a performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival). It would be inaccurate to say that he was rediscovered, since country and bluegrass musicians have always known about him all along, but Robertson was troubled that he never received the public recognition he…
