Nearly a century later, Bristol is still Nashville's pipeline to country music's timeless sounds

The relationship between country music's birthplace in Bristol, on the border between Virginia and Tennessee, and its commercial epicenter of Nashville is far closer than a 300-mile trip implies.

As the genre's birthing moment — record producer Ralph Peer recording anthemic folk and gospel songs in downtown Bristol — celebrates its 95th anniversary, the creative and performance pipeline key to the genre's foundational sounds flowing onto Music Row is as strong and vital as ever.

PARKING LOT PARTY:Luke Combs is throwing a parking lot party in Nashville next month (and you're invited)

KANE BROWN INSIDE EVOLVING INDUSTRY:Kane Brown: A country music star at the center of an evolving industry

Jim Lauderdale is a legendary North Carolina-born singer-songwriter qualified to speak about this city-to-city inspirational link because he's a Nashville favorite who has spent considerable time in Bristol over the past four decades.

His achievements include collaborating with bluegrass icon Dr. Ralph Stanley (while in Bristol), writing — among many songs — the classic '90s country single "King Of Broken Hearts" (recorded by himself, George Strait and Lee Ann Womack among many) and in the past decade, creating music with both members of the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.

Recently, Lauderdale spoke to the Tennessean about Bristol's classic and modern influences on Music City during a humid Monday afternoon at the 8th and Roast coffee shop in Nashville's Woodland neighborhood. He was joined by Leah Ross, the executive director of advancement at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol.

"Bristol has always been a central space for country music," Lauderdale said. He noted how the city's downtown area remains similar to how it was during the era of the Bristol Sessions in 1927. 

The region retaining this connection with its heritage is miraculous.

The late 1990s saw Bristol fall on economic hard times, leaving the downtown area mostly boarded up and vacated. However, economic revitalization has come to the region in the past decade.

In 2014, the Smithsonian Institution-affiliated Birthplace of Country Music Museum opened. And by the end of 2022, a trio of hotels — the Bristol Hotel (ranked as a top-10 American stay by Travel and Leisure in 2020), the Sessions Hotel (where Lauderdale has an outdoor stage plus a recording space) and the forthcoming Hard Rock Resort and Casino Bristol — cemented the city's unlikely resurgence that combines the splendor of classic architecture with the impact of current business interests. 

However, the area's core business is music. Music from this region influences how country music's roots impact Music City's bottom line.

"As much as we all love Nashville, it's busy here, and going somewhere to write and record that's relaxed, where the regional acoustic musicians and recording studios are also great, has its benefits," says Lauderdale. 

Ross added that musical creatives, including Grammy-nominated cellist Dave Eggar and Sirius XM Radio host Dallas Wayne, have relocated to the area. She also mentioned how artists like breakout Americana performer Amythyst Kiah — who is from nearby Johnson City and, while in college at East Tennessee State, contributed to the exhibit content at the Birthplace of Country Music Museum — are still rooted in the area while touring worldwide.

The 20-year-old Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion music festival is also important from a tourism and marketing standpoint, Ross said. The three-day event "opens up a different set of eyes to the possibilities [Bristol] offers," Ross said. For three days, 100 bands spread over 13 stages draw 40,000-plus visitors who shut down the city's central State Street. This year's festival is Sept. 9-11.

In recent years, acts that have found success in Nashville, including 49 Winchester, Charley Crockett, Lucy Dacus, Sierra Ferrell and The War and Treaty, all have played the annual Bristol event.

"Music has a funny way of making its fans remember history," said Lauderdale when explaining what Bristol offers Nashville.

He illustrated how he belongs in a lineage between country music's birth and its current era that cements the tie between the two epic locales.

Two of his key musical inspirations, the Foggy Mountain Boys bluegrass combo of Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs, spent considerable time in Bristol. And today, he keeps in frequent contact with Old Crow Medicine Show frontman Ketch Secor. The band headlined the 2018 Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. 

"History inspires us, but we can't recreate it. However, when combined with an authentic historical source, history's inspiration helps you create magic," Lauderdale said. 

Currently, Nashville's crane-filled sky points at the city's expansive future. However, 300 miles away, country music — Nashville's chief export to the world — finds its roots thriving, timeless and potentially as impactful as ever.