The recording sessions in Bristol, Tennessee during July/August 1927 were a defining moment in country music. In addition to the first recordings of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family, more than 100 other recordings were made in Bristol in 1927 and 1928. There were ballad singers, street evangelists, string bands, gospel quartets, harmonica virtuosos, Holiness preachers, blues guitarists and rural storytellers. The 5 CDs in this set gather every surviving recording from those sessions, including alternative takes, issued complete for the first time, including the follow-up sessions from 1928. The accompanying 120-page LP-sized hardcover book contains newly researched essays on the background to the sessions and on the individual artists, with many rare and unpublished photographs. Also included are complete song lyrics and a detailed discography.