Night 2 of 12 is in the books. On Friday, June 19, 2026, Bristol Sessions Nights: The Carter Sessions brought the songs and stories of the Carter Family home to downtown Bristol, Tennessee. Eugene Wolf and Ivy Sheppard shared the night with the Whitetop Mountain Band at the Bristol Listening Room in the L.C. King Building.
Bristol Sessions Nights is presented by the City of Bristol, Tennessee. It is twelve nights, one each month, on the Road to 100: the 100th anniversary of the 1927 Bristol Sessions in 2027. The second stop belonged to the family that first recorded here that summer and walked out as the first family of country music.
A Night for the First Family of Country Music
The Carter Sessions honored the Carter Family and their 1927 Bristol recordings. The Whitetop Mountain Band came down from the highest mountains of Virginia with fiddle, banjo, guitars and upright bass. Songs made famous by the Carter Family are part of the band's repertoire, and on June 19 they brought those songs to the city where the Carters first recorded.
Raymond McLain served as master of ceremonies. Eugene Wolf brought the stories. For 25 years he has played A.P. Carter in Barter Theatre's Keep On The Sunny Side, and he came to Bristol to sing and to share what that role has taught him. Ivy Sheppard, a banjo player and fiddler, joined him on stage.
The Carter Family was part of the night in person, too. Members of the extended Carter Family were in the room, and Rita Forrester was recognized for her lifelong dedication to preserving the Carter Family legacy. Congressman Morgan Griffith and Delegate Terry Kilgore were there to honor her. Songs, stories and family, all under one roof on 7th Street.
The Bristol Listening Room seats 100. It sits inside the L.C. King Building at 24 7th Street, the original home of L.C. King Manufacturing Company, where Pointer brand overalls were made for decades. The crowd sat close to a brick-walled stage, with the Bristol Sessions Nights sign hanging behind the players. At one point, a couple found room to dance along the wall.
Every night on the Road to 100 gets its own poster from a local artist. The Night 2 poster, an archtop guitar framed by white flowers on a deep teal field, was designed by Steve Blankenship, a Planning Technician with the City of Bristol.
Thank you to the Whitetop Mountain Band, Eugene Wolf and Ivy Sheppard, and to Raymond McLain for leading the evening. Thank you to the City of Bristol, Tennessee and to our partners Tennessee Hills Distillery, the ETSU Appalachian Music Collective, Believe in Bristol, Explore Bristol and the Birthplace of Country Music. And thank you, Bristol.
Meet the Artists
Eugene Wolf
Twenty-five years ago, Barter Theatre asked Eugene Wolf to create the role of A.P. Carter in Keep On The Sunny Side. He calls it the gift of a lifetime. Eugene has been a member of Barter's acting company since 1997, and for the last eight years he has toured his award-winning one-man show, The Book of Mamaw. He is a recipient of a 2025 Bristol Roots Project Tradition Bearer Fellowship.
Eugene and Ed Snodderly are the Brother Boys, a country singing duo. Their latest album, On The Honky Tonk Highway with the Brother Boys, collects their recordings from 1988 to 2022 on Germany's Bear Family Records. The duo won an IBMA Recorded Event Award for their work on the Jerry Douglas album Slide Rule. Eugene also joined Ed for several songs on Night 1, The First Take.
Raymond McLain, Master of Ceremonies
Raymond McLain is a charter member of the McLain Family Band. He performed more than 1,000 times on the Grand Ole Opry with Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Boys, and he represented bluegrass music and the United States on State Department tours in 62 countries. He served as assistant director of the Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Roots Music program at East Tennessee State University.
Ivy Sheppard
Ivy Sheppard is a banjo player and fiddler with a deep ear for the music of her Southern home. She joined the old-time band the Roan Mountain Hilltoppers early on and traveled the country with them. Today Ivy plays with several bands and hosts Born in the Mountain, a 78rpm record show heard on radio stations across the country.
The Whitetop Mountain Band
The Whitetop Mountain Band is a family-based traditional music group from the Whitetop region, in the highest mountains of Virginia. For generations its members have kept the region's old-time and bluegrass traditions alive as musicians, educators and cultural ambassadors.
Emily Spencer leads the band today. She is a founding member and has played with the group since it formed in 1975. The band performs, teaches workshops and works in the community, and alongside traditional mountain music it plays songs made famous by the Carter Family.
From 1927 to the Road to 100
In the summer of 1927, Victor Talking Machine Company producer Ralph Peer set up a temporary studio on State Street to record regional musicians. A.P. Carter heard about the recordings and convinced his wife, Sara, and his sister-in-law, Maybelle, to make the trip to Bristol. The Carter Family recorded for the first time at those sessions. They went on to make nearly 300 records in a career that lasted until the early 1940s.
The 1927 Bristol Sessions launched the careers of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. Bristol Sessions Nights tells that story one chapter at a time, one night a month, on the road to country music's 100th anniversary in 2027.
More Photos
See more from the band, the stage and the room in the Night 2 photo gallery.
The Road to 100 Continues
The series opened on May 22 with Night 1, The First Take, headlined by Ed Snodderly. The Road to 100 continued on July 17, 2026 with Night 3, The Blue Yodel, a night for Jimmie Rodgers.
Twelve nights lead to the centennial weekend in May 2027. Single-night tickets are $27 on the tickets page. The Bristol 12 Passport covers all twelve nights for $300. Every chapter is on the series page. See you at the Bristol Listening Room.
Photos: Jon Luttrell, City of Bristol. Artist photos courtesy of the artists.
0 comments