Standing on the State Street Stage, which straddles the Tennessee-Virginia border, at this month's Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, 49 Winchester's Isaac Gibson looked out at the sprawling audience facing him and sang the chorus that so many came to hear: “And if you wonder how I'm doing/know that I am doing fine,” Gibson cried out during “Russell County Line.”
For Gibson and his bandmates, performing the song was a full-circle moment. It was at the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion in 2022 where 49 Winchester cemented their status as country music's hot new band with an unforgettable, at-capacity set. They've transcended that moniker in the time since, releasing the new album Leavin' This Holleropening shows for Tyler Childers, and even scheduling a killer underplay at New York's hot new country scene, Honky Tonkin' in Queens, next month.
Born and raised just an hour down the road from Bristol in Russell County, Virginia, 49 Winchester were influenced by the artists who often played the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. “We're really proud of the fact that we're from right here,” Gibson tells Rolling Stone. “This whole world that's evolved into what we do started here.”
With 12 stages and almost 100 acts, the massive festival overtakes the small cities of Bristol, Tennessee, and Bristol, Virginia (State Street splits the communities in half) each September. One of the marquee festivals in Southern Appalachia, BR&RR celebrated 23 years this summer with headliners 49 Winchester, Ashley McBryde, Red Clay Strays, Molly Tuttle & Golden Highway, the Wallflowers, Sam Bush, and the Steeldrivers.
Regarded as the “Birthplace of Country Music,” Bristol is where music publisher and producer Ralph Peer set up shop in August 1927 in an effort to capture new material. Unknown acts like the Carter Family and singer-songwriter Jimmie Rodgers were recorded. The songs became national sensations, and Bristol earned a reputation as the location of country's “Big Bang” moment.
The Birthplace of Country Music Museum on Country Music Way in Bristol, Virginia, is currently celebrating a decade in operation, and the festival itself serves to increase awareness of how important the location is to music history.
“Anything we love, if you trace it back on a long enough timeline, Bristol is responsible for the way it sounds,” says McBryde, recently nominated for the CMA Award for Female Vocalist of the Year. “Bristol is responsible for the big bang, the capturing and the birth [of country music].”
Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion remains a breeding ground for the next big acts in American music — from country (Bella White, Drayton Farley) to rock (Grace Bowers, Hippies & Cowboys), bluegrass (AJ Lee & Blue Summit, Wyatt Ellis) to folk (Tommy Prine, The Resonant Rogues).
“Bristol does a great job at bringing in people on the rise who are moving up fast, and this place really showcases the regional talent,” says Jared Stout, leader of the Jared Stout Band, who took the Piedmont Avenue Stage with a powerful blend of Southern rock and alt-country, driven along by a triple electric guitar barrage. “Southwestern Virginia is a musical melting pot. It doesn't matter what genre it is, so long as it's good music.”
Just around the corner, Nashville-based Hippies & Cowboys, arriving on a heap of buzz, roared through a blistering set of Southern rock and blues. “So this is how it feels / to have nothing left to lose / To be on rock bottom / and what it's like to sing the blues,” lead singer Aaron Sparling sang during “Fork in the Road,” his voice evoking that of Aerosmith's Steven Tyler.
49 Winchester's Isaac Gibson performs at the 2024 Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion. Photo: Ashli Linkous*
“There's no rules in rock & roll,” Sparling says after the gig. “There's nobody telling you who to be or what to be. You can just be yourself and let the music speak for itself.”
Elsewhere, renegade honky-tonk rockers Silverada barreled through a raucous set of songs off their self-titled new album. Fresh off playing the Grand Ole Opry, it was Silverada's Rhythm & Roots debut, a bucket list item for the band.
“There's no other genre that gives me this feeling, where I can put myself in a place,” Harmeier says of representing country music at Bristol. “It's so palpable. It just paints a picture.”
The mixing of country, folk, and rock is what helps Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion draw such an eclectic crowd. This year, bluegrass pioneer Sam Bush did his part to connect it all back to that “big bang.” With the late summer sun slowly waning behind the Blue Ridge Mountains, the mandolin ace provided the soundtrack to close the 2024 festival.
“I remember coming through here when I was 13, in the middle of the night on the way to the Roanoke Bluegrass Festival, and seeing that Bristol state line sign,” Bush says. “This town that got the industry started in a way.”
