In Ralph Peer and the Making of Popular Roots MusicImage may be NSFW.
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(Chicago Review Press)—his much anticipated biography of the revolutionary producer and publisher, music historian Barry Mazor thoughtfully examines in elegant, crystalline prose the life and work of Ralph Peer, who was instrumental in the recording of Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues”—the record that sparked the blues craze—and the first country recording sessions; he discovered Jimmie Rodgers—the Singing Brakeman—and the Carter Family at the famed Bristol sessions, and he helped popularize Latin American music during World War II.Image may be NSFW.
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Henry Carrigan caught up by phone with Mazor at his home in Nashville just before he headed out to speak about Peer and this new book at the Country Music Hall of Fame and at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.
Music Tomes: Why this book now? Why Ralph Peer?
Barry Mazor: Well, this book happened as a direct result of my earlier book, Meeting Jimmie Rodgers (Oxford 2009; paperback 2012). Members of the Peer family had read that book, and they made an offer of a vast cache of material that had never before been seen. This was a real treasure trove that helped me get at this story, which is not just a biography but in part is a business story.
MT: How long did it take you to write the book?
BM: I spent five years working on it. One of the real difficulties of writing this book was that I didn’t have access directly to a lot of people; I mean, most of the folks in this story have died. I had to work in a different way to get this story told. Part of what I wanted to show in the book is that Peer’s characteristic temperament came to be reflected in the music industry; many of the changes in the music business we take for granted happened because of him.
MT: What was Peer’s greatest gift?
BM: You know, it’s very difficult to identify music that people will take to, but Peer did. He had a real gift for matching performers and performances and the interests of people, and he worked relentlessly to do this.
MT: What was Peer’s greatest limitation?
BM: Well, as I said, this is not simply a biography, so I wasn’t really thinking in those ways, but nobody can read this story and think I was writing a hagiography. Sure, the man was not without flaws. He was reserved, shy, and often came across as a very slick guy. He’d dress in suits and look like an Ivy League guy, but he wasn’t that person at all; he was really interested in making music that hadn’t before been heard accessible to a larger world and in getting the artists in front of audiences.
MT: What are Peer’s three greatest achievements?
BM: First, he served the underserved. There was fascinating music in America made by people that the mainstream was not paying attention to; he realized that this music might reach people, and for that we have to feel grateful. He was instrumental in establishing specialized lines of recordings separate from the mainstream pop of his day; so, he brought the music of African American artists to black audiences and hillbilly music to rural and small-town, working-class Southern whites. Second, Peer was a great experimenter. He recognized that it made good business sense to go into areas where others had not gone. He wasn’t interested in locking down these musical lines he had helped establish; so, when artists working in country, jazz, hillbilly, or Latin music demonstrated that they could expand beyond these categories, he did everything in his power to make that happen. As I try to show in the book, he played a key role in breaking down the walls those genres helped to erect. Finally, Peer made it possible for a lot of these artists to make a living from their music. When Peer started out, ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) was not interested in the kind of music that Peer had discovered; ASCAP controlled the songs and artists that people heard, and controlled the money those artists made. 80% of all the music played on the radio was controlled by ASCAP, and all popular music was left out. Peer set up BMI (Broadcast Music Inc.) which was crucial in getting these artists started by producing their music. For instance, in 1940-41 when the Latin craze took off, nobody would have played those records without BMI having been established. Peer had this sense of expansiveness, and he brought this vision to all these fields.
MT: What do you want readers to take away from your book?
BM: With Peer, people often tend to focus on the Bristol sessions and his discovery of Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. I hope people don’t they’re getting a book that’s 50 years of Bristol. There is this mythology about Peer that I hope the book will correct; important as Bristol was, Peer accomplished far more and is instrumental even today in the ways we think about popular music and roots music. The payoff will be if people understand his story better and if I can clear up who Peer was, how he worked, and what difference he made.
MT: What’s next for you?
BM: I’ll be traveling and speaking some around this book. I have some exciting news about the book that I can’t talk about just yet. [Mazor recently announced the exciting news that the audiobook version of the book, narrated by Marty Stuart, Ketch Secor, and Dom Flemons, is due out this summer from Lyric Audiobooks, which is headed up by Andi Arndt.] I’m casting about for the next book project and have some ideas, but I’m not ready to talk about them just yet.
MT: What are your favorite music tomes?
BM: Eric Weisbard’s Top 40 Democracy (University of Chicago), which is in many ways a continuation of this story and picks it up to talk about what happens in popular music after 1960. Charles Hughes’ Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South (UNC). Preston Lauterbach’s Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis (Norton).
Henry Carrigan writes about music and music books for Engine 145, American Songwriter, No Depression, Publishers Weekly, and BookPage.