Peer to copyright—technically, to hold the “mechanical rights” on—all the music he recorded. Victor obviously knew the Copyright Law of 1909. Every record manufactured earned its copyright owner two cents. Victor reasonably assumed that sales of hillbilly records wouldn’t amount to much. They didn’t figure on a paradigm shift: Peer using his deal to institute a new regime (Southern Music), one that would forever change American music.
Peer paid musicians a fifty-dollar performance fee for each side recorded, and he offered two contracts. The first guaranteed “royalties.” Artists received a half-cent for every record sold (while Peer pocketed a cent and a half). The second contract appointed Peer as the artist’s exclusive manager. In no time Peer was a wealthy man and gatekeeper to an industry.
JEREMY TEPPER
Even before there was a term “producer,” the producer was the A&R guy who brought the material to the session. There’d be an engineer, but the producer was sort of an executive scout who selected the material, unlike in rock where the producer is, generally, coming from more of an engineering direction; he creates sounds. The term “to produce” in Nashville is more to select the material and match it with the artist.
DON PIERCE
He was a genius, that Ralph Peer, and he was an angel to me. For some reason, he liked me because I would get in my car and go coast to coast and work with distributers and listen to disc jockeys and get to the one-stops. That reminded him of when he was on the road for RCA and how he picked up Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family and others. He deplored the people in his office in New York. He wouldn’t even go into the office, didn’t even have an office where he had his headquarters in the Brill Building. He said, “Got all these people in there, and nothing’s happening. You’re the only guy I know of that’s out there on the road scratching the way I used to. Come on up and have lunch with me at my house.”
He had a place on about 59th, off of Hollywood Boulevard. I went up there. A butler came to the door. I couldn’t understand why Peer was interested in me, except he says, “I would like to have my people in New York learn something from you, about what you’re doing and how you’re able to operate when you don’t have any money.”
Eventually, he offered me a hundred dollars a week to be a song scout. I said, “Mr. Peer, I appreciate that, but I’m your competitor. I have my own publishing company. If I find a song, I’m not going to give it to you.”
“No, here’s what I have in mind,” he said. “I want my people to see how you function. When you get a song that’s a hit, I want you to give me the sheet-music selling rights, and I want you to give me the rights to the song for publishing outside the United States and Canada. I’ll take it for the rest of the world. I’ve got twenty-six branches around the world.”
I said, “That sounds like a gift on the ground to me.” At that time, when we were starting Starday [Records], that was a lot of damn money. I took him up on it. When I’d go to New York, I’d kind of headquarter in his offices, and tell his people what I was doing.
We came up with a song called “A Satisfied Mind” [written by Joe “Red” Hayes and Jack Rhodes]. Peer was quick—got about five or six pop records out there in New York. Any record that he got from it, he got half the money on it. He sold about twenty-two thousand sheet-music copies on it, and then he had the rights for the rest of the world. He was real happy with his association with me. We did well with that song.
It got recorded by Red Hayes down in Texas. I was traveling through … I got to Midland City in Texas on my way back to California, and I saw Red there. He played that song for me, and I said, “I’ve got to have it.”
He said, “Well, you can’t have it unless I make the first record on it.” I sent him down to Pappy [Daily] in Houston, and Red made the first record on it. We didn’t sell very many, but it got up to that station in Springfield, Missouri [KWTO]. Porter Wagoner heard it, and Red Foley heard it, and Jean Shepard heard it, and all three of them cut it in one week. We had mailed out copies, and they had heard the copy of our record on Starday. They loved the song, and so they all jumped in and recorded it.
Peer could see when [performing-rights organization] ASCAP [the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers] almost committed suicide by taking everything off the air [in the 1942–1944 musicians’ strike, protesting radio broadcasting recorded music]. That gave rise to BMI [Broadcast Music, Inc.]. And even though he was probably on the board for ASCAP, he became one of the early founders of BMI. He was that kind of an entrepreneur. He knew what had to be done. For a guy like him to go down and tie up those tunes from Cuba and from Mexico, “Amapola” and “Green Eyes” and all that stuff. That Kansas City, red-headed Swede was one smart dude. Ralph Peer was a music man.
Later on, I discontinued it [the publishing arrangement with Peer] when I started doing business with the Hill and Range people. But we were always on a friendly basis, and I always considered Ralph Peer an angel to me.
CHET ATKINS
Peer made a speech down here [in Nashville] to the Country Music Association. It must have been about ’51 or ’52. He worked for RCA, you know. He ran their publishing company, and he signed songwriters. He saw potential where they didn’t.
I remember one article I read. He said, “I started the race business. I started the hillbilly business.” And he was right. He did. He told how he did it. It’s interesting. Up to when he came along, people would just record the same songs over and over. Well, he had a publishing company. So he’d ask the artist, “What songs do you want to do?” They’d come in and sing “Ol’ Joe Clark” again and all that stuff. He’d say, “Now, you’ve got to write some songs. Maybe you’ve got to change. You’ve got to give me something fresh and different.” He did that. He was at Columbia [OKeh], while he did that over there too. He’s responsible for country and for rhythm and blues, maybe, because of that.
All music mentioned in this chapter on pre-tape production was originally recorded direct to discs that were, typically, made of lacquer (also referred to as “acetate”). Then, through a multistep process that derived metal parts from the lacquer or master recording, 78-rpm discs were stamped or pressed. That means all historical albums that include tracks recorded before 1950 are compilations. To create these albums, reissue producers work from materials that are as close to the master disc as possible.
LAWRENCE COHN
From the late ’20s to the late ’40s, the recording process was a direct-to-disc process. They [engineers] cut acetates; there were no tapes. Once the acetates were cut, they made impressions, and they got metal parts from the impressions, because the metal parts are much more durable. It was a more simplistic way of recording. There was just one micro-phone. Even Benny Goodman and the big bands in the ’30s recorded with only one microphone, an overhead mike. Someone came in here last year, and they turned down working in the studio because it didn’t have a ninety-six-track capability! I was reduced to hysterics. That’s all really bullshit. My God, we used to record the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, with one mike.
Those guys in the ’20s and ’30s were out there. They were documentarians. They had an ear for talent. They would set up the equipment, they would cut the tracks, and then onto the next person. Some guys were tremendously musical as producers.
Art Satherley went back and forth between country music and blues, and so did Tommy Rockwell, Don Law, and Frank Walker. It seems that none of