Henry Gilliland
Eck Robertson, Whiny Fiddles and the Birth of Country Music Recording Sessions
When River House/Columbia Nashville released Luke Combs’ “The Kind of Love We Make” on June 17, the single employed a fierce lead vocal, two-part harmonies and around 10 different instruments, all apparent in their own clean, digital audio lane. The performance shows how far the country recording business has come in 100 years. On June 30, 1922, a pair of fiddlers — Henry Gilliland and A.C. “Eck” Robertson — held what is widely regarded as the first country recording session at Victor Studios in New York. They had no chance to overdub a bad note here or there, to correct poor pitch or to amplify one of the fiddlers later. They had to capture the entire three-minute performance in one sitting or start all over again, playing into a bell-shaped audio horn, with the sound’s vibrations transla...
