Ralph S. Peer, born in 1892 in Independence, Missouri, grew up in the record business while working in his father's shop selling phonographs and recordings for the Columbia Graphophone Company. After service in World War I, he became a talent scout for the Okeh record label in the early 1920s and made landmark recordings of Fiddlin' John Carson, Ernest V. "Pop" Stoneman, Al Hopkins' Hill Billies, and others. In late July and early August 1927, shortly after joining the Victor Talking Machine Company, he discovered and recorded the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers in Bristol, Tennessee, producing what became known as the Bristol Sessions. Recorded in the 400 block of State Street, those sessions led to Bristol's designation as the Birthplace of Country Music by both houses of the United States Congress in 1998. In 1928, Peer formed the first major country music publishing firm, Southern Music Publishing Company, Inc., later called peermusic, which now operates worldwide.
