Country music in Atlanta

Atlanta played a major role in launching country's earliest recording artists in the early 1920s — many Appalachian people such as Fiddlin' John Carson had come to the city and area to work in its cotton mills and brought their music with them. It would remain a major recording center for two decades and a major performance center for four decades, into the first country music TV shows on local Atlanta stations in the 1950s.

Much of the audience and many of the artists in Atlanta's country scene lived in the area's three main mill towns: Cabbagetown (Atlanta), a neighborhood in Atlanta itself, Chattahoochee, today within the city's northwestern limits and known as Whittier Mill Village, and Scottdale, just northeast of Decatur.

Atlanta county exhibited influences of Appalachian folk music, black music (notably blues and influences from "Decatur Street" black music scene) and gospel. The first "country blues" recording was likely in 1924, in Atlanta, by Ed Andrews.

Annual Georgia Old-Time Fiddlers' Conventions took place in Atlanta in 1913-1935, a milestone in Atlanta's role as a marketplace for the country genre. Fiddling legend Fiddlin' John Carson placed fourth in the first convention in 1913.

The signal of WSB radio reached far into rural areas and was an important factor in creating country music "stars", similar to the role of WSM in Nashville. WSBs best known country music program was the WSB Barn Dance.

From August 1926 until October 1928, the Sears Agricultural Foundation hosted a radio show, broadcast from the Atlanta Sears tower (now Ponce City Market) called "Dinner Bell R.F.D.". R.F.D. stood for the club "Radio Farmers' Democracy". The show aired on WSB radio between noon and 1 pm three times a week, featuring old-time musicians and string bands

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