Between shows at Knoxville Stomp, you may also want to check out a new exhibit at the Museum of East Tennessee History, Come to Make Records. Subtitled “Knoxville’s Contributions to American Popular Music,” its displays track the evolution of the city’s early music history, from the fiddling contests that first appeared in the 1880s at the (now long gone) Market Hall on Market Square to the radio stars on WNOX’s Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round in the 1940s.

For Bradley Reeves, director the Knox County Public Library’s Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, it’s also his best opportunity yet to show off all the cool music-related stuff he’s been collecting since starting TAMIS, plus some rare items he’s managed to borrow.

“It’s the culmination of 15 years of interest in the Knoxville sessions themselves, and it’s been an adventure going out and finding this stuff,” he says. “This is years and years of going to thrift stores and having fun with serious 78 collectors. After a little finagling and begging and pleading, we were able to get people to turn loose some of these things, just for six months.”

Actual discs made from the 1929-30 Knoxville sessions at the St. James Hotel are very difficult to find—they didn’t have a lot of buyers during the Depression, and they weren’t the blues-based musicians that collectors started coveting in the 1950s. Today, however, they’re recognized as valuable collectibles, so Reeves had to canvas 78 collectors around the globe to bring some examples in for display. One of the discs on loan belongs to Terry Zwigoff, director of Crumb and Bad Santa.

Meanwhile, Reeves also managed to locate a wide range of instruments, mostly by tracking down descendants of the musicians and knocking on their doors.

You can see everyone from the 100-year-old guitar that Harry Van Guilder played in the Market Hall’s auditorium to 1960s folk singer Joy King’s guitar, which was made by local craftsman George McNish. Then there are more glamorous items, such as the matching rhinestone-encrusted Western suits worn by Carl and Pearl Butler; designed by famed California tailor Nathan Turk, each suit displays the Mexican coat of arms. The husband-and-wife country music duo most probably met during Carl’s days on WNOX, a wellspring of local talent that still makes amateur historians muse over what could have been.

“That’s when we had so many entertainers coming out of here and going on to Nashville, unfortunately. But for about 25 years, we really had something special,” Reeves says. “I think this really brings that home in a lot of ways. Maybe if we had promoted it a little better we could have held onto that scene. Knoxville was exceptional if you think about all the great artists that came out of here and are still coming out of here. I’m proud of Knoxville. I’m proud of our music history. I’m proud of our exceptional talent, now and then.”

Reeves’ favorite display at the exhibit is a small one—a shrine of artifacts devoted to the little-known but immensely significant Knoxville songwriter Arthur Q. Smith. Under a glass case, you can see a demo disc for a song he wrote, “Missing in Action,” and the receipt for the music rights, which he often sold off at the Three Feathers Tavern on Gay Street for food and drink. (“Missing in Action” became a hit for Ernest Tubb.)

“Knowing what talent he had and all the great music he created but never got credit for, it’s almost my mission to get this man some attention,” Reeves says. “More and more people who love country music are starting to find out about him.”

That effort may see more headway this fall, when Bear Family Records is due to release a two-CD set of Smith compositions, along with a book, which Reeves and News Sentinel music writer Wayne Bledsoe collaborated on.

Come to Make Records runs through Oct. 30 at the Museum of East Tennessee History.

Coury Turczyn

Editor Coury Turczyn guided Knoxville's alt weekly, Metro Pulse, through two eras, first as managing editor (and later executive editor) from 1992 to 2000, then as editor-in-chief from 2007 to 2014. He's also worked as a Web editor at CNET, the erstwhile G4 cable network, and HGTV.