Rich-R-Tone Records historic marker honors early bluegrass music

The Rich-R-Tone Records historic marker was placed in downtown Johnson City by Founders Park earlier this November, and the marker holds many memories of music that brought Johnson City to life.

Ted Olson, a professor in the Department of Appalachian Studies, explains the history that dates back from 1946 from the founder and led to the marker being placed years later.

“Rich-R-Tone Records was an early record label that was started in 1946 by a man named James Hobart Stanton,” Olson said. “He was a jukebox operator, and initially ran a jukebox company in Morristown, Tennessee, then he went to Cincinnati, Ohio, and then Virginia, then came back to Johnson City.”

Olson described that went Stanton came back to Johnson City, he realizes the people did not want to hear records played in jukeboxes, but rather local music.

“The mountain music, the music that was coming from country, old-time artists, emerging bluegrass artists, Rich-R-Tone Records is really the first bluegrass label in the world,” Olson said.

Olson gives an example of how Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys in Nashville performed a sped up old-time music on the Grand Ole Opry stage in 1945, and it was later called bluegrass.

“What Hobart Stanton did in Johnson City, he discovered many other artists in 1947-1950 that were emulating Bill Monroe’s sound and taking it to new places,” Olson said. “That is when that new genre of bluegrass emerged.”

Some of the ETSU faculty in the Department of Appalachian Studies and were involved in revealing the marker to the public. Ted Olson, Ron Roach, and the Bluegrass Old-Time Country musics’ own, Dan Boner, led a student band to play the music from the time.

“The historic marker was co-underwritten by ETSU’s Department of Appalachian Studies and the City of Johnson City, we equally are acknowledged,” Olson said.

Olson also has plans of releasing hundreds of mini records in a box set from a company in Germany in the future.

“He made some really important records studied by scholars and to be revived by musicians today,” Olson said.

The historic marker is located on the West Main Street side of Founders Park in Downtown Johnson City. If you would like more information on the historic marker or Rich-R-Tone Records, please contact Ted Olson at olson@etsu.edu.