Welcome back. Glad you're here.

I know, I know. This is a Kingsport newsletter. So why am I talking about Bristol?

Bear with me. Because it turns out Kingsport has a claim on one of the most important stories in American music history, and almost nobody knows it. That story starts 30 miles down the road, but it runs right back here.

In today's post:

The Bristol Sessions Nights festival is a 12-night concert series running through 2027 at the L.C. King Building in Bristol, Tennessee. Each night is themed around a different chapter of early American music, and each is limited to 100 numbered tickets. This is not a general admission crowd. It is a room full of people who actually care about what they are hearing.

Night 1, The Kickoff, is May 22. Night 2, Carter Family Legacy, is June 19. Night 3, Jimmie Rodgers and Early Roots, is July 17. The full 12-night schedule runs through the centennial year of 2027.

You can find tickets and the full lineup at bristolsessionsfestival.com.

We'd especially point you toward Night 2. Because after you read the rest of this newsletter, the Carter Family Legacy night is going to hit a little differently.

In 1927, the same summer that Ralph Peer set up his recording equipment in a Bristol hat warehouse and changed American music forever, a young man named Lesley Riddle was recovering from a serious accident at a cement plant in Kingsport.

He had lost his right leg below the knee. He had two fewer fingers than he started with, the result of a dispute with his uncle over a shotgun. By most measures, his story could have ended there.

Instead, it became one of the most important stories in the history of country music. Most people just never knew it started here.

Born in Burnsville, North Carolina in 1905, Riddle moved to Kingsport as a child when his mother relocated the family. He grew up here. He worked here. And when those injuries sidelined him, he picked up a guitar and got to work.

He developed an innovative picking and slide technique, and soon he was a regular on the African American music scene in Kingsport, collaborating with musicians from Sullivan and Scott counties. Kingsport had a Black music scene in the 1920s. It does not get talked about much. But it was real, it was active, and it was producing musicians good enough to catch the attention of one of the most important figures in early country music.

A.P. Carter, the Carter Family patriarch, first heard Lesley play guitar and sing on the streets of Kingsport. At the time, A.P. was under pressure to find new material. The Carter Family had just recorded at the Bristol Sessions. They were becoming known. But A.P. was always searching, always restless, always convinced there were more songs out there waiting to be found.

He brought Lesley home to play for his wife Sara and his sister-in-law Maybelle. They heard blues and spiritual music from the African American churches of Appalachia. What happened next stretched across more than five years.

Riddle began splitting his time between Kingsport and the Carter home in Maces Springs, Virginia. He and A.P. traveled together through African American communities across Appalachian Tennessee, Virginia, and North Carolina, collecting songs. Riddle would memorize the tunes and words, then come back and teach them to Sara and Maybelle.

It was a partnership that lasted for years and a friendship that endured for half a century.

Here is the part that should stop you in your tracks.

Maybelle Carter's trademark guitar technique came from Lesley Riddle. Maybelle credited Riddle with teaching her the style in which the melody is played on the bass strings while the thumb keeps rhythm. She absorbed it by watching him play for hours and built it into what became known as the Carter scratch, a style that turned the guitar from a background instrument into the dominant lead voice in the band.

Riddle himself recalled it simply. He said of Maybelle: "You don't have to give her any lessons. You let her see you playing something, she'll get it. You better believe it."

The songs Riddle brought to the Carters became part of their most celebrated repertoire, including "The Cannon Ball," "I Know What It Means To Be Lonesome," and "Let the Church Roll On."

The Carter scratch did not stay in the mountains.

Maybelle's technique reshaped how American musicians understood the guitar. It spread through radio broadcasts, through the 1960s folk revival, through the hands of player after player who carried it into every genre that followed.

Among those who have publicly credited Maybelle Carter as a direct influence: Elvis Presley. Bob Dylan. Johnny Cash. Chet Atkins. Earl Scruggs. Bill Monroe. Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. Doc Watson. Emmylou Harris.

One writer put it plainly: if guitar history were honest, Maybelle would sit on the same poster wall as Hendrix and Page.

That is not an exaggeration. It is a lineage. And it runs straight back through the Carter Family, through A.P. Carter's song-collecting trips, through the sessions in Maces Springs, and back to a guitar player named Lesley Riddle who grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee, and taught himself to play while recovering from an accident at a cement plant.

Riddle never made a commercial recording during his years in Kingsport. In 1942, he and his wife moved to Rochester, New York. He retired from music, and in 1945 he sold his guitar, remaining largely unknown for the next two decades.

In 1965, folklorist Mike Seeger, who learned about Riddle from Maybelle Carter herself, tracked him down and persuaded him to return to playing. They made recordings together. Riddle appeared at the Smithsonian Folk Festival. He was finally getting some of the credit he was owed.

He died in 1979. A historical marker now stands in Kingsport in his honor. He was featured in the first episode of Ken Burns' country music documentary on PBS.

But he spent most of his life unrecognized. And the city where his musical story really began has not yet told that story the way it deserves to be told. Long past time we changed that.

Nobody became a developer to write documentation. But the docs still need to get written — PRDs, README updates, architecture decisions, onboarding guides.

Wispr Flow lets you talk through it instead. Speak naturally about what the code does, how it works, and why you built it that way. Flow formats everything into clean, professional text you can paste into Notion, Confluence, or GitHub.

Used by engineering teams at OpenAI, Vercel, and Clay. 89% of messages sent with zero edits. Works system-wide on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.

Try Wispr Flow free

Grits and Greens Band at Gypsy Circus Cider Company Tonight, May 1 | 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm | 2645 Fort Henry Drive Live music at Gypsy Circus to kick off the weekend. Grits and Greens is a local favorite and this is a good excuse to grab a cider and settle in. Free to attend. More info here.

Toyota of Kingsport Hot Summer Night Series [Add date and time] | [Add location] The Hot Summer Night Series is back. A great warm-weather tradition worth putting on your calendar. More info and full schedule here.

Celebrating 250 Years Along the Holston River at Netherland Inn [Add date and time] | Netherland Inn, Kingsport A milestone anniversary celebration at one of the most historically significant sites in our region. The Netherland Inn has been sitting on the banks of the Holston since before Kingsport was Kingsport. Worth making time for. More info here.

8 Lake Harbor Court, Johnson City | $1,850,000

A custom lakefront home in Lake Harbor Estates on Boone Lake's Reedy Creek Cove, one of the quieter sections of the lake known for smooth water and protected boating. Four beds, five baths, 4,200+ finished square feet across three levels with views from nearly every room.

The outdoor setup is the real story: a 60x15 Trex deck on the main level, a 60x20 covered walkout patio below, and a private 40x40 boat dock with covered seating and a lift. The community adds pickleball and tennis courts, a private marina with slips, a boat ramp, and a hiking trail.

Bring your boat and show up. See the full listing here.

What do you think they're asking for 8 Lake Harbor Court?

Vote down below

Interested in reaching a growing audience of Kingsport readers who care about this community? Reply to this email to learn about Community Partner opportunities.

This newsletter works best when it's a conversation. If you know a story that needs to be told, a person doing something interesting, or a place in Kingsport that matters to you, send it my way. Every documentary, every feature, every post starts with someone saying "you should look into this."

That's it for this week. Thanks for trusting me with your inbox. Let's tell some stories.

Talk soon,

Ryan