Cowan Powers and his Family Band
US musical group
Fiddlin' Powers and Family was a Virginia string band from the 1920s, considered pioneers in early country music. They were the first family string band to make a commercial record (1924). The band consisted of Cowan Powers and his children, Charles, Orpha, Carrie and Ada. Cowan also played with his wife, Matilda, until her death in 1916.
A career
Recording
Record companies of the time were trying to get "old time" or "hill country" music to sell, and tried using professional musicians such as Vernon Dalhart to imitate the sound. When it became clear the customers wanted the "real thing" the companies sought musicians to travel from the south to the recording studios in New York and Chicago.
The Powers family, who were based in Scott County, Southwest Virginia, made records with Victor Talking Machine Company, Edison Records and Okeh Records. They recorded at least 26 songs, of which 15 were issued. Their recording of Old Joe Clark in 1924 was the third best selling album for that year.
Live performances
They performed live in "the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and perhaps a dozen other states".
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This entry incorporates text from “Cowan Powers and his Family Band” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.