Date: Tuesday, May 1, 2025

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Location: In-person at Birthplace of Country Music Museum; virtual via YouTube

Cost: Free and open to the public

Join us on Thursday, May 1 at 6:30pm for a Listening Party, a chance to hear a restored 1940–1950s radio transcription disc of The Stanley Brothers & the Clinch Mountain Boys on Farm and Fun Time. Participants will be able to see (but not touch!) the disc, learn about the disc and its preservation from the museum’s curatorial team, hear about the history of Farm and Fun Time from Radio Bristol Program Director Kris Truelsen, and listen to several of the tracks that were restored digitally over a year-long process.

This event is complementary programming to the Ellen Elmes: The Art of Music & Mountains exhibit on display at the museum through September 30. Special thanks to the United Company Foundation for their support of programming related to this exhibit.

About the Farm and Fun Time Disc

Early in 2017, Glen Harlow donated a Farm and Fun Time radio transcription disc containing live tracks that have not been heard in over 60 years. The fact that an original live recording of the Stanley Brothers with the Clinch Mountain Boys from Farm and Fun Time exists at all is pretty amazing, because the discs used to record radio broadcasts in the mid-20th century are highly unstable and prone to degradation, delamination, and breakage. This disc was no different – it was fragile, damaged, and unplayable. Until recently, recordings on degraded lacquer discs like this one were usually lost forever. Enter the Virginia Association of Museums Top 10 Most Endangered Objects initiative and the Northeast Document Conservation Center – through grant support and technical expertise, we can now access the songs on this broken disc! You can read all about the disc and this preservation process HERE and HERE.