(AP) - In 1927, the Victor Talking Machine Company went to a small town on the Tennessee-Virginia border to record what was known as "hillbilly music," including the Carter Family.

Today, the Birthplace of Country Music Museum is now open.

The museum in Bristol, Virginia, is displaying instruments, recording equipment and clothes related to country, gospel and blues. Visitors can record their own songs in sound booths or hear early gospel records in a small chapel.

The museum's executive director, Leah Ross, says country music had been recorded before, but the Bristol Sessions were the first time it was mass-produced for audiences in New York, Atlanta and Chicago.

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