Jimmie Rodgers

[Feraud]

Any Jimmie Rodgers fans out there?

Here is Jimmie doing Mule Skinner Blues
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Has anyone been to the JR museum?
http://www.jimmierodgers.com/

 

[skyvue]

I'm a Jimmie Rodgers fan, and visited the museum back in 1992. I was traveling cross-country for four months (set foot in all 48 contiguous states, I did), and the Jimmie Rodgers museum was one of the highlights of the journey. Here's what I wrote about my brief stay in Meridian, MS, back in '92:

The good people of Meridian, Mississippi are duly proud of their native son, Jimmie Rodgers, but they don't exploit him. They do, however, honor him with a yearly music festival that boasts top-name country acts. I managed to hit town just as the '92 edition was beginning but, unfortunately, I didn't get to hear any music. The timing just wasn't right, but they did have a pretty impressive roster of talent lined up: Sawyer Brown, Aaron Tippen, Vern Gosdin, Travis Tritt, Tanya Tucker and Hank Williams, Jr. I know Tanya a little; I've met her a few times in NYC. I tried to track her down to say hello at the fishing derby held today, but by the time I got there, she was already on Lake Eddins, south of Meridian, in a fishing boat.

I did make it to the Jimmie Rodgers Museum, however; what a delightful place it is. The affection the town feels for the Singing Brakeman is quite apparent here and various artifacts from his short life are on display, including the guitar he used for performing and recording (with his name set in pearl on the frets!), a Levi's jacket he used to wear, a tuxedo he wore once fame had come to him, and many more items from his brief life. One item that I found especially charming may require a little background information for those of you who are not familiar with his life.

Jimmie worked as a brakeman for the railroad for years until his health (he suffered from TB) prevented him from continuing. At that point, he began to pursue as a career what had been just a hobby: singing and songwriting. He became a huge star, selling out many live shows and moving a lot of 78's. He was one of the first white artists to incorporate the blues into his music, combining the Delta sounds of his home state with southern folk music and a signature yodel, years before Slim Whitman came on the scene. In fact, his other nickname was the Blues Yodeler. He wrote many of his own tunes, some with lyrics written by his sister-in-law. His music truly was one of the precursors of what we know today as country music, thus earning him the title, Father of Country Music. Some of his hits were "In the Jailhouse Now," "T for Texas," "Frankie and Johnnie" and my favorite, "Peach-Pickin' Time in Georgia." His tunes have been covered by countless artists over the years, including Merle Haggard, Dolly Parton, John Fogerty and Leon Redbone. The LP, Trio, which featured Dolly, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt and was a big hit a few years ago, also contained a Rodgers tune, "Hobo's Meditation."

Which brings me back to my original subject, an artifact at the museum that especially appealed to me. Rodgers retained his love of railroads his whole life; many of his songs dealt with the traveling life and the homeless of those days, hobos. Already a success, Jimmie once ran across a hobo he had known in his railroad days and gave him one of his business cards and, on the back, asked the Houston police to be nice to him if they picked him up as a vagrant (which they did). Imagine a homeless person today being hasseled by the cops and pulling out a note handwritten and signed by, say, Bruce Springsteen vouching for his good character and asking the police to go lightly on him! This very card was on display at the museum; it certainly reflects well on Rodgers' character that, while he was a big enough star for his name to carry some weight with the law enforcement agents, he still remembered his roots enough to help out an old friend. Jimmie Rodgers died at the age of 36 in 1933. The TB worsened during the last years of his life and rather than take it easy, he worked extra hard, fearful that he'd leave his wife and children behind with no means of support. His last recordings were done from a cot in a NYC recording studio. It's said that he'd record a song from a prone position, then collapse for a few hours until he'd recovered sufficient energy to do another. He died shortly thereafter in a Manhattan hotel room.​

 

[carouselvic]

Gotta luv the singing brakeman

 

[Mysterious Mose]

"Waiting for a train" is my all time favourite song, I think.

 

[Fletch]

It is little known, nor remarked about, that Jimmie Rodgers was briefly the most popular recording artist in the country.

This is because it was at a time - circa 1932 - when the record business almost literally died, and when Jimmie himself was about to.

After the depression settled in, it was the urban classes, the radio homes, who stopped buying records and almost killed the phonograph.

In the back country, parts of it anyway, music was more a part of daily life, but radio and electricity were not, as yet. There people did buy records, one or two, here and there, when they could buy anything at all.

In 1932, the worst year, RCA sold just 3 million platters - and yet Rodgers sold over 300,000, more than 10 per cent of the total.

Recorded August 29, 1932

 

[dhermann1]

I've always heard of him, and occasionally heard his music on the radio. I did stumble into an LP many years ago of Gene Autry in his earliest years, which I love. What I subsequently learned was that Gene was basically doing Jimmie Rodgers's songs in Jimmie Rodgers's style.

 

[dhermann1]

Charlie Poole

BTW, if you like Jimmie Rodgers, you might also like Charlie Poole. He was contemporary to Rodgers, and had a similar career path, tho it was drink, not TB that finally did him in. Charlie was more of a pure country singer than Jimmie, but a great musician, nonetheless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Poole

 

[Mysterious Mose]

I'm a big fan, I felt strangely proud when I caught T.B. once. I teared up when I first saw the 'Daddy and Home' film:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k6GZ0vEt2U
The Daddy of them all must have done well over in England too. I got a bunch of his records on Regal Zonophone. None with Steel guitar AND Tuba, I'm afraid.
Ever heard of the Chemirocha legend of the Kipsigi tribe, from Kenya? Amazing story:http://porchofthemystics.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/chemirocha/
I have a banjo mandolin that belonged to Rex McLean, a guy from Melbourne who was still doing Rodgers' stuff before he died, some seven or so years ago.
My friend C.W. Stoneking did an album last year that was somewhat Rodgers inspired called the Jungle Blues. Check him out, you will be amazed.

 

[Mysterious Mose]

Roy Evans

Another, pretty obscure, Yodeler. I've been trying to collect his output for a while.
His version of 'Mysterious Mose', sung with Rube Bloom's Bayou Boys inspired my alias about five years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-km6YQUgU4

 

[Fletch]

I knew Roy's grand-nephew, also Roy Evans. He's got one of the best and rarest 78 collections I know of. He was a "pure" collector - not a musician, historian, or reissue man, just deeply serious about records.

 

[Feraud]

I've always heard of him, and occasionally heard his music on the radio. I did stumble into an LP many years ago of Gene Autry in his earliest years, which I love. What I subsequently learned was that Gene was basically doing Jimmie Rodgers's songs in Jimmie Rodgers's style.

Here is Gene Autry doing Atlanta Bound, which is Rodger's style.
Check it out -
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[Mysterious Mose]

Nice !

 

[Feraud]

Ever heard of the Chemirocha legend of the Kipsigi tribe, from Kenya? Amazing story:http://porchofthemystics.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/chemirocha/

That's an amazing story!

 

[Mysterious Mose]

Incredible isn't it? Pat Conte mentioned it once on the Secret Museum radioshow.

 

[Fletch]

Incredible isn't it? Pat Conte mentioned it once on the Secret Museum radioshow.

"The story of “Chemirocha” reminds us that the raw power of music will never be cordoned by national borders or language barriers."
Altho unless you grew up among the Kipsigi of Kenya, you're a lot more likely to hear it sung by an Icelandic hipster in New York. National and language barriers are permeable...cultural ones not always so.

 

[dhermann1]

Come to any New York City subway platform and you're likely to hear music from any place in the world, played by musicians from any place in the world, being listened to by listeners from any place in the world.

 

[Feraud]

NYC is that great cultural fondue pot.

 

[Fletch]

I wanted to do that as a PR campaign once.
"New York: The exception that proves the rule."

 

[Feraud]

Skyvue- thanks for posting your writings on the Rodgers Museum.
The place looks like a definite stop if I ever make my way to MS!

 

[skyvue]

Skyvue- thanks for posting your writings on the Rodgers Museum.
The place looks like a definite stop if I ever make my way to MS!

My pleasure, and yes, the museum is well worth a visit.