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Jimmie
Rodgers |
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September 8, 1897 - May 26, 1933
Father of Country Music
Singing Brakeman
Mississippi Blue Yodeler
For those of you who may not be familiar with the music of Jimmie
Rodgers, a good place to start would be to click on the links and
listen to Jimmie's unique and original style.
Jimmie's first big hit: T For Texas (Blue Yodel No. 1 - November 30, 1927) - 184
Jimmie with full ochestration including brass: Waiting For A Train (October 22, 1928)
Jimmie's biggest selling composition by many artists over the years: Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8 - July 11, 1930)
James Charles Rodgers, Jimmie, the man who started it all. Born in Meridian, Mississippi to
Jimmie Rodgers was born on September 8, 1897 in Meridian, Mississippi,
the youngest of three sons. His mother Eliza died in 1903 when he was a very young
boy, and Rodgers spent the next few years living with various relatives
in southeast Mississippi and southwest Alabama. He eventually returned
home to live with his father, Aaron Rodgers, a Maintenance of Way
Foreman on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad, who had settled with a new
wife in Meridian.
Jimmie's affinity for entertaining came at an early age, and the lure
of the road was irresistible to him. By age 13, he had twice organized
and begun traveling shows, only to be brought home by his father. Both
of these incidents shed light on his drive to perform. The first time
he was caught, he had stolen some of his sister-in-law's bedsheets and
joined them to make a crude tent. Upon his return to Meridian, he paid
for the sheets, having made enough money with his show! For the second
trip with his troupe, he had charged to his father (without his
knowing) an expensive sidewall canvas tent. It's not known whether or
not Jimmie paid for the tent, but not long after that, Mr. Rodgers
found Jimmie his first job working on the railroad, as waterboy on his
father's gang. A few years later, he became brakeman on the New Orleans
and Northeastern Railroad, a position secured by his oldest brother,
Walter, a conductor on the line running between Meridian and New
Orleans.
In 1924, at the age of 27, Jimmie contracted tuberculosis, and the
paradox of this development is bittersweet. The disease temporarily
ended his railroad career, but, at the same time, gave him the chance
to get back to his first love, entertainment. He organized a traveling
road show and performed across the southeast until, once again, he was
forced home after a cyclone destroyed his tent. He returned to railroad
work as a brakeman on the east coast of Florida at Miami, but
eventually his illness cost him his job. In vain, he relocated to
Tucson, Arizona (thinking the dry climate might have an effect on his
TB), and was employed as a switchman by the South Pacific; the job
lasted less than a year, and the Rodgers family (which by then included
wife Carrie and daughter Anita) settled back in Meridian in 1927.
It's not exactly known why Jimmie decided to travel to Asheville, North
Carolina, later that year. Some say he was searching for a rumored job
on the railroad (one that didn't exist), while others speculate that it
was the mountain air. Though he probably gave these as reasons, most
likely, it was due to the burgeoning music scene in North Carolina.
In February of 1927, Asheville's first radio station, WWNC, went on the
air, and on April 18, at 9:30 p.m., Jimmie and Otis Kuykendall
performed for the first time on the station. A few months later, Jimmie
recruited a group from Tennessee called the Tenneva Ramblers and
secured a weekly slot on the station as the Jimmie Rodgers
Entertainers. The performances provoked two separate comments that
hinted at Rodgers' future success. A review in The Asheville Times
remarked that "Jimmy (sic) Rodgers and his entertainers managed...with
a type of music quite different than [the station's usual material],
but a kind that finds a cordial reception from a large audience." And
from another columnist: "whoever that fellow is, he either is a winner
or he is going to be."
The Tenneva Ramblers originally hailed from Bristol, Tennessee, and in
late July of 1927, Rodgers' band mates got word that Ralph Peer, a
representative of Victor Talking Machine Company, was coming to Bristol
to audition and record area musicians. Rodgers and the group quickly
mobilized and arrived in Bristol on August 3. Later that same day, they
auditioned for Peer in an empty warehouse where he had set up the
company's recording equipment. Peer agreed to record them the next day.
That night, as the band discussed how they would be billed on the
record, an argument ensued, which led Jimmie to declare, "All
right...I'll just sing one myself."
Jimmie was on his own, another twist in a long list of fateful circumstances that changed musical history.
On Wednesday, August 4, Jimmie Rodgers completed his first session for
Victor. It lasted from 2:00 p.m. to 4:20 p.m. and yielded two songs:
"Sleep, Baby, Sleep" and "The Soldier's Sweetheart." For the test
recordings, Rodgers received $100.
The recordings were released on October 7, 1927, to modest success, and
in November of that year, Jimmie, determined more than ever to make it
in entertainment, headed to New York City with two goals: to find out
the exact sales status of the first recordings, and to try to arrange
another session with Peer.
Peer agreed to record him again, and the two met in Philadelphia before traveling to Camden, New Jersey, to the Victor studios.
Four songs made it out of this session. "Ben Dewberry's Final Run";
"Mother Was A Lady"; "Away Out on the Mountain"; and "T for Texas." In
the next two years, the acetate that contained "T for Texas" (released
as "Blue Yodel") and "Away Out on the Mountain" sold nearly half a
million copies, which was impressive enough to rocket Rodgers into
stardom. After this, he got to determine when Peer and Victor would
record him, and he sold out shows whenever and wherever he played.
In the next few years, Rodgers was very busy. He did a movie short, The
Singing Brakeman, and made various recordings across the country. He
toured with humorist Will Rogers as part of a Red Cross tour across the
Midwest. On July 16, 1930, he even recorded "Blue Yodel #9" (also known
as "Standin' on the Corner") with a young jazz trumpeter named Louis
Armstrong, whose wife, Lillian, played piano on the track.
Rodgers' next to last recordings were made in August of 1932 in Camden
and it was clear that TB was getting the better of him. He had given up
touring by that time but did have a weekly radio show in San Antonio,
Texas, where he'd relocated when "T for Texas" became a hit.
With the country in full grip of the depression, the practice of making
field recordings was quickly fading, so in May of 1933, Rodgers
traveled again to New York City for a group of sessions beginning May
17. He started these sessions recording alone and completed four songs
on the first take. But there was no question that Rodgers was running
out of track. When he returned to the studio after a day's rest, he had
to record sitting down and soon retreated to his hotel in hopes of
regaining enough energy to finish the songs he'd been rehearsing.
The recording engineer hired two session musicians to help Rodgers when
he came back to the studio a few days later. Together, they recorded a
few songs, including "Mississippi Delta Blues." For his last song of
the session, however, Jimmie chose to perform alone, and as a matching
bookend to his career, recorded "Years Ago" by himself, finishing as
he'd started years earlier, just a man and his instrument. Within 36
hours, "The Father of Country Music" was dead.
Thankfully, his legend and legacy are alive and well. - http://www.jimmierodgers.com/
His brass plaque in the Country
Music Hall of Fame reads, "Jimmie Rodgers' name stands foremost in the
country music field as the man who started it all." This is a fair
assessment. The "Singing Brakeman" and the "Mississippi Blue Yodeler,"
whose six-year career was cut short by tuberculosis, became the first
nationally known star of country music and the direct influence of many
later performers from Hank Snow and Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams to
Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard. Rodgers sang about rounders and
gamblers, bounders and ramblers -- and he knew what he sang about. At
age 14 he went to work as a railroad brakeman, and on the rails he
stayed until a pulmonary hemorrhage sidetracked him to the medicine
show circuit in 1925. The years with the trains harmed his health but
helped his music. In an era when Rodgers' contemporaries were singing
only mountain and mountain/folk music, he fused hillbilly country,
gospel, jazz, blues, pop, cowboy, and folk; and many of his best songs
were his compositions, including "TB Blues," "Waiting for a Train,"
"Travelin' Blues," "Train Whistle Blues," and his thirteen blue yodels.
Although Rodgers wasn't the first to yodel on records, his style was
distinct from all the others. His yodel wasn't merely sugar-coating on
the song, it was as important as the lyric, mournful and plaintive or
happy and carefree, depending on a song's emotional content. His
instrumental accompaniment consisted sometimes of his guitar only,
while at other times a full jazz band (horns and all) backed him up.
Country fans could have asked for no better hero/star -- someone who
thought what they thought, felt what they felt, and sang about the
common person honestly and beautifully. In his last recording session,
Rodgers was so racked and ravaged by tuberculosis that a cot had to be
set up in the studio, so he could rest before attempting that one song
more. No wonder Jimmie Rodgers is to this day loved by country music
fans.
The youngest son of a railroad man, Jimmie Rodgers was Born September
8, 1897 in Geiger, Alabama. Following his mother's death in 1904, he
and his older brother went to live with their mother's sister, where he
first became interested in music. Jimmie's aunt was a former teacher
who held degrees in music and English, and she exposed him to a number
of different styles of music, including vaudeville, pop and dance hall.
Though he was attracted to music, he was a mischievous boy and often
got into trouble. When he returned to his father's care in 1911, Jimmie
ran wild, hanging out in pool halls and dives, yet he never got into
any serious trouble. When he was 12, he experienced his first taste of
fame when he sang "Steamboat Bill" at a local talent contest. Rodgers
won the concert and, inspired by his success, he decided to head out on
the road in his own traveling tent show. His father immediately tracked
him down and brought him back home, yet he ran away again, this time
joining a medicine show. The romance of performing with the show wore
off by the time his father hunted him down. Given the choice of school
or the railroad, Jimmie chose to join his father on the tracks.
For the next ten years, Rodgers worked on the railroad, performing a
variety of jobs along the south and west coasts. In May of 1917, he
married Sandra Kelly after knowing her for only a handful of weeks; by
the fall, they had separated, even though she was pregnant (their
daughter died in 1938). Two years later they officially divorced, and
around the same time, he met Carrie Williamson, a preacher's daughter.
Rodgers married Carrie in April of 1920, while she was still in high
school. Shortly after their marriage, Jimmie was laid off by the New
Orleans & Northeastern Railroad, and he began performing various
bluecollar jobs, looking for opportunities to sing. Over the next three
years, the couple was plagued with problems, ranging from financial to
health -- the second of their two daughters died of diphtheria six
months after her birth in 1923. By that time, Rodgers had begun to
regularly play in traveling shows, and he was on the road at the time
of her death. Though these years were difficult, they were important in
the development of Jimmie's musical style as he began to develop his
distinctive blue yodel and worked on his guitar skills.
In 1924, Jimmie Rodgers was diagnosed with tuberculosis, but instead of
heeding the doctor's warning about the seriousness of the disease, he
discharged himself from the hospital to form a trio with fiddler Slim
Rozell and his sister-in-law Elsie McWilliams. Rodgers continued to
work on the railroad and perform black face comedy with medicine shows
while he sang. Two years after being diagnosed with TB, he moved his
family out to Tucson, Arizona, believing the change in location would
improve his health. In Tucson, he continued to sing at local clubs and
events. The railroad believed these extracurricular activities
interfered with his work and fired him. Moving back to Meridian, Jimmie
and Carrie lived with her parents, before he moved away to Asheville,
North Carolina in 1927. Rodgers was going to work on the railroad, but
his health was so poor he couldn't handle the labor; he would never
work the rails again. Instead, he began working as a janitor and a cab
driver, singing on a local radio station and events as well. Soon, he
moved to Johnson City, Tennessee, where he began singing with the
string band the Tenneva Ramblers. Prior to Rodgers, the group had
existed as a trio, but he persuaded the members to become his backing
band because he had a regular show in Asheville. The Ramblers relented
and the group's name took second billing to Rodgers, and the group
began playing various concerts in addition to the radio show.
Eventually, Rodgers heard that Ralph Peer, an RCA talent scout, was
recording hillbilly and string bands in Bristol, Tennessee. Jimmie
convinced the band to travel to Bristol, but on the eve of the
audition, they had a huge argument about the proper way they should be
billed, resulting in the Tenneva Ramblers breaking away from Rodgers.
Jimmie went to the audition as a solo artist and Peer recorded two
songs -- the old standards "The Soldier's Sweetheart" and "Sleep, Baby,
Sleep" -- after rejecting Rodgers' signature song, "T for Texas."
Released in October of 1927, the record was not a hit, but Victor did
agree to record Rodgers again, this time as a solo artist. In November
of 1927, he cut four songs, including "T for Texas." Retitled "Blue
Yodel" upon its release, the song became a huge hit and one of only a
handful of early country records to sell a million copies. Shortly
after its release, Jimmie and Carrie moved to Washington, where he
began appearing on a weekly local radio show billed as the Singing
Brakeman. Though "Blue Yodel" was success, its sales grew steadily
throughout early 1928, which meant that the couple weren't able to reap
the financial benefits until the end of the year. By that time, Jimmie
had recorded several more singles, including the hits "Way Out on the
Mountain," "Blue Yodel No. 4," "Waiting for a Train" and "In the
Jailhouse Now." On various sessions, Peer experimented with Rodgers'
backing band, occasionally recording him with two other string
instrumentalists and recording his solo as well. Over the next two
years, Peer and Rodgers tried out a number of different backing bands,
including a jazz group featuring Louis Armstrong, orchestras, and a
Hawaiian combo.
By 1929, Jimmie Rodgers had become an official star, as his concerts
became major attractions and his records consistently sold well. During
1929, he made a small film called The Singing Brakeman, recorded many
songs, and toured throughout the country. Though his activity kept his
star shining and the money rolling in, his health began to decline
under all the stress. Nevertheless, he continued to plow forward,
recording numerous songs and building a large home in Kerrville, Texas,
as well as working with Will Rogers on several fund-raising tour for
the Red Cross that were designed to help those suffering from the
Depression. By the middle of 1931, the Depression was beginning to
affect Rodgers as well, as his concert bookings decreased dramatically
and his records stopped selling. Despite the financial hardships,
Jimmie continued to record.
Not only did the Great Depression cut into Jimmie's career, but so did
his poor health. He had to decrease the number of concerts he performed
in both 1931 and 1932, and by 1933, his health affected his recording
and forced him to cancel plans for several films. Despite his
condition, he refused to stop performing, telling his wife that "I want
to die with my shoes on." By early 1933, the family was running short
on money, and he had to perform anywhere he could -- including
vaudeville shows and nickelodeons -- to make ends meet. For a while he
performed on a radio show in San Antonio, but in February he collapsed
and was sent to the hospital. Realizing that he was close to death, he
convinced Peer to schedule a recording session in May. Rodgers used
that session to provide needed financial support for his family. At
that session, Jimmie was accompanied by a nurse and rested on a cot in
between songs. Two days after the sessions were completed, he died of a
lung hemorrhage on May 26, 1933. Following his death, his body was
taken to Meridian by train, riding in a converted baggage car. Hundreds
of country fans awaited the body's arrival in Meridian, and the train
blew its whistle consistently throughout its journey. For several days
after the body arrived in Rodgers' hometown, it lay in state as
hundreds, if not thousands, of people paid tribute to the departed
musician.
The massive display of affection at Jimmie Rodgers' funeral services
indicated what a popular and beloved star he was during his time. His
influence wasn't limited to the '30s, however. Throughout country
music's history, echoes of Jimmie Rodgers can be heard, from Hank
Williams to Merle Haggard. In 1961, Rodgers became the first artist
inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame; 25 years later, he was
inducted as a founding father at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Though both honors are impressive, they only give a small indication of
what Rodgers accomplished -- and how he affected the history of country
music by making it viable, commercially popular medium -- during his
lifetime. -- David Vinopal - http://www.alamhof.org/rodgersj.htm
Jimmie Rodgers's Story
James Charles Rodgers, known professionally as the Singing Brakeman and
America’s Blue Yodeler, was the first performer inducted into the
Country Music Hall of Fame. He was honored as the Father of Country
Music, “the man who started it all.” From many diverse
elements—the traditional melodies and folk music of his southern
upbringing, early jazz, stage show yodeling, the work chants of
railroad section crews and, most importantly, African-American
blues—Rodgers evolved a lasting musical style which made him
immensely popular in his own time and a major influence on generations
of country artists. Gene Autry, Ernest Tubb, Hank Snow, Lefty Frizzell,
Bill Monroe, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Tanya Tucker, and Dolly Parton
are only a few of the dozens of stars who have acknowledged the impact
of Jimmie Rodgers’s music on their careers.
Rodgers was the son of a railroad section foreman but was attracted to
show business. At thirteen he won an amateur talent contest and ran
away with a traveling medicine show. Stranded far from home, he was
retrieved by his father and put to work on the railroad. For a dozen
years or so, through World War I and into the 1920s, he rambled far and
wide on “the high iron,” working as call boy, flagman,
baggage master, and brakeman, all the while polishing his musical
skills and looking for a chance to earn his living as an entertainer.
After developing tuberculosis in 1924, Rodgers gave up railroading and
began to devote full attention to his music, organizing amateur bands,
touring with rag-tag tent shows, playing on street corners, taking any
opportunity he could find to perform. Success eluded him until the
summer of 1927. In Asheville, North Carolina, he wangled a regular (but
unpaid) spot on local radio station WWNC and persuaded the Tenneva
Ramblers, a stringband from Bristol, Tennessee-Virginia, to join him as
the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers. When the radio program was abruptly
canceled, they found work at a resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
There they learned that Ralph Peer, an agent for the Victor Talking
Machine Company, was making field recordings in Bristol, not far away.
Rodgers quickly loaded up the band, went to Bristol, and succeeded in
gaining an audition with Peer. Before they could record, however, the
group quarreled over billing and broke up. Deserted by the band,
Rodgers persuaded Peer to let him record alone, accompanied only by his
own guitar.
Prompted by the public’s unusually strong response to
Rodgers’s first release (“Sleep, Baby, Sleep,” paired
with “The Soldier’s Sweetheart”), Peer arranged for
Rodgers to record again in November at Victor’s home studios in
Camden, New Jersey. From this session came the immortal “Blue
Yodel (T for Texas),” Rodgers’s first big hit. Within
months he was on his way to national stardom, playing first-run
theaters, broadcasting regularly from Washington, D.C., and signing for
a vaudeville tour of major Southern cities on the prestigious Loew
Circuit.
In the ensuing five years he traveled to Victor’s studios in
numerous cities across the nation, including New York and Hollywood,
eventually recording 110 titles, including such classics as
“Waiting for a Train,” “Daddy and Home,”
“In the Jailhouse Now,” “Frankie and Johnny,”
“Treasures Untold,” “My Old Pal,” “T. B.
Blues,” “My Little Lady,” “The One Rose,”
“My Blue-Eyed Jane,” “Miss the Mississippi and
You,” and the series of twelve sequels to “Blue
Yodel” for which he was most famous. In 1929 Rodgers appeared in
a movie, The Singing Brakeman, a fifteen-minute short made in Camden by
Columbia. Best known for his solo appearances on stage and record, he
also worked with many other established performers of the time, touring
in 1931 with Will Rogers (who jokingly referred to him as “my
distant son”) and recording with such country music greats as the
Carter Family, Clayton McMichen, and Bill Boyd, and in at least one
instance with a jazz star of major national prominence, Louis
Armstrong, who appears with him on “Blue Yodel No. 9.” One
of the first white stars to work with black musicians, Rodgers also
recorded with the fine St. Louis bluesman Clifford Gibson.
Rodgers’s career reached its high point during the years 1928 to
1932. By late 1932 the Depression was taking its toll on record sales
and theater attendance, and Rodgers’s failing health made it
impossible for him to pursue the movie projects and international tours
he had planned. Through the spring of 1933 he tried, with little
success, to book personal appearances. In May he went to New York to
fulfill his contract with RCA Victor for twelve more recordings. It
took him a week to finish these sessions, resting between takes. Two
days later, on May 26, he collapsed on the street and died a few hours
later of a massive hemorrhage in his room at the Hotel Taft.
Jimmie Rodgers’s impact on country music can scarcely be
exaggerated. At a time when emerging “hillbilly music”
consisted largely of old-time instrumentals and lugubrious vocalists
who sounded much alike, Rodgers brought to the scene a distinctive,
colorful personality and a rousing vocal style which in effect created
and defined the role of the singing star in country music. His records
turned the public’s attention away from rustic fiddles and
mournful disaster songs to popularize the free-swinging, born-to-lose
blues tradition of cheatin’ hearts and faded love, whiskey rivers
and stoic endurance. Although Rodgers constantly scrabbled for material
throughout his career, his recorded repertoire was remarkably broad and
diverse, ranging from love songs and risque´ ditties to whimsical
blues tunes and even gospel hymns. There were songs about railroaders
and cowboys, cops and robbers, Daddy and Mother, and
home—plaintive ballads with all the nostalgic flavor of
traditional music but invigorated by a distinctly original approach and
punctuated by Rodgers’s yodel and unorthodox runs, which became
his trademarks. - Nolan Porterfield - http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/site/inductees.aspx?cid=162#
Died at the Taft Hotel, NY, NY - T for Texas - Blue Yodel No. 1 - Sold over 1 Million copies
