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| Died at 36. Nuts. |
Born in 1897, in either Meridian, Mississippi or Geiger, Alabama, Rodgers grew up in a large family that alternately fractured and diminished after his mother died when he was between six and seven years old. After some shuffling around, Rodgers moved back to Meridian to live with that same father, Aaron Rodgers (different Aaron Rodgers), who finished raising him and set him up with work on the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad. The younger Rodgers started as a water boy, but later rose to the occupation of brakeman. Hence, his nom du career: The Singing Brakeman.
His Wikipedia entry talks about how Rodgers continued his musical education with help from railworkers and “hobos.” It also speculates that he picked up “work chants” by listening to the black employees of the rail-lines who maintained the railroads before machines took over - and he was certainly open-minded enough to do that. For a man with stars in his eyes, Rodgers stuck with his career on the railroad for a surprisingly long time. Famous people, even the eventually famous, get that final “nudge” from all kinds of places: in Jimmie Rodgers’ case, that nudge came with a tuberculosis diagnosis at age 27 (in 1924).
It wasn’t a clean break. He attempted another traveling show, only to see his tent destroyed by a cyclone; Rodgers returned to the railroad after that, relocating as far West as Arizona (on the theory that drier climes would help with the TB; he really did try) - but, by 1927, he returned once more to Meridian and finally and fully committed to a career in music.
It started with a free radio show with Charlotte, North Carolina’s WWNC. He recruited a band from Tennessee called the Tenneva Ramblers and, by the second half of 1927, he/they performed a weekly slot on the station - an unpaid gig, according to his Country Music Hall of Fame biography notes. The band performed as the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers (hold that thought) and, per the bio posted on the Jimmie Rodgers Foundation, they didn’t sound like anything else on the local radio. It buzzed loudly enough for one area columnist to write: “Whoever that fellow is, he either is a winner or he is going to be.” Because the radio show didn’t pay, Rodgers and the Tenneva Ramblers played resorts to make some scratch.
What counts as Rodgers’ big break came later - and from something a lot like a star search. He and his band caught word that a New York producer named Ralph Peer from the Victor Talking Machine Company was en route to a town called Bristol, Tennessee to audition local artists to record. Everyone involved agreed they wanted to audition and they arrived as a band. They did well enough to get a prized call-back to record the next day, only to fall into a squabble about what they’d call themselves. When they failed to reach an agreement, the Tenneva Ramblers recorded as themselves and Rodgers recorded solo. As a historical note, those recordings later became known as “the Bristol sessions,” aka, the “big bang of country music.” And it wasn’t just Rodgers who caught his big break there: The Carter Family, who I'll cover later, got theirs as well.
Two songs from that session - “The Soldier’s Sweetheart” and “Sleep, Baby, Sleep” - sold well enough for Peer to arrange to get Rodgers up to New York to record more material. And that’s when things took off for Jimmie Rodgers:
“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.”
“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.”
Jimmie Rodgers had just six short years to make his name in the business. During that first trip to New York he recorded “T for Texas (Blue Yodel),” one of his most famous numbers and one of his many, many “yodels.” He hit all of the big time during that period: over and above two years’ worth of touring, he starred in movie shorts (“The Singing Brakeman,” in fact; "atta girl"), recorded with Louis Armstrong with his wife, Lil, on the keys (that’s “Blue Yodel No. 9,” aka, “Standin’ on the Corner”), and performed with the legendary Will Rogers (who referred to him as “my distant son”). Rodgers also laid down a cultural marker as one of the first white stars to record with black musicians, including (starting with?) Clifford Gibson. When it came to the blues, he did more than that:
“Not just a country artist, Rodgers was one of the biggest stars of American music between 1927 and 1933, arguably doing more to popularize blues than any other performer of his time. The 2009 book Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century tracks Rodgers influence through a broad range of musical genres.”
Rodgers racked up a dozen-plus hits (see below; I link to most of the ones I came across, plus a couple more), at least until he couldn’t. By 1932, the tuberculosis had caught up with him. He’d packed in touring by then, but it wasn’t long before he could barely manage recording. He died doing it, in fact, resting between all the takes he could manage. Rodgers wound up collapsing on the streets of New York, at some point between the studio and his room at the Hotel Taft where he convalesced between sessions. Among the last two songs he recorded were “Mississippi Delta Blues” and “Years Ago,” a song that, as his bio on the Jimmie Rodgers Foundation pointed out, saw him “finishing as he’d started six years earlier, just a man and his guitar.”
According to his legend, Jimmie Rodgers loved performing and playing for people - and, per a note in Wikipedia, just people generally:
“Always a man of the people, Rodgers maintained friendships with his old pals and band mates throughout his short life and was noted for his charming, upbeat personality. While on tour, Rodgers became legendary for his generosity to strangers, his habit of giving free impromptu performances, and for his willingness to socialize with his fans.”
Wikipedia closes its entry with a long, impressive list of all the people Rodgers influenced, but the one that caught my eye was Howlin’ Wolf, aka, Chester Arthur Burnett. According to the entry, Burnett idolized Rodgers growing up, but couldn’t land the yodeling:
“I couldn’t do no yodelin’, so I turned to howlin’. And it’s done me just fine.”
And, yes, you’ll hear yodeling all over Jimmie Rodgers’ music. The story of where he picked it up - e.g., “after he caught a troupe of Swiss emissaries doing a demonstration at a church.” - is one of those delightful absurdities that makes this whole project worthwhile.
About the Sampler
As always, I linked to several of the songs that show up on the sampler up above, but the Country Music Hall of Fame bio deeded a gold mine for this project, including: “Waitin' for a Train,” “Daddy and Home,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” “Frankie and Johnny,” “Treasures Untold,” “My Old Pal,” “My Little Lady,” “The One Rose,” “My Blue-Eyed Jane,” “Miss the Mississippi and You.” They also snuck in “T. B. Blues,” which I feel deserves a solo nod, given that, per Cockney theatricals, that’s what done him in. I picked up a couple other Rodgers tunes on my own - e.g., “Kisses Sweeter than Wine” from an old oldies compilation I picked up with a parting gift from an old job (shit! wrong, Jimmie Rodgers...but why didn't Spotify catch it?), but also several of the “blue yodels” that formed the spine of his career - e.g., “Blue Yodel No. 4 (California Blues),” “Mule Skinner Blues (Blue Yodel No. 8),” and “Blue Yodel No. 3 (“Evening Sun Yodel).” I picked up one more song on my own (not to mention picking up several of the songs above on my own), including “Memphis Yodel.”
The one thing that…really made me wonder when I listened to Rodgers’ work was how much better the recordings sounded than the black artists already covered in this series. That files less under, “I hate to think how that happened,” than I’m pretty goddamn sure I know how it did. At the same time, a lot of Jimmie Rodgers’ material sounds stunningly modern - i.e., like something you’d hear on the folk circuit, or even on some kind of “Nashville Unplugged” show - which I assume already exists. You still hear music that sounds similar to what Jimmie Rodgers did in pop culture today; the same can’t even sort of be said for, say, a literal contemporary like Jelly Roll Morton. The reason(s) for that will likely take up some future chapter. In the meantime, though, Rodgers put out some really great, simple music - and, here, simple is entirely complimentary.
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