JIMMIE RODGERS

JIMMIE RODGERS: THE SINGING BRAKEMAN

Born: September 1897.

Death: May 26th 1933.

Genre: Blues,Country.

Style: Blues,Country,Western Swing,proto-bluegrass,Gospel,
hillbilly,swing,jazz.

Artists Jimmie Influenced: Moon Mullican,Ernest Tubb,Eddy Arnold,Roy Acuff,Bill Monroe,
Stanley Brothers,Jimmie Skinner, Jimmie Davis,Gene Autry,Bing Crosby,Carl Perkins,Blind Boy
Fuller,Robert Johnson,Big Joe Williams,Frank Sinatra,Bessie Smith,Flatt & Scruggs,Johnny Cash,
Hank Snow,Buddy Jones,Jerry Lee Lewis.

Similar Artists: Bill Monroe,Moon Mullican,Hank Snow,Ernest Tubb,Blind Boy Fuller,Mance
Lipscombe,Cliff Carlisle,Bill Carlisle,Jimmie Davis,Gene Autry,Jerry Lee Lewis,Tommy Duncan.

There are very few true stylists in country music: Moon Mullican, Hank Williams, George Jones, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills & (the first country artist to gain fame) Jimmie Rodgers are the only real ones.
Rodgers was born in September, 1897 in Mississippi, worked as a railroad brakeman before becoming a singer fulltime. As a rail worker, he picked up the blues from black workers & this added to his previous influences from minstrel music & white mountain music. He recorded his first records in August 1927 & these included "Sleep baby sleep" & a tribute to a boyhood friend killed during world war 1 ("Soldier’s sweetheart" - a song that revealed that Woody Guthrie owed a huge debt to Jimmie).
However, it was a later 1927 record that really set off the Rodgers phenomenon - "Blue yodel" (or "T. for Texas") was a blues with a yodel & an inspiration to many blues songs & singers from then on (including Tampa Red’s "Bessemer blues"). The song became so popular, it earned sequels & invented a new style of music: the blue yodel, which eventually became country music.
"Blue yodel No. II" & "Blue yodel No. 3" followed & with the success of these, more sequels came along - "Blue yodel No. 4 (California blues)", "Blue yodel No. 5" (both covered by Gene Autry), "Blue yodel No. 6 (Blues like midnight)"(cover by Jerry Lee Lewis), "Blue yodel No. 7", "Blue yodel No. 8 (Muleskinner blues)" (covered by Bill Monroe), "Blue yodel No. 9", "Blue yodel #10", "Blue yodel #11", "Blue yodel #12" and "Jimmie Rodgers' last blue yodel".
The ‘blue yodels’ alone forever changed 20th century music - but, apart from these, Rodgers cut even more genre-breaking music. This included such country & gospel classics as "Waiting for a train", "Wonderful city", "I'm free from the chaingang now", "Carolina sunshine girl" & "You’re the one rose". "Miss the Mississippi & you" ) proved once again how versatile Jimmie was. The influence that Rodgers was on bluesmen like Blind Boy Fuller can be heard in records like the ‘blue yodels’ & "Let me be your sidetrack", "Brakeman’s blues", "My good girl's gone", "99 year blues" & "Memphis yodel". "T.B Blues" & "Whippin' that old TB blues" were two of Jimmie’s most meaningful blues - because he had T.B & knew that his life was nearly over by the time he recorded it. "Mean Mama blues", fused jazz with the blues, was what Bob Wills would one day call Western Swing. In other words, what Rodgers had - like Moon Mullican later - was an ability to interpret any type of music & this is why he influenced so many different kinds of singers. Take "You’re the one rose", for example: it was covered by artists as diverse as Johnny Cash & Bing Crosby.
Rodgers died of T.B in 1933, but left a huge influence on music behind him. Jimmie Davis, Gene Autry, Ernest Tubb, Bill Monroe, Moon Mullican, Jerry Lee Lewis, Lefty Frizzell, Merle Haggard & many others have continued his great work & will never let his style die.
Patrick Wall,
August 16th, 1998 & August 17th, 1999.

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