Jimmie Rodgers’ all-too-brief career has cast a long shadow. Releasing the country music standard “Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)”, Rodgers catapulted to national fame when the song topped the Victor sales list for 14 straight weeks. He produced more than 120 songs with the label, leaving behind a blueprint studied by the likes of Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and Ernest Tubb.
Charles James “Jimmie” Rodgers was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on this day (September 8) in 1897. Today we’re exploring his meteoric rise from railroad worker to timeless Nashville icon.
Before Stardom: Jimmie Rodgers’ Rocky Upbringing
The youngest of three sons, Jimmie Rodgers spent his early years living with relatives in southeast Mississippi and southwest Alabama after his mother’s death in 1903, when he was just six years old.
Eventually, the future country star returned to Meridian to live with his father, Aaron Rodgers, a maintenance foreman on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad.
His flair for entertaining and performing manifested early, with a teenage Rodgers organizing a neighborhood carnival that traveled to neighboring towns. He made just enough money to pay for the sheets he used as a makeshift tent. (The youngster later organized a second show with his father’s money, unbeknownst to Aaron.)
Life on the (Rail) Road
Following the death of his stepmother, Jimmie Rodgers left school and followed his father wherever the railroad took them.
He landed his first job as a water boy for a crew of Black railroad workers, who taught the teenager their railroad songs and banjo skills. A few years later, he graduated to working as a brakeman on the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad.
In 1924, doctors diagnosed the 27-year-old Rodgers with tuberculosis. The news temporarily halted his railroad career, but allowed him to return to his first love — performing.
Organizing a traveling road show, he performed across the Southeast before returning to brakeman work in Florida. However, his illness soon made his job duties impossible, and he eventually settled back in Meridian with his wife Carrie and their daughter, Anita.
The Bristol Audition
Moving to Asheville, North Carolina, in 1927, Rodgers met the Grant Brothers, who led the mountain music string band the Tenneva Ramblers. He convinced them to let him join as their lead singer.
Rebranding themselves as the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers, the group secured a regular slot on an Asheville radio station. After seeing Rodgers perform, one newspaper columnist remarked, “Whoever that fellow is, he either is a winner or he is going to be.”
After the Entertainers lost their radio gig, they accepted another at a resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains. There, Rodgers learned that Ralph Peer — newly hired by RCA Victor to build out their “hillbilly” catalog — was coming to Bristol, Tennessee, to record area musicians.
The story goes that Rodgers made an appointment for August 4, but his band deserted him after an argument about the billing.
Undaunted, Rodgers kept the appointment — thereby changing the course of his life and country music history.
“The Blue Yodeler”
On August 4, Jimmie Rodgers recorded two songs: “Sleep, Baby, Sleep” and “The Soldier’s Sweetheart.”
Peer liked the young artist’s voice, but felt the pop-oriented material he’d chosen didn’t fit Victor’s vision. He promised to call Rodgers back, but never did. So a month later, Rodgers headed to New York City anyway.
After arriving in the Big Apple, he called Peer to inform him he was ready for his next session. That session — held in November 1927 — produced “Blue Yodel”, which went on to sell more than a million copies.
For the next six years, Rodgers cut more than 100 songs, recording with such country music greats as the Bill Boyd, the Carter Family, and Clayton McMichen, along with legendary jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong.
On May 26, 1933, Jimmie Rodgers died of tuberculosis in New York City at age 35.
Featured image by BMI/Michael Ochs Archives/GettyImages
The post Born 129 Years Ago Today in Mississippi, the “Father of Country Music” Whose Legacy Influenced Everyone From Lynyrd Skynyrd to Bob Dylan appeared first on American Songwriter.
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