Singer, guitarist and Father of Country Music Jimmie
Rodgers was born James Charles Rodgers on September 8, 1897, in Meridian,
Mississippi. He was the youngest of three children born to Eliza and Aaron
Rodgers. By the time Jimmie Rodgers was born, his mother was already suffering
from a serious case of tuberculosis, and she passed away when he was only a
child.
Rodgers' father worked as a maintenance foreman on the
Mobile and Ohio Railroad; due to the constant travel required by his work, he
was in no position to raise three young children on his own. So Jimmie Rodgers
spent his formative years shuffling amongst various relatives' homes in south-eastern
Mississippi and south-western Alabama. Although he was never quite the
"poor orphan child" he later depicted in his songs, Rodgers' did
endure an unprivileged and itinerant
childhood, something that would shape his
consciousness and his music for the rest of his life.
childhood, something that would shape his
consciousness and his music for the rest of his life.
A born entertainer, Rodgers taught himself to play the
guitar and—like so many great Southern singers of his and subsequent
generations—learned to sing in church. After winning an amateur talent show at
the age of 13, Rodgers ran away from home to try his hand at making a living
with a travelling road show, using sheets he had snatched off his
sister-in-law's bed as a makeshift tent. Although his father quickly tracked
him down and dragged him back home, Rodgers made enough money from his shows to
buy his sister-in-law a new pair of sheets.
A year later, a 14-year-old Rodgers got his first job, as
a water boy for his father's railroad crew. Rodgers spent the next dozen years
toiling away on the railroads, working his way up from callboy to flagman to
baggage master to brakeman, all the while singing and strumming his guitar in
the evenings.
In 1924, Rodgers contracted tuberculosis, the disease
that had taken his mother's life, and could no longer labor long days out on
the railroad. Making the best of his illness, Rodgers turned his focus to
music, spending the next three years playing with amateur bar bands, earning
just enough money from his music to make ends meet. In 1927, he teamed up with
a string band called the Tenneva Ramblers, landing a regular but unpaid spot on
a local radio station in Asheville, North Carolina. When the radio station folded,
the band managed to find a new gig performing at a Blue Ridge Mountains resort.
Rodgers then got his big break when he learned that Ralph
Peer, a talent scout for the Victor Talking Machine Company, was holding
auditions in Bristol, Tennessee. Although their audition went over
well, the
night before they were scheduled to record with Peer, Rodgers and his band got
into a squabble about billing, so the next morning Rodgers went in to record
alone—just his voice and his guitar. Rodgers recorded two songs for Peer that
day: "Sleep, Baby, Sleep" and "The Soldier's Sweetheart."
The former became a surprise hit, introducing Rodgers to national audiences for
the first time.
Besides giving Rodgers' his big break, Peer's 10-day stop
in Bristol (known ever after in country music lore as The Bristol Sessions)
also launched the career of the legendary Carter Family; many consider it the
foundational moment in the history of modern country music.
In November 1927, Rodgers recorded "Blue Yodel (T is
for Texas)." Based on 12-bar blues and featuring a unique yodeling chorus,
the song transformed Rodgers into a national star. Over the next five years,
Rodgers recorded country music classics and forerunners of rock and roll.
However, Rodgers' most popular songs were his 12 different sequels to
"Blue Yodel” all of which were also based on 12-bar blues and featured
Rodgers' distinctive yodeling choruses. The most famous of these sequels were
"Blue Yodel No. 8 (Mule Skinner Blues)" and "Blue Yodel No. 9
(Standin' On the Corner)," both recorded in 1930 —the latter featuring the
great jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong. In 1929, Rodgers also starred in a movie
called The Singing Brakeman.
By 1933, Rodgers' record sales and concert attendance were flagging due to the Great Depression, and his health was failing as his tuberculosis worsened. In May 1933, he managed to travel to New York, where he was under contract to produce a dozen more records. His recordings from that session included two hits in "Mississippi Delta Blues" and "Years Ago," but the effort it took to
Jimmie Rodgers was extraordinarily popular in his short
lifetime, and remains popular with generations of music fans. Numerous
musicians have remade Rodgers’s songs, especially “T for Texas” and “In the
Jailhouse Now,” and his influence has been wide.
He was the first performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961 and in 1976, the Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Museum opened in his home town of Meridian.
He was the first performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961 and in 1976, the Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Museum opened in his home town of Meridian.
(Edited mainly
from biography.com)
