In 1927, when Jimmie Rodgers did his first recording with  Victor Talking Machines, who would later become RCA,  the entertainment industry was in its' early days of  development.  The "flickers" were now called "talkies" and  radio was becoming the wave of the future.  Country music  was called Hillbilly or "Race" music and Rock and Roll was  some quarter of a century down the musical trail.  A historic turn in this saga and history of American  music was in early August, when Jimmie Rodgers and The  Carter Family just so happened to record their first records  with in two days of each other in early August of 1927 in  Bristol, Tennessee.  A "promoter type" by the name of  Ralph  Peer had gone down South to record some of this  new   "Race" music for Victor Talking Machines.

Jimmie Rodgers and Carter Family Photo: Bob Pinson

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Jimmie began to dorn the look and sing more of the Cowboy life when he move to Kerville, Texas.

The 2 songs he recorded on 4 August 1927.  "Sleep Baby Sleep" and "The Soldier's  Sweetheart" sold more than one million copies in the U.S. alone.  Jimmie later  told the story that he collected  $27 in royalties for the big hit.  As soon as the first Jimmie Rodgers disc  showed signs of becoming a hit he went  toVictor's studios in Camden, New Jersey to  cut some more titles. During the next five years he was to record more than one  hundred songs and become one of the first superstars in the music business.

Mrs. Carrie Rodgers

A little down the Jimmie Rodgers trail we  will tell  you more about Carrie Rodgers,  who Jimmie married and raised a family.  She is very much a part of his life during the days he was riding the rail for the  while he was on the road to becoming the first Superstar the Entertainment business  had ever known.  After his death she went on to work with Earnest Tubb and help him further blaze  the musical trial that the industry follows  to this day.

From the LA Times in August 10, 1997, in a article regarding Bob Dylan's CD Tribute to Jimmie
Rodgers the article stated, Two notable things happened on Oct. 7, 1927:  Babe Ruth hit a World
Series home run and Jimmie Rodgers' first record went on sale.  Even thought Ruth was at the
pinnacle of his fame and Rodgers was unknown, the intersecting events form a neat symbolic link
between two defining figures of the century.  Ruth's prowess and charisma transformed the game of
baseball.  Similarly, Rodgers single-handedly changed the shape of American popular Music."

The article went on to say, "He's called "The Father of Country Music," but that's only part of the
story.  His first hit, 1928's "Blue Yodel No. 1"--often known as "T for Texas" after opening phrase--
was a kind of "Rock Around the Clock" of its day, a brazen jolt that awakened the country to a
whole new way of hearing.  It sold 1 million copies,  an unheard-of figure at the time...Maybe
Rodgers' art has been overshadowed by the image of a quaint entertainer wearing a railroader's outfit
and breaking into a yodel at every opportunity."  (LA Times, Sunday August 10, 1997)

Soon Jimmie’s “T For Texas” sells over a million copies—a blockbuster even by today's standards.
In 1929,  Columbia Pictures brings him to Hollywood to make a movie, then called a “short."  The
picture company was wanting to get into the "talkies"  went to Victor to see if they might use one of
"them thar recording stars" to be in one of their first "talkies."  Sound had just come to film the same
year that Jimmie first recorded for Victor in 1927, with the movie "The Jazz Singer."  So Victor sent
out their biggest star, Jimmie Rodgers.  He recorded a 3 song short, that may be the first "music video"
ever made.

In 1930 the Great Depression was kicking into full swing.  Bob Wills is playing in Medicine shows.
Gene Autry has gotten his first recording deal and the first color movie has premired.  In 1930 the
first singing cowboy movie is released with Ken Maynard in "Songs of the Saddle."  The radio is
growing in popularity and the Carter Family have popularized "Wabash Cannonball."  That same
year Victor Talking Machines in a move to get closer to the film business so they could get into the
new "sound-on-film" business built a quarter of a million dollar studio at 7000 Santa Monica
Boulevard.  The new facility was a new quarter-million-dollar West Coast plant and built to ex-
pand their expanding involvement in sound-on-film synchronization.   It just so happens that in June
and July of 1930, one of the early artist to record in this new facility in Hollwood was Jimmie Rodgers.

Some of the best cuts of Mr. Rodgers came out of these historic July recording scessions.
He recorded songs like:

My Blue-Eyed Jane
Moonlight and Skies
Why Should I Be Lonely
Take Me Back Again
Pistol Packin',  where he worked in the studio alone with just him and his guitar.
I'm Lonesome Too
Those Gambler's Blues  which was a variation of the old "St. James Infirmary"
The One Rose
Jimmie's Mean Mama Blues

On July 11th he recorded "Muleskinner Blues" issued as "Blue Yodel No. 8".  History tells it that
during these scessions a rising young trumpeter named Louis Armstrong came in the studio and re-
corded with Jimmie.  This is said to be the first time a white man and a black man recorded together.
They recorded what is called "Blue Yodel No. 9"  or "Standing on the Corner"  Much is written
about the fusion of Jazz music and the very unique blues-country music style that Mr. Rodgers was
creating.

There is an interesting quote relating to this recording and this recording,  Armstrong, upon record-
ing a country-western LP in 1970, observed that it was "no change for me, daddy, I was doing that
same kind of work forty years ago."

While in the studio Jimmie was having bouts with his TB and sometimes running very high fever, but
the experts agree that he did some of his best work while out in Hollywood in 1930, and would be
the only time that he recorded that year.  The 1930’s bring the Great Depression and Jimmie has hit
a chord with the common man, even against the odds of times he rises to heights known by no
entertainer before him.

Jimmie Rodgers’ final years came all to quickly.  He spends them in the Texas Hill Country—
becoming an honorary Texas Ranger and touring with Will Rogers.  The cowboy life in Texas
begins to influence his music,  and his disease is taking him further away from his stardom.  In
May of 1933 this young troubadour passes away at thirty-six.

His legend grows while later his innovative styles in music inspires from Gene Autry to Tanya
Tucker, from Earnest Tubb to Jerry Lee Lewis, from Jerry Garcia to Bob Dylan.  His 111
songs have been recorded by people like:

Like a locomotive, Jimmie Rodgers came into this world with a force that is still strong one hundred
years later.  And like the trains that criss-crossed the country, Jimmie Rodgers’ legacy crosses over
every aspect of the American music scene.  His music echoes in  tunes we hear today as his memory
is enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame, where on his
plaque it states, “The Man That Started It All.”   Known as “The Father of Country Music”, he has
garnished the W.C. Handy Blues Award and is in the Grammy Hall of Fame and the Songwriter Hall
of Fame.  No other entertainer in history can list these accomplishments.

Bob Dylan’s Tribute to Jimmie Rodgers’ by way of the Internet—Jimmie’s presence is a legacy.  In the
liner notes of  THE SONGS OF JIMMIE RODGERS: A TRIBUTE, Dylan says, “Jimmie Rodgers of
course is one of the guiding lights of the 20th Century whose way with song has always been an
inspiration to those of us who have followed the path.  A blazing star whose sound was and remains
the raw essence of individuality in a sea of conformity, par excellence with no equal”.
 

We would love your help continuing this story...if you have any important dates or
information that helps us tell the story of the evolution of  the music and
entertainment business send them to us and we will add to KICKIN' UP DUST

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