Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues Marker

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Meridian in Lauderdale County, Mississippi — The American South (East South Central)

Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues

By Mike Stroud, September 13, 2012

1. Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues Marker

Mississippi Blues Trail

Inscription. Jimmie Rodgers (1897 – 1933) is widely known as the "father of country music," but blues was a prominent element of his music. The influence of his famous "blue yodels" can be heard in the music of Mississippi blues artists including Howlin' Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, Tommy Johnson, and the Mississippi Sheiks. His many songs include the autobiographical "T.B. Blues," which addressed the tuberculosis that eventually took his life.

(Reverse text)
Jimmie Rodgers and The Blues
Meridian native Jimmie Rodgers (1897-1933) was the first major star of country music and introduced the blues to a far wider audience than any other artist of his time, black or white. He was not the first white performer to interpret the blues, but he was the most popular, establishing the blues as a foundation of country music.
More than a third of Rodgers’s recordings were blues, which he encountered as a young man while working as a railway brakeman and traveling musician. In 1927 he recorded the song "Blue Yodel" that sold over a million copies and earned Rodgers the nickname "The Blue Yodeler." His distinctive style mixed blues, European yodeling, and African American falsetto singing traditions. Before Rodgers, several African Americans, notably Charles Anderson, had

Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues Marker, `

2. Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues Marker, Reverse side text

specialized in yodeling, and in 1923 blues singers Bessie Smith and Sara Martin recorded Clarence Williams’s song, "Yodeling Blues."
Although most of Rodgers’s songs were original, some of his most popular were versions of blues classics. "Frankie and Johnnie" was an African American ballad about a murder in St. Louis in 1899, and blues artists including Jim Jackson from Hernando, Mississippi, had made earlier recordings of "In the Jailhouse Now." Rodgers employed African American musicians in the studio, including Louis Armstrong, who, along with his pianist wife Lil, backed Rodgers on "Blue Yodel No. 9." Other sessions featured blues guitarist Clifford Gibson and the Louisville Jug Band.
In early 1929 Rodgers toured Mississippi with a vaudeville show that included blues singer Eva Thomas. Bluesmen who claimed to have met, traveled, or performed with Rodgers included Hammie Nixon, Rubin Lacy, and Houston Stackhouse, who recalled that he and Robert Nighthawk accompanied Rodgers in a show at the Edwards Hotel in Jackson (c. 1931). Rodgers’s influence on African American musicians from Mississippi is evident in recordings by the Mississippi Sheiks, Tommy Johnson, Furry Lewis, Scott Dunbar, and Mississippi John Hurt, whose song "Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me" was based on Rodgers’s "Waiting For A Train." Howlin’

Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues Marker, `

3. Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues Marker,reverse side

Jimmie Rodgers poses for a publicity shot.
Bluebird and RCA Victor record labels
Rodgers was accompanied on "My Good Gal's Gone Blues" by an Africian American group, the Louisville Jug Band, recorded in Louisville, Kentucky, on June 16, 1931. The record was not released until May 22, 1935, two years after Rodgers death. His records have since been reissued many times in various formats by RCA Victor and associated labels.
  A U.S. postage stamp posthumously honoring Rodgers was issued in 1978. This postcard from 1934 shows how Meridian's bustling Union Station looked the year after Rodgers's death.

If you don't want me mama,
  you sure don't have to stall
If you don't want me mama,
  you sure don't have to stall.
'Cause I can get more women
   than a passenger train can haul
Oh-da-lay-ee-oh, lay-ee-ay, lay-ee
"Blue Yodel" Jimmie Rodgers

Wolf attributed his distinctive singing style to Rodgers, explaining, "I couldn’t do no yodelin’, so I turned to howlin’. And it’s done me just fine."

Erected by Mississippi Blues Commission.

Marker series. This marker is included in the Mississippi Blues Trail marker series.

Location. 32° 21.912′ N, 88° 41.693′ W. Marker is in Meridian, Mississippi, in Lauderdale County. Marker is on Front Street near 17th Avenue, on the right when traveling east. Click for map. Located at Meridian Union Station. Marker is in this post office area: Meridian MS 39301, United States of America.

Other nearby markers. At least 6 other markers are within 2 miles of this marker, as the crow flies. Depot Historic District (about 300 feet away, in a direct line); Meridian (about 400 feet away); Meridian's "C" Battery (about 700 feet away); Moe Bandy (approx. 0.2 miles away); Urban Center Historic District (approx. half a mile away); Gillespie V. "Sonny" Montgomery (approx. 1.5 miles away).

Also see . . . Jimmie Rodgers (country singer), from Wikipedia. ...known as "The Singing Brakeman", "The Blue Yodeler", and "The Father of Country Music". ... (Submitted on September 21, 2012, by Mike Stroud of Bluffton, South Carolina.)

By Mike Stroud, September 13, 2012

4. Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues Marker, Reverse side

Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues Marker, on Front Street, looking southwest Photo, Click for full size

By Mike Stroud, September 13, 2012

5. Jimmie Rodgers & The Blues Marker, on Front Street, looking southwest

Jimmie Rodgers Stamp Photo, Click for full size

By US Postal Service, 1978

6. Jimmie Rodgers Stamp

Credits. This page originally submitted on September 21, 2012, by Mike Stroud of Bluffton, South Carolina. This page has been viewed 171 times since then. Photos: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. submitted on September 21, 2012, by Mike Stroud of Bluffton, South Carolina. 6. submitted on September 22, 2012, by Mike Stroud of Bluffton, South Carolina.