Tag Archives: Jimmie Rodgers

Bob Dylan Sings Jimmie Rodgers

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James Charles Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) was an American singer-songwriter and musician in the early 20th century, known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling. Rodgers, along with his contemporaries the Carter Family, was among the first country music stars, cited as an inspiration by many artists and an inductee into numerous halls of fame. Rodgers was also known as “The Singing Brakeman”, “The Blue Yodeler”, and “The Father of Country Music”.

Continue reading Bob Dylan Sings Jimmie Rodgers

Bob Dylan: My Blue Eyed Jane (Jimmie Rodgers), Memphis, Tennessee 5 February 1999 (video)

bob dylan memphis 1999

The sweetest girl in the world
Is my blue-eyed Jane
We fell in love like turtledoves
While the moon was shining down
I asked her then, I asked her when
Wedding bells would ring
She said, “Oh, dear, it seems so queer
That this could happen here.”

New Daisy Theater
Memphis, Tennessee
5 February 1999

  • Bob Dylan (vocal & guitar)
  • Bucky Baxter (pedal steel guitar & electric slide guitar)
  • Larry Campbell (guitar)
  • Tony Garnier (bass)
  • David Kemper (drums & percussion)

Continue reading Bob Dylan: My Blue Eyed Jane (Jimmie Rodgers), Memphis, Tennessee 5 February 1999 (video)

Music History – May 26

Miles Davis (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) (read more)

“Don’t play what’s there; play what’s not there.”
― Miles Davis

“Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is.”
― Miles Davis

Miles Davis is my definition of cool. I loved to see him in the small clubs playing his solo, turn his back on the crowd, put down his horn and walk off the stage, let the band keep playing, and then come back and play a few notes at the end.
~Bob Dylan (to Scott Cohen – Sept 1985)

miles davis
 James Charles Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933), known as Jimmie Rodgers, was an American country singer in the early 20th century known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling. Among the first country music superstars and pioneers, Rodgers was also known as The Singing Brakeman, The Blue Yodeler, and The Father of Country Music.  Jimmie rodgers
 Mark Lavon “Levon” Helm (May 26, 1940 – April 19, 2012) (read more)

American rock multi-instrumentalist and actor who achieved fame as the drummer and frequent lead and backing vocalist for The Band.Helm was known for his deeply soulful, country-accented voice, and creative drumming style highlighted on many of the Band’s recordings, such as “The Weight”, “Up on Cripple Creek”, “Ophelia” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. His 2007 comeback album Dirt Farmer earned the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Folk Album in February 2008, and in November of that year, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him #91 in the list of The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time.  In 2010, Electric Dirt, his 2009 follow-up to Dirt Farmer, won the first ever Grammy Award for Best Americana Album, an inaugural category in 2010. In 2011, his live album Ramble at the Ryman was nominated for the Grammy in the same category and won.

 Levon_Helm_df
 Michael “Mick” Ronson (26 May 1946 – 29 April 1993) was an English guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger and producer. He is best known for his work with David Bowie, as one of The Spiders from Mars. Ronson was a busy session musician who recorded with artists as diverse as Bowie and Morrissey, as well as engagements as a sideman in touring bands with performers such as Van Morrison.  mick ronson
 Bruce Springsteen – 26 May 1997 – Palais Des Congrès De Paris, Paris (read & listen)  Bruce Springsteen Paris 1997

Spotify Playlist -May 26

Today: The late Jimmie Rodgers was born in 1897 116 years ago

JR1

“Jimmie Rodgers’ name stands foremost in the country music field as the man who started it all.”
– brass plaque at the Country Music Hall of Fame

“The most inspiring type of entertainer for me has always been somebody like Jimmie Rodgers, somebody who could do it alone and was totally original. He was combining elements of blues and hillbilly sounds before anyone else had thought of it. He recorded at the same time as Blind Willie McTell but he wasn’t just another white boy singing black. That was his great genius and he was there first… he sang in a plaintive voice and style and he’s outlasted them all.”
~Bob Dylan

“He was a performer of force without precedent with a sound as lonesome and mystical as it was dynamic. He gives hope to the vanquished and humility to the mighty.”
~Bob Dylan

“He is the voice of wilderness in our heads.”
~Bob Dylan

James Charles “Jimmie” Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) was an American country singer in the early 20th century known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling. Among the first country music superstars and pioneers, Rodgers was also known as “The Singing Brakeman”, “The Blue Yodeler”, and “The Father of Country Music”.

JR2

From allmusic.com – David Vinopal:

His brass plaque in the Country Music Hall of Fame reads, “Jimmie Rodgers’ name stands foremost in the country music field as the man who started it all.” This is a fair assessment. The “Singing Brakeman” and the “Mississippi Blue Yodeler,” whose six-year career was cut short by tuberculosis, became the first nationally known star of country music and the direct influence of many later performers, from Hank Snow, Ernest Tubb, and Hank Williams to Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard. Rodgers sang about rounders and gamblers, bounders and ramblers — and he knew what he sang about. … read more @ allmusic.com

My favorite Jimmie Rodgers song, Gambling Bar Room Blues:

 Legacy:

  • When the Country Music Hall of Fame was established in 1961, Rodgers was one of the first three (the others were Fred Rose and Hank Williams) to be inducted.
  • Rodgers was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and, as an early influence, to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.
  • “Blue Yodel No. 9” was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
  • Rodgers was ranked No. 33 on CMT’s 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003.
  • Both Gene Autry and future Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis (author of “You Are My Sunshine”) began their careers as Jimmie Rodgers copyists
  • Merle Haggard, Hank Snow, and Lefty Frizzell later did tribute albums.
  • In 1997 Bob Dylan put together a tribute compilation of major artists covering Rodgers’ songs, “The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers, A Tribute”. The artists included Bono, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Jerry Garcia, Dickey Betts, Dwight Yoakam, Aaron Neville, John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson and others. Dylan had earlier once remarked, “The songs were different than the norm. They had more of an individual nature and an elevated conscience… I was drawn to their power.”
  • Rodgers was one of the biggest stars of American music between 1927 and 1933, arguably doing more to popularize blues than any other performer of his time. 
  • Rodgers influenced many later blues artists, among them Muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonzy, and Chester Arthur Burnett, better known as Howlin’ Wolf. Jimmie Rodgers was Wolf’s childhood idol. Wolf tried to emulate Rodgers’s yodel, but found that his efforts sounded more like a growl or a howl. “I couldn’t do no yodelin’,” Barry Gifford quoted him as saying in Rolling Stone, “so I turned to howlin’. And it’s done me just fine.”
  • Rodgers’ influence can also be heard in artists including Tommy Johnson, the Mississippi Sheiks, and Mississippi John Hurt, whose “Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me” is based on Rodgers’ hit “Waiting On A Train”.
  • In “Cleaning Windows,” Van Morrison sings about listening to Rodgers.
  • In May 2010, a second marker, on the Mississippi Country Music Trail, was erected near Rodgers’ gravesite, marking his role as The Father of Country Music

Here is a lovely presentation of the legend, Jimmie Rodgers 2011 Folk Alliance International Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient:

Blue Yodel No 1 (T For Texas):

Waiting for a Train:

Album of the day: The Singing Brakeman – The Essential Recordings :
jr5_cover

Other September 8:

Continue reading Today: The late Jimmie Rodgers was born in 1897 116 years ago

Today: The late Miles Davis was born in 1926 – 87 years ago

miles 3

Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there.
– Miles Davis

Miles Davis is my definition of cool.
– Bob Dylan

 I discovered Miles Davis through Prince. Prince talked about Miles and they played together, they played each others songs and I got curious. My first meet with Miles Davis was in the eighties, the years that some hard-core Miles fans consider the decline or the lost years. Not for me, I love 80s Miles Davis, and what I heard made me go back in time. What a world that opened up!

I got to see him in concert, once in 1988. To a young and recent fan it was mind-blowing!

Tutu, Stuttgart 1988:

miles 2

From Allmusic:

Throughout a professional career lasting 50 years, Miles Davis played the trumpet in a lyrical, introspective, and melodic style, often employing a stemless Harmon mute to make his sound more personal and intimate. But if his approach to his instrument was constant, his approach to jazz was dazzlingly protean. To examine his career is to examine the history of jazz from the mid-’40s to the early ’90s, since he was in the thick of almost every important innovation and stylistic development in the music during that period, and he often led the way in those changes, both with his own performances and recordings and by choosing sidemen and collaborators who forged new directions. It can even be argued that jazz stopped evolving when Davis wasn’t there to push it forward.
– William Ruhlmann

The best Jazz song in music history, So What:

I have choses On The Corner (1972) as today’s album, my favorite Miles record is Kind of Blue, but I thought it would be nice to focus on one of my other favorites. It is a an album that was loathed when it was released. Miles Davis was accused of selling out (just as he was in the 80s). When listening to the album today it is hard to understand what he was selling out to…

At the time, everyone loathed Miles Davis’s On the Corner – even the people who played on it. But now, some of the coolest names in music are proud to name it as a major influence. – Paul Tingen (The Guardian)

other 26 May:

Continue reading Today: The late Miles Davis was born in 1926 – 87 years ago