[78-L] Jimmie Rodgers

[Cary Ginell]

I, too, am a big fan of the original melodies Hank Snow wrote in the Rodgers blue yodeling style - Rodgers was not a fine musician nor a particularly interesting singer. He had a narrow range - no doubt due to his tubercular condition - but what really made him a great performer and pronounced influence were several factors: his was the first genuinely unique repertoire; the first singer/songwriter in country music. Then there was his incorporation of the blues into his songs. Thirdly - and you should give Ralph Peer credit here - his ability to perform with a variety of different accompanying musicians, from jug bands, banjos, and mandolins, to whistlers, musical saws, and orchestras. He sounded good with all of them. The "blue yodel" was a gimmick, but it launched the careers of more singers than just about anyone else. Some did Rodgers' bit better than Rodgers himself: Autry had a cleaner voice and was a better guitar player; Jimmie Davis could sing blues better; Elton Britt was a much better yodeler. But Rodgers put himself into his songs better than anyone else. His songs were derived from his own life and experiences. Even when they didn't, he made you believe him. And that's what country music was all about - with apologies to Jack Palmer and the legacy of Vernon Dalhart - the people felt like Rodgers was one of them and reflected their troubles, desires, and life experiences. That feeling has carried on to this day in country music. As alien as some of today's country sounds in comparison, it still all goes back to Jimmie Rodgers.

And no, Rodgers did not do many cowboy songs - "Cowhand's Last Ride," "Yodeling Cowboy," "Yodeling Ranger," and "When the Cactus Is in Bloom" are about it. He sometimes dressed in cowboy gear, but only for publicity photos. Usually he performed in suits with a straw boaters hat. 

Cary Ginell

> Date: Tue, 1 Jun 2010 11:49:17 -0700
> From: burnhamd at rogers.com
> To: 78-L at 78online.com
> Subject: [78-L] Bear family JR box
> 
> For the most part the JSP JR is better than the Bear Family.  No constant 
> peak distortion.  At least that's what I remember.
> 
> Martin Fisher
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> I haven't heard the Bear Family box but having listened to all except the last few cuts of disc 5 of the JSP box, I am really impressed with the remastering.  Particularly starting with 1931, the sound is very clean, sibilants are clear and surface noise is minimal.  I've also noticed that the quality of the music improved significantly in 1931.  
> 
> If anyone's interested in my very subjective mini review, compared with Wilf Carter, Hank Snow and other "singing comboys" of the era, few of Jimmie Rodgers' tunes are really cowboy songs at all.  There's a lot of being hurt by women but very rarely is anything cowboyish mentioned.  Take away the guitar and the yodelling and it would just sound like ballads or blues.  I found the missed or added beats a little irritating at times but since these tempo aberrations happen at the same place in every chorus, I assume they are done as intended.  When he is singing with a band the rhythms are clear.  His yodelling is always accurately in pitch, as opposed to Wilf Carter who has a problem with pitch in the falsetto range but Carter has a lot more acrobatic yodelling, (fast triple metered yodelling).  For my taste, Rodgers' tunes are very repetitive - listening to the sessions chronologically, many times the last line of one cut is identical to the first
>  line of the next cut, (even in the same key) but this was less noticeable after 1931.  By comparison, I feel that Hank Snow is the best tune smith of the three, Wilf Carter had some real inspired tunes but many more are a little pedestrian.  And where Jimmie Rodgers has rhythm problems, Carter has rhyming problems - in "Old Shep", "roam" is supposed to rhyme with "way", (that one has bugged me since I was a child); in the original, "roam" should be "stray".  If I remember correctly, "Moonlight and Skies" is the same tune as "On Top of Old Smokey".  "The One Rose" is taken from a disc in very poor condition so if it's the same on the Bear Family box, I guess some piracy has occured.
> 
> db
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