[78-L] Jimmie Rodgers

[Taylor Bowie]

If any country singer ever managed  anything more  beautiful than Rodgers' 
last chorus on My Carolina Sunshine Girl...I've yet to hear it!

Taylor



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Cary Ginell" <soundthink at live.com>
To: <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 01, 2010 12:08 PM
Subject: [78-L] Jimmie Rodgers


>
> 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 Bri
> tt 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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