[78-L] Jimmie Rodgers

[Bill McClung]

In "The Life and Legend of Leadbelly" by Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell is
this from page 145. Any misspellings are my own.

"Leadbelly had always had an eclectic repertoire that had included jazz and
pop songs, ragtime, turn-of-the-century sentimental songs, parodies, and the
like; now he also began to add some of these to his programs.  He was
especially fond of "That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine," the big cowboy hit of
1932 that Gene Autry had popularized. (In fact, Huddie loved Autry's music
and eventually got a chance to meet him.)  He was also fond of doing songs
associated with Jimmie Rodgers, "American's Blue Yodeler," who had died in
1933; Rodger's songs were full of yodels, and Huddie could imitate these
perfectly.................."

I would have loved to have heard Leadbelly singing Jimmie Rodgers.

And I would have loved to have heard Rodgers perform.  The accounts I have
read say that Rodgers performances were better than his recordings.

And a couple of years ago I bought a metal 78 carrying case that contained
50-60 Hank Snow Canadian pressed 78s.  This thread is making me want to
spend an evening listening to them in sequence.

On Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Cary Ginell <soundthink at live.com> wrote:

>
> 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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