"In Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, the first book to explore the deep legacy of ""The Singing Brakeman"" from a twenty-first century perspective, Barry Mazor offers a lively look at Rodgers' career, tracing his rise from working-class obscurity to the pinnacle of renown that came with such hits as ""Blue Yodel"" and ""In the Jailhouse Now."" As Mazor shows, Rodgers brought emotional clarity and a unique sense of narrative drama to every song he performed, whether tough or sentimental, comic or sad. His wistful singing, falsetto yodels, bold flat-picking guitar style, and sometimes censorable themes--sex, crime, and other edgy topics--set him apart from most of his contemporaries. But more than anything else, Mazor suggests, it was Rodgers' shape-shifting ability to assume many public personas--working stiff, decked-out cowboy, suave ladies' man--that connected him to such a broad public and set the stage for the stars who followed him. In reconstructing this far-flung legacy, Mazor enables readers to meet Rodgers and his music anew-not as an historical figure, but as a vibrant, immediate force."
Table of Contents Introduction: Meeting Jimmie Rodgers HalfWay 1. The Man Who Walked Into Southern Show Business 2. Close to the Ground: The Singing Brakeman 3. America's Blue Yodeler No. 1: This White Guy Sings Blues, Too 4. America's Blue Yodeler No. 2: Instigator of Blue Yodelmania 5. International Multimedia Star 6. Doomed Singer-Songwriter with Guitar 7. Aftermath: The Late, Great Jimmie Rodgers 8. South by Southwest: An Easterner in a Cowboy Hat 9. Back East: The Hillbilly Echo, 1933-1947 10. Some Sort of Folksinger? 11. The Father of Country Music 12. Rough and Rowdy Ways: To the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 13. Sentiments in Context: The Return of Vaudeville Jimmie 14. High-Powered Mamas: Women & the Music of Jimmie 15. Down the Old Road to Home Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Credits Index
Barry Mazor has been writing about American music since the 1970s. A long-time senior editor for the roots and pop music magazine No Depression, he writes frequently on country and pop music for The Wall Street Journal.
Reviews for Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century
The story of Rodgers' enormous influence, bursting with names of stars, stalwarts, and one-hit wonders, and featuring discographical endnotes for most chapters, is the immensely piquant and satisfying meat of one of the most intelligent, fascinating, and cogent pop-music histories ever. * BookList (Starred Review) *
- Winner of Belmont Book Award for the Best Book on Country Music 2010.
- Winner of Winner of the Belmont Book Award.
