Rodgers, whose mother died when he was a young boy, was the son of an itinerant railroad gang foreman, and his youth was spent in a variety of southern towns and cities. Having already run away with a medicine show by age 13, he left school for good at age 14. Rodgers began working on his father’s railroad crews, initially as a water carrier, and during this time was likely exposed to the work songs and early blues of African American labourers. As a young man he held a number of jobs with the railroad, including those of baggage master, flagman, and brakeman, crisscrossing the Southwest but especially working the line between New Orleans and Meridian, Miss. Early on, Rodgers aspired to be an entertainer. He learned to play the guitar and banjo, honing what became his characteristic sound—a blend of traditional country, work, blues, hobo, and cowboy songs—that ultimately earned him the nickname the “Singing Brakeman."
After contracting tuberculosis, Rodgers was forced to give up railroad work in 1924 or 1925 and began pursuing a performing career, playing everything from tent shows to street corners but with little success. He relocated to Asheville, N.C., and began appearing on local radio in 1927, backed by a string band. Following a disagreement with the band, Rodgers recorded as a guitar-playing solo artist. The popularity of his first recording, “Sleep, Baby, Sleep,” sparked a long series of hits from among more than 110 recordings he would make in what proved to be a relatively short career (1928–33) that coincided with the beginning of the Great Depression. Rodgers toured widely in the South (also playing the vaudeville circuit) and, seeking a dry climate for his health, eventually settled in Texas.
Rodgers helped establish the template for country music and the model for country singers, infusing his performances and compositions with personality, humour, and heightened emotion, delivered in a unique vocal style at a time when “hillbilly music” consisted largely of old-time instrumentalists and singers who sounded much the same. Rodgers is perhaps best remembered for his distinctive blue yodel; it was popularized in “Blue Yodel No. 1” and was at the heart of some dozen other recorded versions. He was affectionately called “America’s Blue Yodeler” by many of his fans. Most of Rodgers’s original compositions were written with a variety of collaborators, the most prominent of whom was his sister-in-law, Elsie McWilliams. His hits, which span the emotional gauntlet and incorporate elements of a wide variety of genres, include “Miss the Mississippi and You,” “Daddy and Home,” “Waiting for a Train,” “Brakeman’s Blues,” and “Mississippi River Blues,” among others. Rodgers recorded right up to his premature death, resting on a cot in the studio between takes during recording sessions. He was the first person inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Cole Porter
