The yodel traveled many, many miles and through several cultures before it entered the tubercular lungs of Jimmie Rodgers. As the yodel left his lips, it became ingrained in the very fabric of America's folklore and influenced many other artists as well. The technique can be traced back to the Central Alps, where Alpine folk music developed from a system of communication between villages and villagers. Its presence in Central Africa also hints at another possible source for its entry into Americana. But arguably yodeling's most famous ambassador is Jimmie Rodgers, "The Singing Brakeman."
Rodgers' unique singing style and his poetic verse are reflections of a short but well-lived life. The canon of his music is lengthy and his sphere of influence is infinite, but his mastery is perhaps best observed with his Blue Yodels. Between 1927, when he recorded the instant hit "Blue Yodel #1 (T for Texas)" and 1933, Rodgers recorded thirteen Blue Yodels, each with their own title, theme, and imagery. Over time, these songs have been recorded by many of America's top recording artists, from the Carter Family, to Bill Monroe, to Doc Watson. The thirteen Blue Yodels best capture his influences, what he's influenced, and his profound journey.
Poetry has existed for ages, its roots traced to and lost in antiquity. Over the millennia, its rules and forms and structures have changed and adapted. I will spare the ink in this pen from having to endure an argument validating the Blues as the poetry of the American South, but the "Blue Yodels" of Jimmie Rodgers are excellent microcosms that demonstrate poetic value in these handful of songs made famous by the Singing Brakeman. Each song is told in measured time -- two half-notes sounded by a pluck of the bass string then followed with a strum. Each individual song captures an image rather than tells a story. And each composition is infused with a melancholy undertone behind machismo and bravado. They have a rhyme scheme, most often AABA, ABABCB, or a derivative thereof, and each stanza is punctuated by a sad, heartfelt yodeling refrain. The lyrics are poignant and bursting with double-meaning, sometimes sexual, other times violent, and commonly dealing with the shadow of death that Rodgers faced every day. To call Jimmie Rodgers the poet of the 1930s South would not be a stretch at all, and his "Blue Yodels" show him at the top of his craft.
There may be no bigger musical influence on Rodgers -- and for that matter, the country -- than the traveling medicine show. From the early days of the Republic, long before the invention and popularity of the radio, the best source for free musical entertainment arrived with so-called medicine men hawking their tonics, nostrums, salves and liniments. The scope of this music widely varied, but many well known entertainers -- Hank Williams, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills, just to name a scant few -- got their start with these shows. Jimmie Rodgers joined his first traveling show at the age of thirteen. The tour would travel across a region, stopping in the towns that dotted the highway. At each stop, the show would begin with a raucous music act, designed to whip the potential customers -- or "tip" -- into a frenzy for the salesman, who would then take over the stage to tout the virtues of his miracle cure or snake oil. Two popular acts in a medicine show were family bands and minstrel shows. Often done in blackface, the minstrel show would incorporate aspects (or caricatures) of black life, most notably their singing style. One of the more novel aspects of black song gained popularity at these shows: the yodel.
This rendition of Rodgers' "Evening Sun Yodel" sounds directly from the hills and hollers of Eastern Tennessee, and the powerful yodel and brilliant accompaniment do justice to a Rodgers recording. However, it lacks the aspect of "Blue Yodel #3" that makes it the most compelling: Jimmie Rodgers' final verse about the Evening Sun. In blues, folk, and other early American music genres, the "hanging phrase" or "maverick phrase" has become one of the more recognizable devices. These are popular lyrics that reappear throughout different compositions throughout history, each artist claiming it as his or her own. Examples like "if you like my peaches, shake my tree" or other innuendo are popular, but Rodgers' use of the line "I hate to see the evening sun go down" transforms a popular hanging phrase into something more chilling and heartfelt. The line, popularized in W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" spawned several renditions and homages to the evening sun, including Rodgers' "Blue Yodel #3." Further exploration of this phenomenon will be offered at the end of this disk.
"Blue Yodel #4 (California Blues)" by Gene Autry
Jimmie Rodgers is often referred to as "The Father of Country Music" and for good reason. One of the subgenres most influenced by him is that of The Singing Cowboy. The lazy, melancholy strains of his yodeling refrains fit well with the blossoming country music genre and soon imitators sprang up from everywhere. One of the more prolific of these was Gene Autry. While the Singing Cowboy existed before Autry -- many argue that Carl T. Sprague of Texas was the originator of the archetype -- he certainly popularized it more so than others. Autry's foray into film made the Singing Cowboy world famous and inspired a legion of others, including Roy Rogers, Tex Ritter, Bob Wills, and many, many more.Another major influence on Jimmie Rodgers' life was his time spent with the railroad. Traveling across the South as a brakeman, he learned many different musical styles and traditions from many different cultures. Hobos and rail workers offered instruction with the guitar, and his days spent "waiting on a train" offered him plenty of time to perfect his songwriting craft. His career with the railroad was tragically cut short in 1924 when, at 27 years old, he contracted tuberculosis and became physically unfit for life on the railroad.
Wanda Jackson was born in Oklahoma City in 1937 and by the time she was 22, she was known as "The Queen of Rockabilly." Influenced by Spade Cooley, Bob Wills, and other country musicians, she took her blend of rock, blues, and country to the Top 40. Fifty years later, she teamed up with Jack White to produce The Party Ain't Over, an awesome album which demonstrates Jackson's stunning versatility. The genres that defined her life -- rock, blues, country, and even Christian gospel -- sound as fresh and as new in her eighties as they did when she was in her prime. The album includes her version of Rodgers' "Blue Yodel #6 (She Left Me This Mornin')," and you can hear the weariness and despair in the word "tornado" that only an Oklahoman can summon.
I was a stranger passing through your town
I was a stranger passing through your town
When I asked you for a favor, good Gal, you turned me down.
-yodel-
You may see me talking, walking down that railroad track
You may see me talking, walking down that railroad track
But good Gal, you've done me wrong and I ain't never coming back... is it true, Honey?
-yodel-
Honey, I'm so lonesome, I don't know what to do
I'm so lonesome, I don't know what to do
The way you treat me, Mamma, I hope you're lonesome too, Lord-Lord-Lord
-yodel-
I rode that Southern, I rode that L&N, yes I have
Lord, I've rode that old Southern, I've rode that L&N
And if the police don't get me, I'm gonna ride them again
-Yodel-
Look a-here Mister Brakeman, don't put me off your train
Please, Mister Brakeman, don't put me off of your train
'Cause the weather's cold and it looks like it's gonna rain
-Yodel-
I like Mississippi, a fool about Tennessee, hey -- hey
I like Mississippi, fool about Tennessee
But these Texas women 'bout got the best of me
-Yodel-
"Blue Yodel #8 (Muleskinner Blues)" by Scott H. Biram
"Muleskinner Blues" provided many artists with a hit song, especially Bill Monroe who made it one of his signature tunes, and even rewrote it later in his career as "The New Muleskinner Blues." One of the major changes Monroe offered was to remove the racial undertones in the song, which dramatically changed its character. The racial element -- the song begins with "Shine" asking "Captain" for a job as his new muleskinner -- predates Rodgers' recording. Two years previous in 192_, Tom Dickson begins his "Labor Blues" with the same introduction, but the lyrics, images, and nature of the song differ wildly afterward.
In Rodgers' day, a muleskinner, or mule driver, commanded a team of mules with little more than a whip and a broad sense of know-how. Before the steam engine, mule teams were responsible for a large portion of overland shipping and delivery in areas surrounding difficult terrain. Why this number had such popularity in Western and Appalachian culture is really no mystery."Muleskinner Blues" provided many artists with a hit song, especially Bill Monroe who made it one of his signature tunes, and even rewrote it later in his career as "The New Muleskinner Blues." One of the major changes Monroe offered was to remove the racial undertones in the song, which dramatically changed its character. The racial element -- the song begins with "Shine" asking "Captain" for a job as his new muleskinner -- predates Rodgers' recording. Two years previous in 192_, Tom Dickson begins his "Labor Blues" with the same introduction, but the lyrics, images, and nature of the song differ wildly afterward.
Many artists throughout time have continued the legacy of "The Man Who Started It All," Jimmie Rodgers, by either furthering the genre he created or by performing their own renditions of his pieces. Jerry Garcia or the Grateful Dead fame does so with his version of "Blue Yodel #9." However, many artists were touched by Rodgers directly and while he was still living and performing. While those with whom he toured while in traveling shows may never be fully known, there are numerous "studio musicians" who joined him before going on to their own immortality. He recorded with the Carter Family on several tracks. Cliff Carlisle, master of the steel guitar, offered occasional accompaniment. And on Rodgers' "Blue Yodel #9," his sad yodeling refrains were complemented by the trumpet of a relatively unknown local named Louis Armstrong.
"Blue Yodel #10 (Groundhog Rootin' in my Backyard)" by Willie Reed
It would be easier for a newcomer to the genre to draw a line from the Alpine yodel to the white country blues of Jimmie Rodgers. However, this line would be incomplete without its significant pit stop in the black South, where it rambles for over half a century. The earliest known American yodeling act was an 1840 minstrel family act and the most popular yodel for blacks was an 1869 number "Sleep Baby Sleep." For decades, blacks expressed their blues with a yodeling accompaniment, and this was often included around the turn of the century in traveling medicine shows. When real blacks weren't employed for the minstrel portion, whites in blackface offered ersatz entertainment. As the popularity of minstrel shows soared, two particular acts took off: songs sentimentalizing plantation life, and yodels. Rodgers' exposure to this novelty, compounded by his travels and experiences with different cultures via his time on the railroad, led to his interest and skills with the device. Circumstance led to Rodgers appearing to a studio session in Asheville, NC without his musicians, leaving him with only his guitar and "curlicues I can make with my throat." Since black and white cultures had been kept separate for the most part, Rodgers' act was novel and his popularity rocketed, and he unknowingly bridged the two cultures by bringing the blues to the white man.In 1920, seven years before he would record his first songs, Jimmie Rodgers met and married the daughter of a Methodist preacher, Carrie Williamson. Within a year, they gave birth to a daughter, Anita. During the next four years, Rodgers traveled with either the railroads or the medicine shows in order to cobble together a living to provide for his family. Despite the separation they endured and the macho, desperate persona that Rodgers adopted through song, his commitment to his family seemingly never wavered. This is perhaps due to the instability in his own upbringing. Rodgers was brought up in Meridian in a series of foster homes because of his mother's early death and his father's absence due to his life as a railroader. The Rodgers family's ability and patience to persevere the hardscrabble beginnings paid off, as they were able to enjoy the fruits of Jimmie's success and fame at a time when most families in Depression-era America were forced to struggle. And as a testament to Jimmie's commitment to his family, the prolificacy of his later recordings is due to his desire to leave a legacy of means to Carrie and Anita after his death.
"Blue Yodel #12 (Barefoot Blues)" by Hank Snow
I've heard "T for Texas" with the violence removed (by Bob Downen), "The Evening Sun Yodel" without the Evening Sun (IIIrd Time Out), and "Muleskinner Blues" without the racism (Bill Monroe), but Hank Snow's stab at "Blue Yodel #12 (Barefoot Blues)" without the yodel is just too much. But keep in mind: He's Canadian.Nothing shaped Rodgers' life more than tuberculosis. Had it not driven him from his dream job on the railroad, he may never have focused on a career in entertainment. Had it not driven him to the climes of Asheville, NC, he may never have heard Emmett Miller, or met Ralph Peer, or recorded those first two songs which garnered the attention of the record companies and started his yodeling avalanche. And without the disease that "works just like a cancer... to kill me by degrees," he never would have spun some of the most heart-wrenching, honest lyrics about facing "that evening sun." He recorded fast and often, knowing that his time was finite, racing the reaper. Some say it was to preserve a legacy while others insist he was earning as much money for his family as possible before his final train ride. At any rate, in May of 1933, at only 35 years old, he recorded his final songs with a cot set up for him to rest between takes. Two days after recording "Blue Yodel #13," he succumbed to his disease and died.
"New Blue Yodel" by Mark Brine
Jimmie Rodgers' impact obviously continued well after his death. He could certainly be credited with bringing the blues to the white man. The genre called "country blues" may not have existed as it does without Rodgers. Hank Williams, Woodie Guthrie, Ernest Tubb -- to name a scant few -- were direct descendants of Rodgers' magic. But it was not whites alone that found success in the style and lyrics of Rodgers. Chester Burnett, a large black blues singer, tried to incorporate the yodel into his music inspired by Rodgers, but his unique voice could never get a yodel off the ground, sounding more like a howl. This led to the stage name by which he would forever be associated: Howlin' Wolf. Lead Belly's style of music is an extension of Rodgers' "country blues," which were themselves inspired by African- American blues. Even in today's music, Jimmie Rodgers' presence can be felt in the melancholy yodeling refrains of the albums released nearly a century after "T for Texas" forever changed music.There is probably no better torchbearer for the old ways of Southern music and culture than Colonel J.D. Wilkes of Paducah, Kentucky. His two musical acts -- Th' Legendary Shack Shakers and The Dirt Daubers -- manage a blend of Appalachian roots music, swamp-driven honkytonk and steampunk while continuing the traditions of those who came before him. Murder ballads, cautionary tales, and yodels that fit right alongside the canon of the Carters, Rodgers, and others in Appalachian lore, such as "Dump Road Yodel" define an undying art in Wilkes' music. Wilkes also pays direct tribute to Rodgers in an earlier album when he sings out "T for Tetanus / T for Typhoid B!"
The alt-country supergroup Slim Cessna's Auto Club sings often about life in Rhode Island, claims a home base of Denver, but there is no doubt that the South rings hard through their music which is fueled by the nuts and bolts of the Bible Belt, wicked gospels, murder ballads, and a complete love and mastery of the yodel. The title is an obvious allusion to Rodgers and the imagery presented and the message offered leave no doubt to the author's respect for the work of the Singing Brakeman.
"Warm Atlanta Day" by Rum Drum Ramblers
Where Western swing meets the Mississippi... St. Louis' independent music scene has provided such ragtime throwbacks as The Rum Drum Ramblers and Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three. Rum Drum Ramblers' unique sound can be attributed to their background in punk music, but their extreme respect and mastery of the blues. While paying appropriate homage to songs of the old time, they create their own music that would fit perfectly in the canon of music of eras gone by, while creating a sound all their own. The soft, gentle yodel in "Warm Atlanta Day" replaces a mainstay in the Ramblers' music: the harmonica of member Ryan Koenig which at times can be toe-tappingly jazzy or tear-jerkingly lonely, but this song is incomplete without that yodel. Koenig, Mat Wilson, and Joey Glenn do a great job of keeping the tradition of the yodel and bringing it into the 21st century and beyond.
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