Since my youth I have had an ear for roots music, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. The original of that interest first centered on the blues, then early rock and roll and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960's, folk music. I have often wondered about the source of this interest. I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. The subject of the following review is an example.
With the recent Johnny Cash movie biography Walk the Line the Carter Family and others such as Jimmie Rodgers from the 1920's have come back into vogue. And rightly so. Rodgers performing many blues numbers with his trademark yodel evokes a simpler time,or if not a simpler time, then in any case, a simpler type of music. While I cannot listen endlessly to such music at one sitting about one-half a cd at a time works fine.
A note on subject matter- The bulk of the songs concern home, hearth lovesickness and religion as might be expected from a man singing to mountain people and an essentailly rural audience. And that is okay. Jimmie is to the white blues of the period what Son House was to black blues of the same period. Someone could (or probably already has) write a dissertation on the influence of Jimmie Rodgers on such figures as Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and Hank Williams. It is unmistakeable.
