Disco de Jimmie Rodgers: “Recordings 1927-1933 [Box]”

Jimmy Rogers is just soooooo good. It wouldn't matter if he was a high school kid recording in Glendale California, the stuff is just good to listen to not matter what kind of music you like. Rogers is just so great to listen to. Cool, humorous, sentimental, sexy, bold. He really has great time whether on guitar or voice, and the musicians he selected all work every well with him, despite some comments on the liners here that would indicate otherwise. Of course, the crowning heights are reached when Rogers records in Los Angeles with Lil Hardin Armstrong backing him on Piano and Louis Armstrong himself playing trumpet.

When these records were made, Rogers has been a professional performer in vaudeville shows and local shows and barrooms for most of his short life. Despite the image he projected as the "singing brakeman" Jimmy never lasted long on regular jobs on the railraod even before his health gave out. He wanted to sing, and play guitar, ukelelle, and mandolin and hear other people do the same. He would find his way to circuses, carnivals, and tent shows even when he should have been in high school.

We are all lucky that long time stars Jimmy Rogers and the Carter Family were discovered and recorded (actually for the first time at the same session) by Ralph Peer of RCA. Peer received no payment for finding and recording artists. He only received money for publishing rights to songs that his artists recorded. We know that Rogers, the Carters, and other artists that Peer discovered actually played may of the Tin Pan Alley pop songs of the day in their performances before and after being recorded. However, Peer demanded that each artist record only songs he could publish, songs they either claimed to have written or were traditional songs, or, at least, songs that were so old that whoever owned their publishing or copyrights might have disappeared into the mists of time.

This is great entertainment straddling the boundaries of Western music, the blues, and Jazz. Except on a couple tunes where the Carter Family joins Rogers, this has very little to do with Southeastern based old time country music. The only banjos on this record are tenor banjos used at the time in Jazz orchestras. The violins don't fiddle very much, but follow the conventions for the then prevelant jazz-pop violins. Armstrong is not the only jazz horn player on these recordings either.

So good, and occupying such an important place in creating e blues, old time music, jazzz, Western Swing, and the WSM styled Country music, you really need this set if you have the unbelievably small price. The only qualification is that you have ears.

During an eight-year period (1956-1964), RCA released seven albums documenting the great Jimmie Rodgers' carrer. Out of the 108 tracks released, only two songs were dropped, making these albums so collector-friendly that if kept in good condition, this 5-CD set would be redundant. Why then, with five discs, would one of Rodgers' greatest songs "My Time Ain't Long", be dropped from this collection? (Incidently, this was the title track of the last album released in the series in 1964).

I first started collecting these albums in the late 70's after becoming enamored with folk music. Instantly, it became clear as to why this music was so important. Everyone who was even remotely involved with the genre (Boz Scaggs, Micheal Nesmith, Merle Haggard) gave faithful, honest readings of the legend's recordings.

Rogers was not only a great singer/songwriter, but he put the listener right where the story is. This is something that the best of the singers of today can never do. We are getting deep into the 21st century and these songs are almost 100 years old and before my time. Yet I can relate more to them than some of the music I grew up with. One doesn't have to know anything about trains, hoboes, prison or even T.B. to embrace this material. Jimmie Rodgers knew them all too well and just a handful of these songs will get you schooled.

Sessions were many during his recording carrer and session players included difersified bands from Lani McIntire's Hawaiins (The One Rose) to Louis & Lillian Armstrong (Blue Yodel No. 9). You gotta be great to record with Pops, now. Rodgers' influence was just as diverse as his songs, dipping into Vaudville, Jazz, Pop and even Gospel. Other prominent session folk were Cliff Carlisle, Joe Kaipo, Eddie Lang and the famous Carter Family.

Effects of train whistles pop up in a few songs and the musical saw in "Home Call" sets a modern tone making a springboard for Brian Wilson's "Good Vibrations". It would not be reaching to say that Jimmie's music influenced, at least indirectly, popular music in any era. Just as Ella's scat singing or the trill of Billie Holiday's vocals became a vital part of their recordings, Rodgers' yodeling, whether in lament or joy, complimented every song he sung. Nothing is wasted, there are no asides, only purity. His stories were never diminished, no matter who set in on the sessions. Even the trecorded meetings with The Carter Family are loaded with humor and good time singing. Similarities can be found on the Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan in Dylan's conversing with Mavis Staples. Stuck in between Stephen Foster and W.C. Handy, Rodgers' style had a lot of room in the middle. He used it well and anyone at all with an open heart will be rewarded with his heart-felt compassion for a railroad bum in "Waiting For A Train" and undaunted sentimentality in "The One Rose". (Check out also Michael Nesmith's cover on "Magnetic South")

"My Time Ain't Long" sums up Jimmie's life, although the end of the subject is different (execution) than that of the singer's (TB). It is a major oversight on the part of those in charge of the above project that this song was dropped. I urge them to correct it and re-issue it with complimetary copies to those who bought it.

For the Rodgers fan here is everything you could wish for and at an incredible price. I've long had Rodgers on records and tapes and was delighted to find a CD with virtually everything on it to replace them with. To anyone who is just starting out and wants to learn about Rodgers and hear a good sampling of some of his songs with a sound a little more contemporary, I recommend Merle Haggard's "Same Train - A Different Time."

I know three Jimmie Rodgers collections well, this one, the Bear box set THE SINGING BRAKEMAN, and the single disc THE ESSENTIAL JIMMIE RODGERS. Each of these sets is flawed in its own way. RECORDINGS 1927-1933 is on the surface of things a great bargain, in that you get very nearly all of Rodgers's recordings in a single inexpensive set. Unfortunately, the sound quality isn't nearly as good as the other two compilations. THE SINGING BRAKEMAN is hands down the finest collection, with all of this extant recordings, a very nice booklet, and great sound, but it is prohibitively expensive, at the moment that I write this review nearly $190. If money is no object, then by all means get this one. The third collection that I know well is THE ESSENTIAL JIMMIE RODGERS. Its problem is not that it isn't good; it is that it is only one disc with 20 cuts. There are far, far more "essential" recordings than twenty.

What is not at issue is the quality of the music. There is surprisingly little dross in Jimmie Rodgers's recordings. I find that every disc stands up marvelously to relistenings. Even Rodgers's very first cuts were decent. The majority are excellent, and more than a handful were superb. And there is a remarkable diversity. Although a large number of the cuts are solo performances with Rodgers playing only guitar, a large number feature a wide variety of accompaniments. The most famous is, of course, "Standing on the Corner," recorded in Hollywood with Louis Armstrong playing the trumpet as only he could. Many of the other cuts feature weak or average players, but there are the occasional cuts with exceptionally fine players. But in everyone Rodgers dominates.

While there are very few weak musical cuts, this collection does happily leave off the intensely horrifying "The Pullman Porters," a skit that is included on the Bear THE SINGING BRAKEMAN box set, in which two white men, one of them unfortunately Jimmie Rodgers, parody black Pullman Porters. Even when factoring in that it was humor that was typical of the age, it hardly excuses Rodgers for engaging in painfully racist humor. And "racist" is absolutely the correct word. Most accusations of racism these days involve incidents that can usually be debated. But this comedic skit is vastly more offensive than Michael Richards's celebrated tirade. It isn't just Rodgers mimicking African-Americans or the loose use of the N-word, but the way that the porters, especially the porter that Rodgers is talking to, are presented as complete and abject idiots. The skit is also extremely embarrassing to whites. It pains me that whites might have found this funny. This skit reflects very, very badly on the whites of the period.

Speaking of whites of the period, one thing that I often thing about in listening to Rodgers is my grandfather. After being mustered out of the Army in 1918 at the end of the Great War, my grandfather (who was a photographer for the army) began working for the U.S. Post Office. Specifically, he worked on mail trains. As far as I can tell, he mainly worked runs into Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana from 1919 through the late 1920s. Rodgers finished working on the railroads around 1923 or 1924. There is absolutely no way of telling for sure, but it doesn't seem unlikely that Rodgers and my grandfather might have been on a run together at some point. They certainly inhabited the same worlds. What is more, my grandfather was a fiddle player. It would have been so sweet if my grandfather and Rodgers had had a talk about music. I don't know if they ever met or were even on the same trains, but it certainly isn't impossible.

Of the three Jimmie Rodgers's collections with which I am familiar, I am not sure which I would most recommend. RECORDINGS 1927-33 is nearly as complete as THE SINGING BRAKEMAN and can be had for a sixth of the cost, but it definitely is not of the same quality. On the other hand, THE SINGING BRAKEMAN is so absurdly expensive! There is a significant difference in sound quality, but even more of a difference in price. THE ESSENTIAL JIMMIE RODGERS has exceptionally fine sound quality, but it leaves off way, way too many of Rodgers's most important recordings. It lacks such important gems as "Standing on the Corner" (the collaboration with Louis Armstrong), "Home Call," "Peach Picking Time in Georgia," "Long Tall Mama Blues," and "Jimmie's Mean Mama Blues," along with many others. In short, there is no easy recommendation about which direction to go in getting the right Jimmie Rodgers collection. THE ESSENTIAL is too small, 1927-33 is too inferior, and THE SINGING BRAKEMAN is too expensive. But right now, those are our choices.

When Ralph Peer came South in search of "hillbilly" musicians for the Victor Recording Company he made two important discoveries, the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. Together they would go on to pioneeer the rural sounds that later came to be known as country music. The Carter Family were religious, wholesome, upstanding citizens. But Rodgers, in contrast, was much more of a "rounder" who sang songs about train hopping hobos, high stakes gambling and wild women.

This collection of 5 CDs contains over 100 songs, the entire recordings of Rodgers except for some alternate versions and one song called "My Time Ain't Long". Of course, it includes all the Rodgers' classics, such as "Blue Yodel #1 (T For Texas)", "In The Jailhouse Now", and "My Rough And Rowdy Ways". But also plenty of lesser known gems, like "High Powered Mama" and the very funny and innuendo-laced "Everybody Does It In Hawaii". The packaging is simple and the liner notes, written by Drew Kent, are not as thorough and detailed as I had hoped for. But still this is a terrific bargain for the price and contains so many outstandings songs by one of the best and most important of all American musicians - the great Jimmie Rodgers!