Jimmie Rodgers

Genres:	Country & Bluegrass • Folk • Holiday & Seasonal • Music & Radio • Pop / Rock • War
Descriptive "tags":	country • folk • blues • bluegrass • americana
Decades Active:	1950s • 1960s • 1970s • 1990s • 2000s

Biography

James Charles Rodgers, 8 September 1897, Pine Springs, near Meridian, Mississippi, USA, d. 26 May 1933, New York, USA. Jimmie was the youngest of three sons of Aaron Woodberry Rodgers, who had moved from Alabama to Meridian to work as foreman of a railroad maintenance crew. In 1904, his mother Eliza (Bozeman) died (probably from tuberculosis), and following his father’s remarriage, in 1906, he and elder brother Talmage went to live with their Aunt Dora, who ran the Bozeman family farm at Pine Springs. An ex-music teacher, his aunt probably sparked Rodgers’ first real interest in music. Doubtless as the result of Jimmie’s delinquent behaviour, in 1911 his father recalled him to Meridian, but his long absences at work led to Jimmie frequenting the local pool halls and barbershops, where he first began singing. At the age of 12, renderings of ‘Steamboat Bill’ and ‘I Wonder Why Bill Bailey Don’t Come Home’ won him a local amateur...

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