Jimmie Rodgers conference

CWRU to host Jimmie Rodgers centennial

by Susan Griffith

Jimmie Rodgers' knack for rearranging old folk and "hillbilly" melodies and singing new songs like they were resurrected favorites earned him the title, "Father of Country Music."

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the singer's birth, three organizations -- CWRU's American Studies Program, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum of Nashville -- will host Waiting for a Train: Jimmie Rodgers' America from September 15-21. The program is the second annual one in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum American Music Masters series.

CWRU will again participate as the host of the conference for this music masters series from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, September 20. This informative and entertaining conference will dovetail last year's successful Hard Travelin': The Life and Legacy of Woody Guthrie -- the first collaboration between CWRU and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

The Rodgers celebration also will include a photo exhibition of the musician's life at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a Jimmie Rodgers Jamboree at the Odeon Theater, a commemorative concert at Severance Hall, and a Jimmie Rodgers Symposium at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The all-day conference at CWRU will bring together the academic and music communities to discuss Rodgers' short life and to educate the public about the early roots of Rock and Roll music.

Rodgers was born in Meridian, Mississippi, in 1897. He died in New York City in 1933 -- just hours after he recorded the last of 110 recordings issued during his career. Among his works are the 13 "Blue Yodels," "TB Blues," and "Waiting for a Train." He teamed with such talents as the Carter Family and a young Louis Armstrong, hired as a stand-in musician during a recording session in Los Angeles.

The singer lived during an explosive era in American history. His life mimicked some of the important cultural changes taking place -- he worked for the railroads that had carved important transportation paths across the country, tuberculosis was the leading killer of America's young adults, and records and movies began to replace live stage performances as popular forms of entertainment.

Ralph Peer from Victor Records (forerunner of RCA records) gave the yodeler his break into the industry while on a road trip to scout and record new talent from the South. Even at that first recording, Rodgers was in poor health with consumption.

Driven by a call to fame, the unrelenting Rodgers pursued his career to sing his way through the Depression and connect to Southern audiences with his down-home and friendly charisma.

"Country music to most Americans means some big raw dude in a sequined shirt fondling a gaudy guitar, whining about bad booze and busted hearts, simpleminded lyrics delivered in evangelistic fervor... in sum, bad taste," Nolan Porterfield wrote in his biography, Jimmie Rodgers.

Porterfield found Rodgers an exception. Rodgers' improvement upon "long forgotten relics" or singing new songs in the old traditions had "the ultimate consequence" of influencing a major segment of the popular culture and preserving some of the past's folk songs, added Porterfield.

The biographer is among featured panelists who will explore different aspects of the singer's life and how it impacted and was influenced by American culture.

Among the other presenters at the conference will be some of the country's leading writers and authorities on country music:

Robert Oermann, a multimedia music journalist and author of America's Music: The Roots of Country;
Bill Ivey, director of the Country Music Foundation;
Nicholas Dawidoff, best-selling author of The Catcher was a Spy, who spent three years on the road visiting the homes of country music legends like Rodgers for his new book, In the Country of Country;
David Sanjek, president of IASPM and from BMI music;
Cecelia Tichi from the Department of English at Vanderbilt University and author of High Lonesome Sound; and
Nick Toches, author of Hellfire, the acclaimed biography of Jerry Lee Lewis, and freelance writer for Rolling Stone, Creem, and Fusion.

Henry Adams, CWRU's new professor of art history, will discuss the relationship between country music and the painter Thomas Hart Benton. Painting during Rodgers' lifetime, Benton shifted his focus from modernist paintings to concentrating on works depicting the South, hillbilly characters, and trains.

The conference will conclude with Keith Carradine's performance of the one-man show, "My Time Ain't Long." Other professional musicians are expected to participate during conference sessions and other commemorative events.

The $50 conference fee includes the conference, lunch, and a commemorative T-shirt. Participants also have the opportunity to purchase two tickets to a concert at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, September 21 in Severance Hall. Those tickets are $20, $30, $40, and $60.

A Jimmie Rodgers Jamboree will take place at the Odeon Theater at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, September 20. Tickets are $15. Artists will be announced in August. Following the Cleveland events, a Jimmie Rodgers Symposium will take place in Nashville at Vanderbilt University.

Tickets for these events go on sale August 15. To register for the conference, call 216-515-8427 and for information call 216-515-1234. Concert tickets are available through the museum's box office and Ticketmaster.

For more information, visit these Web sites:

Department of American Studies: http://www.cwru.edu/CWRU/Dept/Artsci/amst/amst.html
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: http://www.rockhall.com
Country Music Hall of Fame: http://www.coww.com/cow/cmhf/default.html