"Although few fans think of Country and Western being popular as remotely as the 1930s, it was during the depression years that C&W became another popular music form.
Jimmie Rodgers was born near Meridian, Mississippi in 1897. At age 14, he worked on the railroads in the southern U. S. learning blues music from black crew workers and practicing his trademark "3-chord pickin'". At age 24 the smoke and soot of the coal fired trains so weakened his lungs that he contracted TB. He could no longer work in the train yards and began devoting full time to his first love-blues music-billing himself as The Singing Brakeman." –Taken from YouTube blurb
One of the great 'poets' of country music lore, Jimmie Rodgers captured the mood of a struggling nation and gave voice to the millions of Americans who endured the great depression of the 1930s. I've grown up listening to Jimmie Rodgers' "blue-yodel" and although his writing may not always be considered poetry, his lyrics not always considered political, it is without a doubt that his career was shaped by the politics of his time, just as raw emotion shaped the lyrics of his music.
Although I don't sing any Jimmie Rodgers songs currently, I have in the past and if you are interested, ask me about the time I won a national yodeling championship... when I was 14. No joke.
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