WeenieCampbell.com
Country Blues => Weenie Campbell Main Forum => Topic started by: outfidel on May 17, 2005, 03:05:23 PM
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Below is a bit of info on the relationship between Frank Stokes & Jimmie Rodgers. Is there any more specific knowledge known about their relationship, e.g., year(s) & locations where they performed together, songs that they performed/swapped, etc.
It would've been fascinating to see these two together in their prime!
"Medicine shows were extremely popular in America around the turn-of-the-century. Many white country blues performers started out as traveling songsters. Among these are Roy Acuff, Dock Boggs, Fiddling John Carson, Frank Hutchinson, and Uncle Dave Macon. These shows influenced race relations because they featured and entertained blacks and whites. One of the most famous medicine show songsters was Jimmie Rodgers, also known as the father of hillbilly or country and western music. Rodgers's career began in medicine shows where he occasionally put on blackface and frequently played with Frank Stokes, a black songster of Memphis from whom he is thought to have acquired much of his song collection."
source: How the Blues Affected Race Relations in the United States (http://www.jessicagrant.net/thesis/minmed.html)
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I've never heard that before. It seems a little odd to me. First of all, I can't think of any overlap in their repetoire. Usually when people had a working relationship they share some songs in common.
Second, in the Nolan Porterfield biography of Jimmie Rodgers there is no mention of a relationship with Frank Stokes. That's a pretty thorough review of Rodgers life and it doesn't seem likely that he would have missed what would have been such a monumental influence during Rodgers formitive years. Rodgers did medicine shows during the early part of his career, but from all accounts he wasn't much to listen to. That would have been in the early 20's. During that time Stokes would have been smoking.
Do they site a source for that statement?
Can anyone think of songs that the two share in common?
I could be totally wrong on this, but it just seems a little funky to me.
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I have to agree with Cambio. This sounds very suspect to me.
Like most on this forum, I'm familiar with Stokes' repertoire, but I consider myself to be quite knowledgeable on Rodger's repertoire and I'm at a complete loss to think of even one song that overlaps, much less "much of his song collection." as claimed by the author of that piece, (who fails to cite their source).
From the biographical details of Rodgers' life that I do know, I think it highly unlikely that their paths ever crossed at all.
For an example of someone who *did* have a direct influence on Rodgers, check out Emmett Miller, who has been discussed this forum before.
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I can't think of any either. A quick scan of JR's titles doesn't suggest any overlap, though obviously song names can change. The author is paraphrasing this from Francis Davis's The History of the Blues, where, on page 88, Davis writes, "There were white songsters, though we might not think of them as such. The most obvious example is Jimmie Rodgers, the man frequently hailed as the father of 'hilbilly' or country-and-western music. Rodgers started his career with the medicine shows, sometimes performing in blackface and often paired with Frank Stokes, the black Memphis songster (and professional blacksmith) from whom he is suspected to have learned much of his repertoire."
Davis doesn't say where he gets his info either.
:P
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Thanks for the info everyone. Yes, I had first read about Stokes-Rodgers in Francis Davis's book, then stumbled across the web page above.
Perhaps Francis Davis was confusing Jimmie Rodgers with Dan Sane???
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Another fellow named Don Santini seems to be cribbing from the same odd info at a site called politicalaffairs.net "Marxist Thought online" (ahem) ....
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/view/750/1/81
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Perhaps Francis Davis was confusing Jimmie Rodgers with Dan Sane???
Ah yes. ?Well in that case, it all makes perfect sense. ;D
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Is that the same Don Santini that you sometimes play bass for, Mike B.? Mike Dingle told me he was playin' Third Thursday tomorrow so I'll ask him about it.Any chance you'll come by?
I can't get that link to go, UB.
All for now.
John C.
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Oops, it seems that should be Don Santina, with an a. The link won't work for me right now either, nor does the original Google search result link work. It is also available here http://www.counterpunch.org/santina02192005.html
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Yes, John. That's the same Don Santina that I play with. We've been the best of friends for about 25 years. As you may have gathered, Don has some rather strong political opinions. :)
I'll ask him what his source of information is.
I hadn't planned on playing at the Boathouse tomorrow because I have a gig at a Retirement party in Bolinas. Don broke his arm last month and yet, I just got an email from him asking if I'd play Bass with him at the Boathouse.
That's some mighty quick healing!
Perhaps Frank Stokes taught him how to heal broken bones ;D
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Wow, reading that article gives deeper meaning to the fact that Don is one of my biggest supporters, encouraging me to record a CD, and always commenting on the authenticity and honesty of my performances. Great guy.
Have fun in Bolenas, Mike, and I'll see you soon.
All for now.
John C.
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Wow! Mr. Santina's article is so rife with inaccuracies, half truths and poor logic I had to stop reading it after he gave credit for the Carter scratch to Leslie Riddle. The Rodgers / Stokes relationship is beginning to sound even more dubious.
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Was wondering if that article was going to get discussed - we'll let Uncle Bud moderate. :P
I agree the article has a few problems :D -- had to chuckle at this line: "The beat goes on with continuing CD sales, blues festivals, blues documentaries, t-shirts, posters and even a sizeable internet market of instruction videos like "How To Play Guitar Like Blind Blake." (Hey wait a minute, I love my guitar videos! ... not to mention WeenieCampbell!) Also, not sure the solution to centuries of discrimination is a National Foundation and a Board of Directors (let's form a committee!?) but I do like the sentiment of provding more opportunities to urban youth.
For every action there is a reaction, there are positive sides to exploitation - we're darn lucky to have the music at all.
Cheers,
slack
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I think we at WeenieCampbell should sell little bracelets, kind of like Lance Armstrong's but with a "non-Christian message", a la those of several years ago. Del Rey and I considered producing some with "W W B D"' for " What would Bo (Carter) Do?" >:D , to counter the self-rigtheous mood involved with those other ones. . Maybe we should also produce"WWWD" , "What Would Weenie Do?" 8)
He'd spray a big raspberry at the authors of the article, bow to original Black Southern Bluesmen, and then encourage all present to have a libation, light up their cigars if desired, ignore skin color, then get back to life and living, smiling, singing, ignoring curtain calls, and making and receiving love! Here, here!
May not be a big seller...
Here's to Weenie, Slack!
Buzz.
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It seems a little odd to me. First of all, I can't think of any overlap in their repetoire. Usually when people had a working relationship they share some songs in common.
While we think of Stokes repetoire as his 38 or so recorded songs, that recorded repetoire would surely have been a small part of his performing repetoire.
Quoting from the National Park Service "Trail Of The Hellhound" website http://www.cr.nps.gov/delta/blues/people/frank_stokes.htm:
Possessed of a powerful voice and driving guitar style, Stokes busked on the streets of Memphis playing a variety of minstrel tunes, early blues, ragtime numbers, breakdowns, and popular songs of the day. His breadth of musical knowledge made him the embodiment of the rural black musical tradition up to the early twentieth century. Stokes joined forces with fellow Mississippian Garfield Akers as a blackface songster, comedian, and buck dancer in the Doc Watts Medicine Show, a tent show that toured the South during World War I.
Tiring of the road, Stokes settled in Oakville, Tennessee, to work as a blacksmith, an occupation that allowed him to play dances, picnics, fish fries, saloons, and parties at his leisure.
Clearly, Stokes played much that he did not record. And clearly he did do blackface work in traveling show during and perhaps after WWI, which, if my fading memory is correct, ended in 1919. And it wasn't until 1927 when Stokes was first recorded, so it's problematic how much of his recorded repetoire would even have been in his repetoire at the time he might have met/tutored Jimmy Rodgers. It would be interesting to know if Jimmy Rodgers ever toured with the Doc Watts Medicine Show.
While black and white musicians may not have worked together on a daily basis in the south, from what I've read it was also not all that uncommon; and using "blackface" would probably have made it even more socially acceptable.
So whether or not they actually worked together may be subject to debate, an short of a photo or first hand witness, we'll probably never know for sure. But clearly they could have worked together, and if the did, the older Stokes (born 1888) would likely have been the mentor to the younger Rodgers (born 1897). So to me, the story is certainly believeable, and I wouldn't be so quick to discount the idea.
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Don Santina is a great guy and one of my oldest friends.
That having been said, he sure didn't do too much homework (e.g. as Cambio pointed out, attributing the Carter guitar syle to Leslie Riddle is ludicrous) but instead chose to rant about social injustice, which as you may have gathered, is a particular favorite topic of conversation for Don.
I sent him an email asking him for the sources of his info and he hasn't replied. I hope I didn't offend him. As I said, we're good friends.
Good friends can, however, disagree.
I'd like to think that I'm bright enough to change my mind if presented with facts that contradict a previously held view, however, I think at this moment in time, I'm going to dismiss the Frank Stokes/Jimmie Rodgers connection as total banana oil.
John; Don does, in fact, takes every opportunity to tell people about you and your playing. We're all fans of yours :D
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Clearly, Stokes played much that he did not record. And clearly he did do blackface work in traveling show during and perhaps after WWI, which, if my fading memory is correct, ended in 1919. And it wasn't until 1927 when Stokes was first recorded, so it's problematic how much of his recorded repetoire would even have been in his repetoire at the time he might have met/tutored Jimmy Rodgers. It would be interesting to know if Jimmy Rodgers ever toured with the Doc Watts Medicine Show.
While black and white musicians may not have worked together on a daily basis in the south, from what I've read it was also not all that uncommon; and using "blackface" would probably have made it even more socially acceptable.
So whether or not they actually worked together may be subject to debate, an short of a photo or first hand witness, we'll probably never know for sure. But clearly they could have worked together, and if the did, the older Stokes (born 1888) would likely have been the mentor to the younger Rodgers (born 1897). So to me, the story is certainly believeable, and I wouldn't be so quick to discount the idea.
The idea is certainly not out of the question. Rodgers obviously heard and absorbed a lot of blues, and that wouldn't just be from listening to records. He could have met Stokes. Hell, he recorded with Clifford Gibson, Clifford Hayes and the Louisville Jug Band, Louis Armstrong, so why not. They're both songster types with relatively simple styles. And yes, there would have been lots that Stokes didn't record, and some of that could have ended up in Rodgers' repertoire, had they met. But I would still expect some overlap of actual recorded material before even beginning to entertain the claim that Rodgers learned "much of his repertoire" from Stokes. The whole argument seems to be built on pure speculation by Francis Davis, without even a hint of evidence cited. If someone could point me to a melody or lyric they had in common... I can't think of any, though am less familiar with Rodgers' complete oeuvre than I am with Stokes'.
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Hi all,
Were the influence of Frank Stokes on Jimmie Rodgers as strong as it has been touted to be, you would think there would be some trace of Frank's playing style in Jimmie's. There doesn't appear to be any. Frank's aggressive time, alternating bass with brush strokes, fairly complex cut-time picking are nowhere to be found in Jimmie's playing. I think where strong musical influences occur, they manifest in multi-faceted ways: vocally, instrumentally, and in repertoire. Think of Luke Jordan and Dick Justice or Lemon Jefferson and Larry Hensley. Perhaps if Jimmie saw Frank perform or performed on shows with him, there is some aspect of Frank's performance style that Jimmie emulated--we can't know this, but in the listening, there is very little of Frank Stokes's music in Jimmie Rodgers's music.
All best,
Johnm
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It's certainly possible that Stokes and Rodgers encountered one another at some point (although I don't know if there's any evidence to confirm this). But the idea that they were "frequent" collaborators seems ludicrous.
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Paul Oliver in Songsters & Saints (paperback, p.89) writes this:
Many white entertainers of note got their basic training in the medicine shows, singing from the platform of the "physick wagon". The comedian of the silent movies, Buster Keaton, was born of medicine show parents, the Joe Keatons, who worked the Dr. Hill's California Concert Company selling Kickapoo Magic Snake Oil; their companions on the show were Bessie and Harry Houdini. Before his "white-face" act, Buster Keaton himself played in blackface in 1896. Even the smallest "Doctor Shows" employed an Indian and a blackface, or black singer, musician or comedian to attract a crowd. White country singers as various as Uncle Dave Macon, Fiddling John Carson, Roy Acuff, Dock Walsh, Bradley Kincaid, Clarence Ashley, Hank Williams and "Harmonica" Frank Llyod all "paid their dues" on the doctor shows. So too did Jimmie Rodgers who played both tent-rep shows and worked with the "pitchmen"; the shows of Doc Zip Hilber, Doc El Vino, Widow Robbins and Population Charlie have been mentioned in this connexion but it is not certain whether Rodgers worked with them. Made up in blackface, he traveled through Kentuck and Tennessee with, in his wife's words, "a shabby little medicine show", later to join a tent show, a Hawaiian group and a traveling carnival which broke up in a storm in Indiana. In places as far apart as Mississippi and Texas he is remembered playing on one medicine show in the company of the black songster, Frank Stokes.
For this paragraph, Oliver cites these? sources:
- Blesh, Keaton, pp. 15-21
- Malone, Country Music USA - A Fifty-Year History, pp. 19-20
- Porterfield, Jimmie Rodgers, pp. 57-8
- Pars & Comber, Jimmy the Kid: The Life of Jimmie Rodgers, p. 31
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Thanks Outfidel! Good digging. Some evidence at least that he encountered Stokes. Still don't see how anyone could claim the large influence on his repertoire though...
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That's pretty good detective work.
I think we've established that they had actually met and that meeting was far too brief and casual to acount for Rodgers acquiring "most of his song collection" as originally stated.
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But I would still expect some overlap of actual recorded material before even beginning to entertain the claim that Rodgers learned "much of his repertoire" from Stokes.
You could well be right.? However, I suspect that the record producers would have wanted the two to record quite different songs since Stokes records would be marketed to an exclusively black audience, and Rodgers songs would be marketed to an exclusively white audience.
Were the influence of Frank Stokes on Jimmie Rodgers as strong as it has been touted to be, you would think there would be some trace of Frank's playing style in Jimmie's.
Valid point.? I'm not familiar enough with Rodgers work to know whether that trace exists or not.?
Another possibility exists, however.? And that is that Stokes style and repertoire changed between the late 1910s/early 1920s when he worked the medicine show circuit and Aug 1927, when he first recorded.? This may well be the case since Stokes apparently didn't become part of the Memphis music scene until after his medicine show years.? So it is quite possible that Rodgers did incorporate much of Stokes circa 1920 style and repertoire, but that Stokes changed enough before 1927 that we don't see the resemblance in Stokes recorded works.
Of course, Rogers repertoire and style would have continued to develop after their time together, too.
All that said, Rogers had been performing for a while before any likely encounter with Stokes, so while I might accept that Rodgers gained a lot from Stokes -- meaning 20-30-40% of his repertoire at that time, I too doubt that Rodgers acquired "most of his song collection" from Stokes or any other single artist.
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I've enjoyed your discussion of my article "Reparations for the Blues," and I'll briefly try to address some of the concerns raised about the Stokes/Rogers connection.
When I was in Oregon 15 years ago, I worked up an act called the "Clackamas Kid," singing Jimmie Rodgers' tunes in an accent somewhere between Lawrence Welk and Jackie Mason. I had an idea for a tent show kind of thing and hooked up with some jug band players to see if we could work something out. It didn't work out, which in retrospect soared the world from another musical atrocity.
However, a couple of these folks knew a lot about tent shows and performers like Frank Stokes. One guy had a stack of 78's! Through our discussions, I--who had been kneeling at the altar of Jimmie Rodgers since 1959--learned about how many songs like "In The Jailhouse Now" were in the tent show repertoire when Jimmie was still crawling on the floor. I went back home and pulled out my Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Folio songbook, and there it was on page 8: "In the Jailhouse Now, Words and Music by Jimmie Rodgers."
I was disappointed but not completely surprised. I had known that around the time Rodgers began recording, Ralph Peer started his lucrative publishing career gobbling up copyrights. There's certainly enough historical evidence detailing this national pasttime of claiming creative rights to music written by other people and we've seen parallel behavior in jazz, long into the Swing era. No one today can seriously believe that Paul Whiteman was "The King of Jazz," and yet it was Whiteman, not Louis Armstrong, who got the radio show, the big name hotels, etc.
It's an equally absurd thought that somehow Jimmie Rodgers burst out of nowhere with the blues. Of course he learned it from the black community, from laborers in railroad yards, chain gangs and fellow performers like Frank Stokes. Please note that I wrote "...Stokes, a black singer from whom Rodgers IS THOUGHT to have acquired much of his repertoire. Rodgers does not sound like Stokes, but we're talking genre and songs, not style.
Discography gives us limited information from years later, and empirical evidence--such as newspaper reviews-- about any African American musical achievement were non-existent in the apartheid South. The bottom line is: white musicians, record companies, and publishers could and did take whatever they wanted from the black community with impunity and without compensation.
I've received many positive comments on the article, and bluesmen like Billy Branch and DJ's like Good Rockin Derral have actually begun taking steps to retrieve the communities stolen royalties.
(Yes, Mike, I did play the Boathouse before my arms was completely healed. It blew up after the gig and was immobile for three days. That's why I wasn't able to respond to your email.)
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Welcome to WeenieCampbell Don!
Cheers,
slack
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"The music business is a shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where pimps and thieves run free and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -Hunter S. Thompson
Frank Stokes' and Jimmie Rodgers' paths may have crossed and even ran parallel for a while, but they are completely different artists on almost every level. Stokes is almost like a rapper in his rabid fire delivery of tounge twisting lyrics ( "Chicken...", "One Woman...", "I Got Mine..."), while Rodgers sings in a slow Mississippi drawl. Stokes is a finger picker and a string snapper, Rodgers strums to keep time and occasionally throws in a little embellishment. While Rodgers is remembered for his yodeling and blues stylings, the majortiy of his repetoire was comprised of sappy love songs and ballads penned by his sister in law, Elsie McWilliams.
I'm not going to dispute that Jimmie Rodgers was influenced by black musicians, he obviously was. But he was also influenced by white artists of his day and of his childhood. In fact, his first recording, "Sleep Baby Sleep", is almost a complete rip off of the great yodeler Ward Barton's song of the same title. Was he exploiting Ward Barton when he recorded that tune?
In the same respect; Was the Memphis Jug Band ripping off vaudville singer Billy Murray when they changed his "Sallie Green, the Vamp of the Town" to "Everybody's Talking About Sadie Green" Does exploitation only run one way?
Certainly guys like Ralph Peer took advantage of artists, both white and black, but so did guys like Lester Melrose. Do you think that he gave all of the artists that he recorded a fair shake because they had the same skin color as he did?
What about Willie Dixon? Yes, Led Zepplin, and others, ripped him off, but he himself could be considered a master of song theft. Dixon regularly penned lyrics for Chess artists, and received credit for the words and the music, which was composed by the recording artists on the spot, at the session. He would also regularly take songs that were popular in the black community and build off of them. Songs like Spoonful and Wang Dang Doodle are perfect examples. When Zepplin did it we consider it exploitation, but what about when Willie did it?
What about when influence cuts the other way?
"As far as singing goes, I wanted to do something new and have a style that wasn't too common. I was inspired by the records of Jimmie Rodgers, a white singer of that time. He was called the 'yodeling singer' because he would sing some parts in a head voice, like the Swiss yodelers. I took that idea and adapted it to my own abilities. I couln't do no yodelin' so I turned to howlin'. And it's done me just fine." - Howlin' Wolf.
Rodgers influence can also be heard on the Tommy Johnson test pressing, "I Want Someone to Love Me" , that showed up a few years ago. On the record, Johnson is playing in 3/4 time, singing sappy lyrics and yodeling his heart away. It's a beautiful recording that probably wasn't released because the producer couldn't imagine that anyone would want to hear a black bluesman imitate a white hillbilly singer. Our loss.
When Wolf howls and Tommy Johnson yodels, are they ripping off Jimmie Rodgers?
To paint the picture that blues came over from Africa and was born in a field in Mississippi, and then white people stole it and made rock and roll, got rich and counted their money, while poor black people suffered, is too simple. There is a rich and varied history there, and the whole picture is yet to be understood. There was a lot of give and take. The giving wasn't all done by African Americans and the taking wasn't all done by Caucasians.
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Hi all,
If I may add to Todd's outstanding and well-reasoned post, I think to interpret the musical interactions between White Americans and Black Americans as one of theft on the part of whites and creation/being ripped off on the part of blacks is way too pat and simple. Influences run both directions and always have, and remuneration for influence has never been the norm, either between the races, or within a race. Does anybody think Robert Johnson gave Son House a share of any proceeds the sale of "Walking Blues" generated, or would introduce "Drunken Hearted Man" or "Malted Milk" in performance by saying, "Here is a number that I based on the wonderful guitar stylings of Lonnie Johnson."? How many compositions/orchestrations attributed to Duke Ellington really came from Billy Strayhorn?
I think one thing that is really great, is that despite the temptation to reduce everything to simplistic racial white vs. black terms, musicians themselves are generally very open about expressing admiration or stylistic indebtedness to other musicians, of whatever stripe; thus Howling Wolf's appreciation of Jimmie Rodgers, Lester Young's admiration of the great white C melody saxophone player Frankie Trumbauer, Count Basie's employment of the white arranger Neil Hefti in the 1950s, Bill Monroe's acknowledgement of musical debt to the black guitarist Arnold Schultz, the adulation accorded Lester Young by an entire generation of younger white tenor players: Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Alan Eager. The list goes on and on.
Imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery. What ends up being imitated is a function of the taste and hard-wiring of the musicians in question. Race is not a determining factor and never has been. Music is one of the "Big Brain Benefits" bestowed on humankind, and the capacity to enjoy and express it is shared among all of humanity.
All best,
Johnm
P.S. I should add that non-creators of music engaged in the music business have often been exploitive, and that the exploitation has tended to occur wherever venality and opportunity have coincided, regardless of the race of the people involved.
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Excellent thread :)
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It struck me while working out in the shop today, that while it is widely reported that Elvis Presley ripped off black artists by recording the Arthur Crudup tune "That's Alright Mama" or the Big Mama Thorton song "Houndog" (an assertion that is incorrect as "Houndog" was actually written by Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, two white kids), it is not very well known that another pioneer of rock and roll developed his unique style from imitating "hillbilly" music."I would suddenly break out with a hillbilly selection that had no business in the repetoire of a soul music loving audience and the simple audacity of playing such a foreign number was enough to trigger the program into becoming sensational entertainment..." "...Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of the country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of the clubgoers started whispering, 'Who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?' After they laughed at me a few times, they began requesting the hillbilly struff and enjoyed trying to dance to it. If you ever want to see something that is far out, watch a crowd of colored folk, half high, wholeheartedly doing the hoedown barefooted." -Chuck Berry ( The Autobiography p.89-90)
The fact is, what Chuck Berry did is the same as what Elvis did and the same as Jimmie Rodgers, and Howlin Wolf and a whole host of musicians all over the world, they took something and they ran with it, making it their own. If they crossed cultural boundaries to do so, that's not taboo, that's a beautiful thing. Embrace that! Only reporting half of the story misses the point and takes away from the beauty. Doc Bogg's music is as tremendous and unique as Skip James. They both drew from the same river, they both got robbed by the same devil. Greed.
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Hi Don; Good to see you here at Weenie Campbell. You're going to find many knowledgeable people with interesting things to say.
This discussion being a perfect example.
Sorry to hear about your arm. Now that we're old guys we need to take better care of ourselves.
This has been a fascinating discussion with many roots and branches, but for a moment, let's return to the original question, "Did any of Jimmie Rodgers repertoire come from Frank Stokes?"
I believe that we've established that the answer is "no".
The most that has been proven is that Paul Oliver says that they met.
The notion that Rodgers acquired some of his repertoire during that meeting is attributing significant qualities to the mundane.
Kind of like looking at a horse and telling people that you've seen a Unicorn whose horn must have fallen off.
As to the question of "Whose music is it?", I agree with Muddy Waters (When the Blues is being discussed, you are always on *very* safe ground saying "I agree with Muddy" :D)
In the early '70's, Muddy spoke at Columbia University and a young African-American student asked him "What do you think of the White Man ripping off our music?"
Muddy's terse reply was "What do you mean OUR Music? Who the hell are you?" Muddy then proceded to educate the young man by telling him that the music belonged to those who played the music, *not* to every Tom, Dick or Harry who, by accident of birth, happened to have the same skin color.
Imagine if a Rembrandt sold at auction for millions of dollars and everybody who's Dutch came forward, demanding a share. It would be considerd bizarre behavior, to say the least.
Art is created by and is the property of individuals, not communities.
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In all these post, no one has shown me any credible evidence that Rodgers didn't use any of Stokes' material.
Mike, the Rembrandt argument does not serve your cause well. We're talking about the cultural consequences of several centuries of slavery and segregation, not Can all the Dutch claim Rembrandt.
Regarding Muddy Waters, with whom I had several conversations, I'm sure you're aware that Muddy would often tell people whatever they wanted to hear, depending on the audience. I think you should read something about growing up black in the Jim Crow South, 1890-1965..
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Hi Don,
Considering that there is zero overlap in the recorded repertoires of Frank Stokes and Jimmie Rodgers and no discernible musical affinity between their respective playing/singing styles it would seem that the burden of proof would lie on those claiming that Frank Stokes influenced Jimmie Rodgers. There is no evidence of it in the music.
All best,
Johnm
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In all these post, no one has shown me any credible evidence that Rodgers didn't use any of Stokes' material.
I would that think that, for this sort of discussion, the burden of proof falls on the side of someone to prove that Rodgers did use Stokes material.
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Just had to summarise the preceding three pages of erudite discussion with the following important press release:
"Stokes and Rodgers - Prof Scratchy denies absolutely no link between them"!!
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In all these post, no one has shown me any credible evidence that Rodgers didn't use any of Stokes' material
? ? ? As we all know, it's impossible to prove a negative. From reading the links that this thread has generated , I see that Buster Keaton was prominent in the Medicine Shows.
? ? ? Prove Frank Stokes didn't learn all of his repertoire from Buster Keaton.
? ? ? You can't. Why? Because you can't prove a negative.
? ? ? .
We're talking about the cultural consequences of several centuries of slavery and segregation
? ? ?No we're not. We're talking about the artistic, creative output of a very smal group of individuals
I think you should read something about growing up black in the Jim Crow South, 1890-1965..
? ?Thank you for suggesting that I "read something".
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Oops! I messed up while using the "Quotes" feature.
I did not intend to have that look like the whole thing was Don's quote.
Sorry.
I'm sure that if you read it though, you can tell which sentences are Don's quotes and which are my rebuttals.
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Fortunately I can put an end to all this distasteful conflict once and for all, having unearthed a rare and scratchy 78 from my granny's attic which provides defrinitive proof!
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:P
Somehow I knew the Yodel was coming PF! ;D
In any case, this has been an interesting discussion... Don, I think the burden of proof is on you. This reminds me a bit of the old email list thread on the origins of the blues... maybe I'll resurrect that Weenie Classic thread for fun. ;)
cheers,
slack
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Is that better, Mike?
You can click on the "Modify" button in the upper right of any of your posts and edit them. For instance, you can delete your last post, now that it's obsolete, and you can also go into you're next to last post and see how the quote function works.
All for now.
John C.
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Well, It's been stated here that Frank Stokes and Garfield Akers worked as blackface musicians with Doc Watts Medicine Show sometime during WW1 and that Stokes settled down in Memphis to work as a blacksmith sometime in the early 20's. During this time, Rodgers was working for the railroad, where he did work with several black men, some of whom showed him how to play guitar and banjo. Rodgers didn't start playing music professionally until he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1925. He initially started playing in a small combo around Meridian and later worked as a blackface entertainer with a medicine show that toured the south.
Unless Stokes worked as a blacksmith for the railroad, or unless he continued working with medicine shows after Doc Watts and settled in Memphis later than has been reported, it seems unlikely that the two worked together.
For further proof, I suggest going to a quiet place and listen to a Frank Stokes record, followed by a Jimmie Rodgers record. You'll find two musicians with distinct styles who have no overlap in their repetoire.
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Of course, any topic which touches on implied racial injustices is going to bring up strong emotions for many. It cannot be denied that the black race in America has been greatly dominated by the white race throughout this country's history.
Yes, of course and I think we are all aware of this. We can include Native Amercians and probably a host of other folks in that great social injustice list too. But I think, and my main objection to your piece Don, that these past social injustices and/or exploitations are somehow carried forward to "The beat goes on with continuing CD sales, blues festivals, blues documentaries, t-shirts, posters and even a sizeable internet market of instruction videos like "How To Play Guitar Like Blind Blake." ... to me is absurd. These were Americans, it is American music and to a large degree it is reflective of the great melting pot that America is --- it is all our music. The race talk reminds me of an old link of an article (1997) that, in my opinion, paints a much more balanced view the part race plays in the blues... entitiled "Whose Job Is It To Nuture The Blues?"
http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/blues/blues03.html
Cheers,
slack
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Of course, any topic which touches on implied racial injustices is going to bring up strong emotions for many. It cannot be denied that the black race in America has been greatly dominated by the white race throughout this country's history.
Yes, of course and I think we are all aware of this. We can include Native Amercians and probably a host of other folks in that great social injustice list too. But I think, and my main objection to your piece Don, that these past social injustices and/or exploitations are somehow carried forward to "The beat goes on with continuing CD sales, blues festivals, blues documentaries, t-shirts, posters and even a sizeable internet market of instruction videos like "How To Play Guitar Like Blind Blake." ... to me is absurd. These were Americans, it is American music and to a large degree it is reflective of the great melting pot that America is --- it is all our music. The race talk reminds me of an old link of an article (1997) that, in my opinion, paints a much more balanced view of the part race plays in the blues... entitiled "Whose Job Is It To Nuture The Blues?"
http://www.sacbee.com/static/archive/news/projects/blues/blues03.html
Cheers,
slack
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It just occurred to me that there's one lyric snippet Stokes and Rodgers share in common, found in Blue Yodel No. 1 - the infamous "T for Texas, T for Tennessee" line. Rodgers recorded this in November 1927. Stokes recorded Nehi Mamma Blues in August 1928 and sang:
Ah now T for Texas, T for Tenessee
If it's a mighty bad letter boys she stole away from me
or possibly "S is a mighty bad letter boys she stole away from me".
This T for Texas line is fairly common though, and I don't know if it really points to any direct influence one way or the other. One could claim equally that by doing He's In the Jailhouse Now, Rodgers was influenced extensively by Pink Anderson, definitely a medicine show veteran as well. Or Blind Blake. I think the general influences of blues and medicine show music are obviously there in Rodgers, but they don't point to one person in particular, at least not Stokes.
(Nice job, Scratchy!)
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This is my last post as I have looming deadlines for an article and a book and since I work full in construction, I must return to these priorities.
I've enjoyed this discussion and am very impressed with the amount of information you guys have. I realize that it's difficult for most white Americans to accept the idea of reparations for African-Americans, but there is much legal precendent for this concept. Reparations have been paid to Native Americans for treaties broken over 100 years ago, to Jews for the Holocaust, to Japanese Americans for WWII internment. Sooner or later it will happen.
As the great civil rights leader Stokeley Carmichael once said, we are either "part of the solution or part of the problem."
Happy camping!
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While I agree that the idea of reparations for African Americans deserve some discussion, due to the great injustices that were done to them, the argument that you present is full of holes, half truths and bias as is often the case when people present a history of the blues.? It's not as cut and dry as you present it.? The blues is not solely the creation of African Americans nor is it solely the property of African Americans.? It's a tradition that has many contributors and many beneficiaries.?
I have had the good fortune of knowing, playing with and learning from, several great blues musicians.? ?The older ones were black, but many of the younger ones were white.? After an initial awkward period of them checking me out, every one of them was eager to share and teach because there was someone there who was eager to learn and carry on that tradition.? It didn't matter to them that I was a white.? ?It reminds me of something another great civil rights leader said,"...I dream of a day when my children will be judged by the content of their hearts and not the color of their skin." That goes both ways Sir.? I care more about what the musicians than I do cultural critics.
If you want to come here, call us racists, and retreat behind deadlines, go ahead.? That doesn't really make for a fair discussion or debate.? You have still failed to prove a connection between Rodgers and Stokes.
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I hate to stir the pot just as this discussion starts settling down, but I'd like to point out a few things.
First, it's important to remember that concepts of authorship and ownership change over time. In 2005, the first person to write a particular melodic line or lyric "owns" it. The most famous recent example of this is the Rolling Stones giving co-writer credit on the song Anybody Seen My Baby to kd lang because it was pointed out to Messrs. Jagger and Richards that a melodic line in the song was identical to a line in a kd lang song. But this concept is a fairly modern one. For most of human history, the idea was more like "Yeah, Son House did Preachin' Blues, but I changed some of his verses, and left out others, and added some, and I changed the guitar part, and I sing the third line of each verse differently. This is MY Preachin' Blues." This concept of authorship left "classical" music by 1800, and was gone from Jazz by the mid-1920s, but held on to varying degrees in various "folk" communities (blues, hillbilly, western, rock 'n' roll, etc) until the 1960s. David Evans's Big Road Blues treats this subject in depth. Remember, to people in these communities, all music was "folk" music. If Charley Poole or Robert Johnson or Gid Tanner or Tommy Johnson learned a Bing Crosby song, written by a professional songwriter, off a record or the radio and later performed it, it was simply another song they did. There was no one standing on the street corner, or at the medicine show, or in front of the tobacco warehouse, saying "Did you give proper attribution to that song and pay any royalties due?"
This attitude goes a long way toward explaining why so many A&R men "stole" authorship credits from the artists they recorded. (And remember here that Mayo Williams, who was black, took credit for the songs of black artists he recorded and Ralph Peer, who was white, took credit for the songs of white artists as well as for the songs of black artists). To the A&R men, they took a song and told the artist "Leave this verse out, change this one to that, do this thing on the guitar, sing that last line this way", so in the end it was the A&R man's song. It may not be the way we think of things today, but that's the way people thought 70 years ago.
Lastly, I think the statement: Throughout this time this music was looked down on by most (not all) of the whites who had any awareness of it and was only issued on records, by white producers, for black audiences only.
is not quite correct. Blues were tremendously popular from around 1915 through the 1930s. White artists recorded blues, black artists recorded blues, Hawaiian artists recorded blues. It would be more correct to say that the production and distribution of blues records was segregated, with white artists recording blues for sale to a generally white audience and black artists recording blues for sale to a generally black audience. It would also be correct to say that the blues component of black artists repertoires was represented on record in greater proportion than other portions of their repertoires because that's what the record companies thought would sell best to the black community.
I hope I haven't stepped on anyone's toes with anything I've said here. I haven't meant to, and if I inadvertently have, I apologize.
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dj:
I appreciate your well written and well thought out post. I have hesitated to contribute to this topic (upon which I have strong opinions) because of my country of origin.
Thanks again,
Alex
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Wax,
Jessica Grant's thesis looks to me pretty much like a school project, I'm afraid, and I'm not sure what exactly is meant by the use of the term "thesis." Master's thesis? I hope not. Undergrad project? High school honours project (most likely the case, given the very limited nature of the works cited)? She got her line re. Frank Stokes from Francis Davis, as stated earlier, who himself provides no support for the claim that Rodgers was "thought" to have got "much his repertoire" from Stokes. You'll note Paul Oliver -- at least as quoted by Outfidel, who is pretty meticulous in his own citations -- does *not* make that claim at all. He merely states that Stokes was seen in the same medicine show as Rodgers. It's quite a leap from that to Rodgers acquiring much of Stokes's repertoire. Who exactly is "thinking" that Rodgers got much of his repertoire from Stokes? Aside from Davis, Don Santina and Jessica Grant? This claim of Stokes influencing Rodgers, not Don's article about reparations, is what was under discussion here. And there seems to be little factual basis for this "thought" as presented in this thread so far.
As for Don's article, he seems to paraphrase the Stokes/Rodgers claim from the same Davis source as Grant, or perhaps from Grant's thesis. Whether it is a polemic about racial injustice or a historical investigation of the blues or early country music, an article can still be held to basic standards of proof when specific claims like the Stokes/Rodgers influence are made. Especially when there seems to be little to no evidence for such claims and when the article goes on to state that "Stokes' name does not appear on any of the multitude of copyrighted songs? claimed by Rodgers, nor did Stokes share in the recording and? publishing windfall": i.e., Stokes was robbed by Rodgers. Don came here and defended the claim, asking for proof it wasn't true. He might have said, "oops, thanks for the interesting points guys, maybe that was something that should have been fact-checked more carefully" but stood by the claim and offered no further evidence. So the discussion continued, and I thought good-naturedly until the Stokely Carmichael quote.?
As for me dragging him here as you state - hey, I googled a couple terms and found his article and posted a link. Is that dragging? Gimme a break! :) I'm happy he popped in to join the discussion but I certainly didn't drag him here.
I also don't think anyone has made any outlandish claims as to the origins of the blues as an African-American folk music form here. I think people have said the blues has many sources, and some of them indeed resulted from cross-pollination with white folk music, as well as pop music. I think people have said only that everything isn't quite so black and white as some agenda-driven rhetoric might have it.
As for the accusation of racism, I think it's fair to say that gauntlet was thrown down, at the very least obliquely. The discussion wasn't about reparations but all of a sudden we were in denial: "I realize that it's difficult for most white Americans to accept the idea of reparations for African-Americans," said Don. To follow that up with "we are either 'part of the solution or part of the problem'" -- regardless of the inclusive 'we' replacing the original 'you' of the quotation (which was in fact an Eldridge Cleaver line, wasn't it?) -- well, I sure felt like I was being called a racist by implication. No one expressed difficulty (or agreement) with the concept of reparations, only with the historical claims in the article, specifically the Stokes/Rodgers connection. We're "part of the problem" if we question one apparently specious claim made in a book then repeated in someone's thesis and someone else's article, or if we suggest blues origins and influences are diverse?
As for the onus of proof, hey, arguments cannot be constructed out of rather thin air and then be expected to be taken seriously by everyone (cf. weapons of mass destruction -- that's a joke, fellars, really, I'm not going there...). Of course, lots of folks on both sides of any argument will try hard not to let facts get in their way, but I think anyone who questions such shaky claims still has a right to do so. Which is pretty much what happened here, IMO. It doesn't mean it's "high dudgeon," much as I like that phrase. ;)
Cheers,
Andrew
(edited to add: This post is in response to a post by another member that has been deleted by that member. I may pull this one too so as to avoid confusion but stand by the argument.)
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I had promised myself to not post in this thread anymore and let it die a natural death, but like most promises I make to myself, it didn't last :)
As I've said, Don Santina and I have been friends for 25 years and he's a great guy. I'm glad we're friends and I value his friendship. However, friends don't always have to agree and this has not been Don's finest hour.
Don's article was written for a political, rather than musical, readership. Writng for a political readership is always a case of "preaching to the choir" and the choir is *never* allowed to question or disagree, without a charge of heresy being leveled against them.
Nobody in the political readership had the knowledge to question the facts he presented. When they were called to the attention of the knowledgeable, forum members here, they were found to be poorly researched and false.
Don entered the discussion (Nobody "dragged" him here. Nobody could drag Don anywhere he didn't want to go) of his own free will, saw that his Stokes/Rodgers theory wouldn't hold water, so he tried to discuss reparations and, when there was no interest in that, accused critics of racism.
Anytime you publish the printed word, you are subject to having to present your facts and sources. There's nothing wrong with having to be held to a standard of accuracy.
The Jessica Grant "extra credit, homework asignment"( I agree with Uncle Bud that it's hard to believe that this is what passes as a thesis nowadays) and the Francis Davis works are also hogwash.
I think all of us here have a bit of a duty to hold people accountable for mis-representations and falsehoods about Country Blues.
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Thanks Mike for posting a level-headed summary of the thread. This is a difficult medium to communicate complex subjects in - and sometimes it is well worth taking a step back for another view. I'd say you are a pretty darn good friend!
Cheers,
slack
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Mike:
We've never met, but I like you already.
Sometimes I think that setting up a straw man only to take shots at him (or her) is the worst aspect of phony scholarship.
Like Slack said, thanks for the summation.
alex
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Thanks for the kind words, Gents.
I guess if I couple this with the fact that I'm helping Waxwing move tomorrow, then I'm well on my way to Weenie Campell sainthood ;D HA!!
Thanks, again.
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During this time, Rodgers was working for the railroad, where he did work with several black men, some of whom showed him how to play guitar and banjo. Rodgers didn't start playing music professionally until he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1925. He initially started playing in a small combo around Meridian and later worked as a blackface entertainer with a medicine show that toured the south.
Unless Stokes worked as a blacksmith for the railroad, or unless he continued working with medicine shows after Doc Watts and settled in Memphis later than has been reported, it seems unlikely that the two worked together.
Not to belabor the point, but according to the Sony Music online bio of Rodgers (http://sonymusic.com/artists/JimmieRodgers/TheSongsOfJimmieRodgers/biography.html):
"Born September 8, 1897, near Meridian, Mississippi, to a railroadman father and a mother who died when he was four years old, Rodgers was on the move from his earliest days. He began performing in his early teens, winning an amateur talent contest in Meridian and traveling briefly with a medicine show before going to work full-time for the railroads out of Meridian. For the next fifteen years, Rodgers worked as a section hand and brakeman on railroad lines throughout the South and West, occasionally picking up work as an entertainer. He appeared on radio and in tent shows, and also during this period apparently picked up the lung inflammation that would later be diagnosed as tuberculosis and go on to kill him."
So apparently Rodger's medicine show career was before his railroad career.? And he continued to perform on raido and in tent shows during his railroad days.? So Rodgers was performing professionally before 1925, and certainly could have met and even worked with Stokes during their Medicine Show days, or even during Rodgers Tent Show days.
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First, it's important to remember that concepts of authorship and ownership change over time.
...
For most of human history, the idea was more like "Yeah, Son House did Preachin' Blues, but I changed some of his verses, and left out others, and added some, and I changed the guitar part, and I sing the third line of each verse differently. This is MY Preachin' Blues." This concept of authorship left "classical" music by 1800, and was gone from Jazz by the mid-1920s, but held on to varying degrees in various "folk" communities (blues, hillbilly, western, rock 'n' roll, etc) until the 1960s.
I agree with dj here -- and of course, one major reason for the relaxed concept of ownership was the fact that the various "folk" genre were aural traditions -- people didn't write down their songs when they created them, so there was no way to proove who did what when. Although an artist might learn a somg from a record or pick up bits and pieces of a song listening to a radio or a live performance, there was little or no concept of previous ownership because there was little likelihood that the artist(s) you learned a song from were the ones who authored the song, and no viable method for determining who did author the song. As if anyone cared, anyway.
And in some ways, it is still the same today -- if you don't write down your creation so you can proove ownership and date the origin, then your work is pretty much in the public domain.
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You'll have to pardon me, but I often use that archaic technology called books. Nolan Porterfield's biography of Jimmie Rodgers and Bill Malone's Country Music USA, both of which were cited by Paul Oliver in his Stokes/ Rodgers connection. I'll have to throw them out now that I know the truth is just a mouse click away. ;)
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You'll have to pardon me, but I often use that archaic technology called books. Nolan Porterfield's biography of Jimmie Rodgers and Bill Malone's Country Music USA, both of which were cited by Paul Oliver in his Stokes/ Rodgers connection. I'll have to throw them out now that I know the truth is just a mouse click away. ;)
I certainly wouldn't suggest anyone stop reading books, or, for that matter, that anyone throw books away.? I would suggest that just because something is written in a book doesn't make it more accurate than something written on then internet.? Nor, for that matter, does being written on the internet make something more accurate that a book.? However, it is important to recognize that the information on Rodgers is not consistent from source to source.? We can each believe what we want, but we all ought to recognize that that sources disagree, and that it is highly likely, some 85 to 95 years after the fact, that much of what we believe is likely to be wrong, what ever the source.
FYI, the same basic data from the Sony Music bio of Rodgers is also found in the Country Music Hall Of Fame (CMHF) bio of Rodgers (which, by the way, was written by one of your sources -- Nolan Porterfield -- and adapted from the book The Country Music Hall of Fame? and Museum?s Encyclopedia of Country Music, published by Oxford University Press) -- http://www.countrymusichalloffame.com/inductees/jimmie_rodgers.html:
"Rodgers was the son of a railroad section foreman but was attracted to show business. At thirteen he won an amateur talent contest and ran away with a traveling medicine show. Stranded far from home, he was retrieved by his father and put to work on the railroad. For a dozen years or so, through World War I and into the 1920s, he rambled far and wide on ?the high iron,? working as call boy, flagman, baggage master, and brakeman, all the while polishing his musical skills and looking for a chance to earn his living as an entertainer."
This is a little more clear than Sony in that Rodgers medicine show days started when he was 13, so that would be some time between Sept. 1910 and Sept. 1911.? A bit earlier than the "World War I" dating given for Frank Stokes medicine show days. However, it is certainly possible that Stokes medicine show traveled at times on the train -- perhaps even Rodgers' trains. It is also possible that Stokes -- as many other blues artists did -- hopped freights as he traveled from place to place. He could have spent a lot of time with Rodgers that way.
By the way, the CMHF does partially support your contention that Rodgers became a professional after being diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1925, when it says "After developing tuberculosis in 1924, Rodgers gave up railroading and began to devote full attention to his music, organizing amateur bands, touring with rag-tag tent shows, playing on street corners, taking any opportunity he could find to perform."? So while Rodgers probably was a professional before 1924 (in the sense he was paid for performing and therefore was no longer? an amateur), it was only after developing tuberculosis that he became a full-time musician.
A couple of other interesting quotes from the CMHF bio:
- "From many diverse elements?the traditional melodies and folk music of his southern upbringing, early jazz, stage show yodeling, the work chants of railroad section crews and, most importantly, African-American blues?Rodgers evolved a lasting musical style which made him immensely popular in his own time and a major influence on generations of country artists."
[li]"Although Rodgers constantly scrabbled for material throughout his career, his recorded repertoire was remarkably broad and diverse, ranging from love songs and risque? ditties to whimsical blues tunes and even gospel hymns. "
So whether Stokes was his primary influence or not, at least the CMHF recognizes African-American blues as his most important influence.
The CMHF bio indicate thats Rodgers repertoire was constantly changing and evolving.? And it my also indicate that, at least at the end of Rodgers career, whatever he may have learned from Frank Stokes many years before was certainly not a significant portion of the mature Rodgers repertoire.
Of course, this still says nothing about how significant Stokes influence migh have been at the time.? After all, if you only know two songs, and someone teaches you four new songs, then 2/3s of your repertoire comes from that one individual at that point in time.
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I've just had the distinct pleasure of reading Nolan Porterfield's biography of Jimmie Rodgers. Suffice to say I read the whole thing cover to cover in one day, fabulous work, I couldn't put it down. The book was first published in 1979 and updated 2007. I have to assume anything significant, i.e. provable or at the very least interesting, that had come to light since would have been at least given a passing reference in the latest edition.
There are many accounts of 'tent shows', the 'rag operas' that Jimmie Rodgers loved to play on the Southern rural circuit right to the end of his life. I got the distinct impression segregation was rife. In one place the white performers threaten to walk out en masse when the promoter, desperate to boost ticket sales, tries to introduce a black string band to the bill. It ends well, pure Hollywood actually, the string band blow the roof off, the money rolls in and everybody's happy.
There's not one substantial reference to Jimmie being influenced by any individual black players, or indeed, anyone whatsoever really. Not in Meridian Mississippi, Asheville NC, San Antonio or Kerrville TX. I can personally vouch for the lack of black country blues in the latter! Blind Willie McTell is on the list of acts for one of Ralph Peer's Atlanta field recordings but there is no mention of them meeting.
Perhaps the author is parleying a theory, which he clearly does hold, that Jimmie was a uniquely gifted individual driven by forces even he didn't understand. The early part of his life as an ambitious unknown is necessarily less well documented. If he did pick up blues one-on-one during his first attempts to be an entertainer, or during his brakeman / switchman / hobo / general railroad go-fer years, we may never know. That he was a street-smart kid and was not afraid to hang out in the scarier part of town is very clear.
I may have misread this but I doubt such influences would have come in his tent show years. The tent shows Porterfield describes are 'vaudeville gets desperate and hits the road' type deals, planned from NY and LA, not your homegrown huckster medicine show snake oil units featuring our heroes Frank Stokes & Pink Anderson.
Anyway, I highly recommend the book to all weenies, especially those given to attempted yodeling after a few beers.
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...I highly recommend the book to all weenies, especially those given to attempted yodeling after a few beers.
I read it a couple of years ago and second Rivers' recommendation.
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Anyway, I highly recommend the book to all weenies, especially those given to attempted yodeling after a few beers.
I bought an instructional yodeling cassette a number of years back... without even the aid of a few beers -- so I'm definitely ordering the book. So thanks for the recommendations.
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I bought an instructional yodeling cassette a number of years back... .
I hereby request that John be considered unfit to command.... ^-^
Alex
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:P
The technique comes in handy - mostly when you only yodel once.
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Very good point Alex.
Riffing further on the JR/CB connection, one of the things that has always intrigued me is his superbly uneven timing. Where the bar structure would naturally imply a change he often hangs in there for a couple of bars until he's finished with the vocal or just feels the change. It's so country blues, I do it, you all do it I'm sure, it's part of the vernacular.
The big question I had at the back of my mind, albeit not verbalized, before reading the book was "is that contrived?" In my case it's more or less contrived, in Jimmie's case the answer is I think, a resounding "no". Jimmie was just a natural, following his own muse.
This is borne out by the many accounts in the book from musicians who played with him, and also by Ralph Peer. He was supremely relaxed when recording and performing solo, and likewise found it supremely difficult playing with accompanists. He hated to have to make every change with the band and would become very frustrated as a result. Since Jimmie was the star they rehearsed long hours and did many takes to get it right, always on edge waiting for the uneven breaks.
I don't know if this proves anything either way, I just thought it was interesting.
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Yeah, I've always thought JR sounded more relaxed on the ensemble pieces when he's not playing an instrument at all.
Chris
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Rivers - Thanks for the heads-up on that biography, which I'm very interested in reading it. I do have a copy of a book that Nolan Porterfield edited, Exploring Roots Music: Twenty Years of the JEMF Quarterly (http://www.scarecrowpress.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=^DB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0810848937) -- but, unfortunately, many of the chapters are weighted down by academic-ese.
I prefer instead a good story told well -- sounds like that's the case with the Rodgers biography.
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I found Porterfield got the balance just right Michael. When you read it, you too Slack, please post your impressions on this thread, particularly on early influences that I may have missed as I blasted through it.
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Spent last night at Kerrville Folk Fest. We had a great time even though the skies opened up right before the evening concert and we got drenched. Decided to flag the 3rd party entertainment and split back to Austin. No chance! The river was biblically flooding 10 knots over the road both a mile north and south, a Texas feature and fairly awe-inspiring to witness.
So we headed back to the festival and jammed late into the night with strangers who are now, as tends to happen at festivals, friends. I had a long chat with a guy who'd seen Hank Williams at the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport as a kid. I'd just finished reading one of Hank's bios so that was very cool.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, this morning I was doing a walkaround of the muddy site, think 'World War I', with the guy I'd been playing guitar with the previous evening. We met a longtime resident of Kerrville and I mentioned Jimmie Rodgers and how I really wanted to see the Blue Yodeler's Paradise and did he know where it was.
I got great directions from Xavier and voila, an hour later we did a drive by of the yellow brick mini-mansion Carrie and Jimmie built it in a desperate attempt to beat that old TB in the excellent Hill Country climate. It's a really nice house on a prime spot on a hill. There's no hoopla, it's obviously privately-owned and very well kept. There were a lot of cars outside, who knows what was going on.
I fell in love with it on sight and immediately began speculating how much it might be going for these days, imagining restoring the place and inviting my friends to drop in and give them the tour.
Anyway, just thought I'd share that major buzz with y'all. 8)