Jimmie Rodgers

USA, 1927–1933

American singer (1897-1933), billed as the Father of Country Music. His blue yodels combined blues form and phrasing with white southern song, setting an early pattern for country music.

MusicRoots documents 0 artists who influenced Jimmie Rodgers and 10 artists Jimmie Rodgers influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Which artists did Jimmie Rodgers influence?

• Karl Denver — Denver's signature falsetto yodel and country streak descend from the yodelling country tradition founded by Jimmie Rodgers, the 'father of country music'.
• Hank Williams — Jimmie Rodgers was Hank Williams' primary model — the blue yodel and autobiographical honesty Williams built upon.
• Jerry Lee Lewis — The Singing Brakeman's songs were part of the young Lewis's repertoire — the country-blues yodel in his roots.
• Roy Acuff — Jimmie Rodgers was the model of autobiographical country singing on which Acuff's early style was formed.
• Gene Autry — Autry began his career directly imitating Jimmie Rodgers's yodeling and blues delivery — a documented fact of his early recordings.
• Slim Whitman — Whitman's falsetto yodel descends from the blue yodel tradition Jimmie Rodgers founded.
• Johnny Cash — Rodgers was Cash's declared country cornerstone — he recorded tributes and kept Rodgers's railroad songs in his repertoire for decades.
• Lefty Frizzell — Frizzell idolised the blue yodeller and recorded a whole album of his songs.
• Merle Haggard — Rodgers is one of the three Haggard named as his own line, and he devoted a whole album, Same Train, a Different Time, to him.
• Bob Wills — Jimmie Rodgers's blue yodels — country with one foot in the blues — were a direct influence on Wills's blend of hillbilly song and blues.