Awards

• Winner of Belmont Book Award for the Best Book on Country Music 2010.
• Winner of Winner of the Belmont Book Award.

Overview

In Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, the first book to explore the deep legacy of ""The Singing Brakeman"" from a twenty-first century perspective, Barry Mazor offers a lively look at Rodgers' career, tracing his rise from working-class obscurity to the pinnacle of renown that came with such hits as ""Blue Yodel"" and ""In the Jailhouse Now."" As Mazor shows, Rodgers brought emotional clarity and a unique sense of narrative drama to every song he performed, whether tough or sentimental, comic or sad. His wistful singing, falsetto yodels, bold flat-picking guitar style, and sometimes censorable themes--sex, crime, and other edgy topics--set him apart from most of his contemporaries. But more than anything else, Mazor suggests, it was Rodgers' shape-shifting ability to assume many public personas--working stiff, decked-out cowboy, suave ladies' man--that connected him to such a broad public and set the stage for the stars who followed him. In reconstructing this far-flung legacy, Mazor enables readers to meet Rodgers and his music anew-not as an historical figure, but as a vibrant, immediate force.

Full Product Details

Author:   Barry Mazor (Freelance Music Historian, Journalist, Critic, Freelance Music Historian, Journalist, Critic)
Publisher:   Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint:   Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.80cm , Length: 23.10cm
Weight:   0.499kg
ISBN:  

9780199891863

ISBN 10:   0199891869
Pages:   386
Publication Date:   26 April 2012
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents Introduction: Meeting Jimmie Rodgers HalfWay 1. The Man Who Walked Into Southern Show Business 2. Close to the Ground: The Singing Brakeman 3. America's Blue Yodeler No. 1: This White Guy Sings Blues, Too 4. America's Blue Yodeler No. 2: Instigator of Blue Yodelmania 5. International Multimedia Star 6. Doomed Singer-Songwriter with Guitar 7. Aftermath: The Late, Great Jimmie Rodgers 8. South by Southwest: An Easterner in a Cowboy Hat 9. Back East: The Hillbilly Echo, 1933-1947 10. Some Sort of Folksinger? 11. The Father of Country Music 12. Rough and Rowdy Ways: To the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 13. Sentiments in Context: The Return of Vaudeville Jimmie 14. High-Powered Mamas: Women & the Music of Jimmie 15. Down the Old Road to Home Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Credits Index

Reviews

The story of [Rodgers'] enormous influence, bursting with names of stars, stalwarts, and one-hit wonders, and featuring discographical endnotes for most chapters, is the immensely piquant and satisfying meat of one of the most intelligent, fascinating, and cogent pop-music histories ever. --BookList (Starred Review) Nashville writer Mazor has fashioned a superb book, not only celebrating Rodgers' life, but illustrating the manner in which the man's wares have influenced American popular music for over 80 years.. Mazor's book does much in keeping the legend alive. --MOJO Magazine(5-star review) Excellent, highly readable. -- Douglas Brinkley, historian and author of The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America A book I heartily recommend. -C. Eric Banister, Music Tomes Barry Mazor's Meeting Jimmie Rodgers is a superb book, superbly written, and indispensable to anyone who wants to understand the legacy of Jimmie Rodgers and why his music has endured for over eighty years. --Nolan Porterfield, Author of Jimmie Rodgers: The Life and Times of America's BlueYodeler A shrewd, hard-headed look at the great Mississippi singer's influence on country, rock and roll and folk music. Mazor adeptly combines solid research, musical savvy and a stubborn refusal to accept received wisdom about popular music that Jimmy Rodgers helped invent. --American Songwriter Until I read this book, I had assumed that the last word had been written on Jimmie Rodgers, the great country blues musician. But, buoyed by Barry Mazor's keen insights, innovative research, and felicitous writing style, I have become aware of new dimensions of the Singing Brakeman's influence on American popular music. While Rodgers drew upon a wide array of styles and genres to build his own career, it has been his legacy to shape the sounds and styles of generations of musicians, both in and outsi

<br> The story of [Rodgers'] enormous influence, bursting with names of stars, stalwarts, and one-hit wonders, and featuring discographical endnotes for most chapters, is the immensely piquant and satisfying meat of one of the most intelligent, fascinating, and cogent pop-music histories ever. --BookList (Starred Review) <br><p><br> Nashville writer Mazor has fashioned a superb book, not only celebrating Rodgers' life, but illustrating the manner in which the man's wares have influenced American popular music for over 80 years.. Mazor's book does much in keeping the legend alive. --MOJO Magazine(5-star review) <br><p><br> Excellent, highly readable. -- Douglas Brinkley <br><p><br> A book I heartily recommend. -C. Eric Banister, Music Tomes<p><br> Barry Mazor's Meeting Jimmie Rodgers is a superb book, superbly written, and indispensable to anyone who wants to understand the legacy of Jimmie Rodgers and why his music has endured for over eighty years. --Nolan Porterfield, Author of Jim

The story of Rodgers' enormous influence, bursting with names of stars, stalwarts, and one-hit wonders, and featuring discographical endnotes for most chapters, is the immensely piquant and satisfying meat of one of the most intelligent, fascinating, and cogent pop-music histories ever. BookList (Starred Review)

The story of Rodgers' enormous influence, bursting with names of stars, stalwarts, and one-hit wonders, and featuring discographical endnotes for most chapters, is the immensely piquant and satisfying meat of one of the most intelligent, fascinating, and cogent pop-music histories ever. * BookList (Starred Review) *

Author Information

Barry Mazor has been writing about American music since the 1970s. A long-time senior editor for the roots and pop music magazine No Depression, he writes frequently on country and pop music for The Wall Street Journal.

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