Asheville’s own “Father of Country Music”

Jimmie Rodgers was born in 1897 near Meridian, Mississippi, and took his first railroad job at 13, working alongside his father as a waterboy. By 1927, he had made his way to Asheville, North Carolina, following a friend employed by the Southern Railway. He lived a transient life in town, residing briefly at the Western Hotel and in a fire station at Bartlett and Depot in the present River Arts District before settling into a small cabin near Patton Avenue. While in Asheville, Rodgers worked an array of odd jobs – janitor, cab driver, and even a short time with the Asheville police assisting the chief of detectives.

It was in Asheville that Rodgers first shared his musical gifts over the airwaves, playing live weekly radio shows on the very popular WWNC in 1927. Each Thursday evening, he and his pal Otis Kuykendall, who slapped a washtub bass, would amble on down to the studio on the top floor of the Flat Iron Building and play their hearts out live on the air. Billing themselves as the Tenneva Ramblers and later as the Jimmie Rodgers Entertainers, they became a regular presence on the Asheville airwaves. Though his yodeling vocals and heartfelt songs eventually made him world-famous, Rodgers remained humble, fondly revisiting his old haunts in Asheville as his star rose. His meteoric career was cut short by tuberculosis, but the lasting impact of this singular Mississippi songman can still be felt today.

Jimmie Rodgers got his big break on August 4, 1927, when he traveled to the border town of Bristol to make his first recordings. That same day, a little-known family act called the Carters also recorded their first sides on shellac records. The sessions would go down in history as the “Big Bang of Country Music.”

When Rodgers returned to Asheville later that year, handbills proudly trumpeted him as “Asheville’s Own.” No longer was he just a local entertainer eking out a living. He was on his way to stardom, even as the tuberculosis that had plagued him since 1924 continued to ravage his body. Under those barroom lights, coughing into his handkerchief, Rodgers nonetheless kept on playing – determined to make the most of the time he had left by sharing his singular talent with the world.

Marker is located at 25 Haywood St. Avl., NC. Thank you Dallas Taylor for making this marker happen.

Though his meteoric career was sadly cut short, the legacy of Jimmie Rodgers looms large over the landscape of American music. This diminutive Mississippi rail worker turned country crooner is considered by many to be the prime “influencer” of the country genre. Countless artists cite Rodgers as a key influence, from Country superstar Hank Williams, folk icon Bob Dylan to country queen Dolly Parton and many more. His distinctive vocal stylings, most notably his trademark yodel, made him a star known variously as the “Singing Brakeman,” the “Blue Yodeler,” and the “Father of Country Music.”

Rodger’s final recording sessions in New York City were a brutal struggle; after each song, he would need to lay down and rest a spell due to his weakened health. He sang about his “old TB,” referring to tuberculosis, which eventually killed him at the young age of 36. ~ Davyne Dial