Jimmie Rodgers – The Essential Jimmie Rodgers (recorded 1927 – 1931). As Allmusic points out, his plaque in the Country Music Hall Of Fame identifies the Singing Brakeman as the one who started it all. That’s right. Rodgers, born in Meridian, Mississippi but son of the railroad, played a music that blended all of the folk music sounds he heard while riding the rails and the result is basically the Rosetta Stone of 20th century popular music. That’s a little simplistic, but mostly true. Rodgers’s yodelling blues can be heard in country, nascent rock & roll, blues (Howlin’ Wolf was, legendarily, attempting a version of Rodgers’s yodel when he came up with his trademark growl), and folk music. And music so old and primal (relatively speaking) has no cause to be as enjoyable as it is, but it’s absolutely brilliant.
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