CUT TO: Jimmie Rodgers’ legacy stands alone through time.
Some may remember him as the “Father of Country Music” or the “Blue Yodeler” and “The Singing Brakeman” and to me summed up by “The man who started it all.” In February 2017, he posthumously received the LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT GRAMMY AWARD in Hollywood, the same night it was an honor to witness the Grammy Trustees giving a Trustee Grammy to Ralph Peer Sr., the man who discovered Jimmie Rodgers 90+ years ago in 1927. And to be there as a guest of Mr. Peer’s son Ralph Peer, Jr., who accepted the award for his dad. There’s not a band or entertainer in the world that has racked up a list of accolades as Rodgers that also includes him being one of the first musicians to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, along with Hank Williams and Fred Rose in a 1961, at a ceremony that included the presentation of a plaque reading in part “Jimmie Rodgers’s name stands foremost in the country music field as ‘the man who started it all.’ Rodgers was among the first group of songwriters in 1971 to be inducted into the National Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside Irving Berlin, Woody Guthrie, George Gershwin, Cole Porter, W. C. Handy and Stephen Foster. He is in the Mississippi Music Hall of Fame, the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, in addition to being inducted into the Mississippi and Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
In 1985 Rodgers’ song “Blue Yodel,” also known as “T for Texas” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1986 he was also among the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in recognition of his status as a musical pioneer.” In 1987 he posthumously receives the W.C. Handy Blues Award and being the first white man to do so. In 2013 he was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame. The Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, Tennessee has honored Jimmie Rodgers with a marker near the Museum, and the Mississippi Country Music Trail has honored him with a marker in Meridian, Mississippi, where the Jimmie Rodgers Museum and the Jimmie Rodgers Memorial are located in this railroad town Jimmie lived in and out of most of his young life, and where his final resting places is located in the Oak Grove Cemetery next to the Oak Grove Baptist Church. Rodgers was also the first entertainer honored with a commemorative postage stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service May 24, 1978. In 1931, he was made an honorary Texas Ranger in Austin, Texas. In 1953 & 1955 two of the biggest festival in history were produced to pay tribute to Rodgers and both were attended by the young Elvis Presley.
Jimmie Rodgers is the only entertainer ever to garnish the inductions into the Rock, Country, Blues, Grammy and Songwriter Halls of Fame. Add to these being the first white man awarded the W.C. Handy Blues Award. In 2017 he was given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, 1st entertainer on a commemorative postage stamp. A railroad man and a musician he was known as THE SINGING BRAKEMAN and THE FATHER OF COUNTRY MUSIC. On his plaque at the Country Music Hall of Fame it says "THE MAN WHO STARTED IT ALL."
Jimmie Rodgers' life is about trains, music and dreams...The documentary series on Jimmie Rodgers
has a number of principle interviews finished and in the can. You can view the names of many of these above this information. The website will take you on a wild west runaway train ride from 1897, when Jimmie was born and through twenty years of my research and then ten years working with my partner and friend Merle Haggard.
Benford Standley,
Producer/Director
Ernest Tubb on Rodgers' death
The man That Started it all
Jimmie Rodgers
"Jimmie Rodgers, of course, is one of the guiding light of the 20th Century whose way with song has always been an inspiration to those of us who have followed the path... A blazing star whose sound was and remains the raw essence of individuality in a
sea of conformity, par excellence with no equal." Bob Dylan
As director/producer of the JIMMIE RODGERS SAGA , I am proud to have such a great team which includes Austin and James Court, two of the Great Grandkids of Jimmie Rodgers and born of Jimmie Dale Court, who was the Grandson of Jimmie and a good friend of mine. I dedicate this movie to him, and my dear friend and partner Merle Haggard. Merle and I decided together to dedicate this movie to Runaway kids in the USA, in that he and Jimmie were Runaways and I had worked on the issue Nationally for many years. It is one of the things we talked about the last time I was with him at the last show he ever performed in his life. I am also going to use funds from the film and the book to get Haggard a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Benford Standley
Merle Haggard, Austin Court the Great Grandson of Rodgers and Benford Standley
This is the very last picture taken of Merle Haggard, and was
on his bus before the last show he would perform before his
death only weeks later. RIP Hag... Picture taken by Ben Haggard
Willie Nelson & Merle Haggard released
Django & Jimmie and we have the tour
A collaborative album that's dedicated to Django Reinhardt and Jimmie Rodgers. The song and album allows Nelson and Haggard to salute two major influences: Gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt and the man known as "The Father of Country Music," Jimmie Rodgers. The chorus acknowledges their admiration for other key musical figures, including Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Bob Wills, Ernest Tubb and Cash, but concludes that "there might not have been a Merle or a Willie, if not for Django and Jimmie." "It's a natural for me and Merle Nelson said. "He's a huge Jimmie Rodgers fan--so am I-- and Django is my all-time favorite guitar player."
Louie Armstrong and Johnny Cash
WAITING FOR A TRAIN
A CHRONOLOGIZED MEMOIR TRILOGY