Jesse Rodgers
Jesse Rodgers
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About Jesse Rodgers
Jesse Otto Rodgers (March 5, 1911 - December 14, 1973) was an American guitarist, songwriter and singing cowboy when that image was at its height of popularity, from 1938 through 1944 Jesse recorded western songs for the Sonora and Varsity labels, the labels now spelling his name “Jesse Rogers”. Born on his parents’ farm near Waynesboro, Rodgers’ father, F.G. (“Eff”) Rodgers, gave up farming not long after Jesse’s birth to work on the Illinois Central Railroad along with his brother Aaron, the father of celebrated Singing Brakeman-to-be Jimmie Rodgers. Jesse would recall being taught his first guitar chords by first cousin Jimmie, who was thirteen years older. After his mother died in 1923, Jesse spent some time with relatives in Texas, but was back in Mississippi, married and beginning a family by 1928, working on his in-laws’ farm in Perry County. Pulled toward a musical career, inspired by Jimmie’s extraordinary success, Jesse began work on the Texas-Mexican border-based “border blaster” radio stations XERA and XERN in 1932, as both performer and announcer. When Jimmie Rodgers died in 1933, RCA Victor’s Bluebird label signed Jesse as a potential successor who would record similar material. Jesse could sound remarkably like his cousin, and such songs as “Yodelling the Railroad Blues,” and the use of musicians Jimmie had worked with, such as Hawaiian Charles Kama, accented the connection. Between 1934 and ’37, forty Jesse Rodgers records in this mode were released by Bluebird, Montgomery Ward, and as far away as Australia on Regal Zonophone. Country music entertainer Jesse Rodgers will be honored with a marker on the Mississippi Country Music Trail. The marker unveiling is at the corner of Highway 63 and Buckatunna-Chicora-Clara Road in Waynesboro, Miss. Jesse Otto Rodgers (1911-1973) born near Waynesboro, first cousin to Jimmie Rodgers, began singing on Mexican border radio stations after relocating to Texas. He wrote songs and recorded for Bluebird Records in the mid-1930s, briefly as a blue yodeler similar to Jimmie, but soon in his own Western style. He was a successful cowboy radio singer, children’s television host, and country-boogie style recording artist for two decades after World War II, based in Philadelphia, Penn.
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