Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century
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 themessex, crime, and other edgy topicsset him apart from most of his contemporaries. But more than anything else, Mazor suggests, it was Rodgers' shape-shifting ability to assume many public personasworking stiff, decked-out cowboy, suave ladies' manthat 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.
1110918375
Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century
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 themessex, crime, and other edgy topicsset him apart from most of his contemporaries. But more than anything else, Mazor suggests, it was Rodgers' shape-shifting ability to assume many public personasworking stiff, decked-out cowboy, suave ladies' manthat 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.
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Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century
386Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century
386
39.99
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Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780199891863 |
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Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Publication date: | 03/13/2012 |
Pages: | 386 |
Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
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