There were, of course, two great singers called Jimmie Rodgers:
one a pop singer who died last Monday, aged 87, from kidney disease aggravated
by Covid-19, in Palm Desert, California; the other a country singer who died aged
just 35, from a pulmonary hemorrhage brought on by tuberculosis, in the Taft
Hotel in New York City the year the pop singer was born, 1933. Some US media
outlets have already mistaken one for the other, suggesting this Underwood 5
standard typewriter belonged to the pop singer. It was in fact one of the
exhibits honouring the first Jimmie Rodgers, in the Country Music Hall of Fame
and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee.
The pop singer was James Frederick Rodgers, born in Camas,
Washington, on September 18, 1933. Some of his more memorable hits were Honeycomb,
Kisses Sweeter Than Wine and Bimbombey.
The country singer was James Charles Rodgers, born in Meridian,
Mississippi, on September 8, 1897. He is widely regarded as “the Father of
Country Music”. This Jimmie died on May 26, 1933. At that time he accounted for fully 10
per cent of RCA Victor's sales in a drastically depressed record market.
Interesting. I thought there was only one, the elder.
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