Blue Yodel

The Blue Yodel songs are a series of thirteen songs written and recorded by Jimmie Rodgers during the period from 1927 to his death in May 1933. The songs were based on the 12-bar blues format and featured Rodgers’ trademark yodel refrains. The lyrics often had a risqué quality with “a macho, slightly dangerous undertone”. [http://www.markbrine.com/country_music_roots/jimmie_rodgers.htm ‘Jimmie Rodgers: Life & Time’] by John Lilly (citing "Jimmie Rodgers: The Life and Times of America's Blue Yodeler" by Nolan Porterfield, University of Illinois Press, 1992).]

A folk-blues hybrid

Jimmie Rodgers’ background in the blackface minstrel-shows and as a railroad worker enabled him to develop a unique musical hybridisation drawing from both negro and white traditions, as exemplified by the Blue Yodel songs. In his recordings Rodgers and his record producer, Ralph Peer, achieved a “vernacular combination of blues, jazz, and traditional folk” to produce a style of music then called ‘hillbilly’. [http://128.32.250.16/cole/2005/04/index.html ‘Black and White Cultural Seepage in Country’] , by Cole M. Greif-Neill, ‘Your folyops’ website (2005).]

Rodgers’ Blue Yodel songs, as well as a number of his other songs of a similar pattern, drew heavily on fragmentary and ephemeral song phrases from blues and folk traditions (called ‘floating lyrics’ or ‘maverick phrases’).John Greenway, ‘Jimmie Rodgers: A Folksong Catalyst’, "The Journal of American Folklore", Vol. 70, No. 277. (Jul-Sept 1957), pp. 231-234: [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8715%28195707%2F09%2970%3A277%3C231%3AJRAFC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D available on-line] ]

Jimmie Rodgers’ yodel

Jimmie Rodgers’ yodeling refrains, perhaps mimicking a mournful train whistle, are integral to the Blue Yodel songs. Rodgers’ loping and melancholy vocal ornamentations have been described as “that infamous blue yodel that defies the rational and conjecturing mind”. [Liner Notes by Bob Dylan, ‘The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers’ album, released 19 August 1997 (Egyptian Records label) (from) [http://74.52.77.196/dok/who/r/rodgersjimmie.html 'Jimmie Rodgers'] , 'The Bob Dylan Who’s Who' website.] Rodgers himself apparently viewed his yodeling as little more than a vocal flourish; he described them as “curlicues I can make with my throat.”"Yodel-ay-ee-oooo: The Secret History of Yodeling Around the World" by Bart Plantenga, 2004, Routledge, ISBN 0415939895.]

It has been suggested that Rodgers may have been influenced by the yodeling of Emmett Miller, a blackface minstrel-show singer who recorded for Okeh Records from 1924 to 1929. [Nick Tosches, "Where Dead Voices Gather", 2001, Little, Brown, USA, ISBN 0-316-89507-5] Singers such as Vernon Dalhart, Riley Puckett, and Gid Tanner incorporated yodeling in recordings made in the mid-1920s; Rodgers recorded a version of Riley Puckett's “Sleep, Baby, Sleep" in August 1927.

Jimmie Rodgers’ distinctive yodel “had the steady ease of hobo song, and was simple enough to imitate”, unlike the sophisticated yodeling of other contemporary performers. Rodgers’ recording and performing successes in the late 1920s and early 1930s ensured that yodeling “became not only an obligatory stylistic flourish, but a commercial necessity”. By the 1930s yodeling was a widespread phenomenon and had become almost synonymous with country music.

The first Blue Yodel (T for Texas)

Jimmie Rodgers’s first Blue Yodel, which became known as “Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas) ”, was recorded on 30 November 1927 in the Trinity Baptist Church at Camden, New Jersey. When the song was released in February 1928 it became “a national phenomenon and generated an excitement and record-buying frenzy that no-one could have predicted”.

Blue Yodel song details

* "Blue Yodel” ["aka" “Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)”] , recorded on 30 November 1927 at Camden, New Jersey; released on 3 February 1928 (BVE 40753-2).
* “Blue Yodel No. 2 (My Lovin’ Gal, Lucille) ”, recorded on 15 February 1928 at Camden, New Jersey; released on 4 May 1928 (BVE 41741-2).
* “Blue Yodel No. 3 (Evening Sun Yodel) ”, recorded on 15 February 1928 at Camden, New Jersey; released on 7 September 1928 (BVE 41743-2).
* “Blue Yodel No. 4 (California Blues) ”, recorded on 20 October 1928 at Atlanta, Georgia; released on 8 February 1929 (BVE 47216-4).
* “Blue Yodel No. 5 (It’s Raining Here) ”, recorded on 23 February 1929 at New York, New York; released on 20 September 1929 (BVE 49990-2).
* “Blue Yodel No. 6 (She Left Me This Mornin’) ”, recorded on 22 October 1929 at Dallas, Texas; released on 21 February 1930 (BVE 56453-3).
* “Anniversary Blue Yodel (Blue Yodel No. 7) ”, recorded on 26 November 1929 at Atlanta, Georgia; released on 5 September 1930 (BVE 56607-3) - Jimmie Rodgers and Elsie McWilliams (Rodgers' sister-in-law).
* “Blue Yodel No. 8 (Mule Skinner Blues)”, recorded on 11 July 1930 at Hollywood Recording Studios, Los Angeles, California; released on 6 February 1931 (PBVE 54863-3).
* “Blue Yodel No. 9 (Standin’ On the Corner)”, recorded on 16 July 1930 at Hollywood Recording Studios, Los Angeles, California (with Louis Armstrong, cornet, and Lil Armstrong, piano); released on 11 September 1931 (PBVE 54867-3).
* “Blue Yodel No. 10 (Ground Hog Rootin’ in My Backyard) ”, recorded February 6, 1932, at Dallas, Texas; released on 12 August 1932 (BVE 70650-2).
* “Blue Yodel No.11 (I’ve Got a Gal) ”, recorded on 27 November 1929 at Atlanta, Georgia; released on 30 June 1933 (BVE 56617-4), after Jimmie Rodgers had died.
* “Blue Yodel No. 12 (Barefoot Blues) ”, recorded on 17 May 1933 at New York, New York; released on 27 June 1933 (BS 76138-1), a month after Jimmie Rodgers’ death.
* “Jimmie Rodger’s Last Blue Yodel (The Women Make a Fool Out of Me) ”, recorded on 18 May 1933 at New York, New York; released on 20 December 1933 (BS 76160-1), seven months after Jimmie Rodgers had died.

Covers

In 1969, country singer Merle Haggard released , which included Blue Yodel #6, California Blues, and Mule Skinner Blues. The band Lynyrd Skynyrd performed T for Texas on their 1976 live album, "One More From the Road", in a rock and roll style with triple guitar work from the band's three guitarists.

References