Previously: My Rough And Rowdy Ways 1:But if you want to yodel, that’s ok too
by Jochen Markhorst
II The spirit of Jimmie Rodgers
The founder of Egyptian Records, Bob Dylan, personally wrote the liner notes for the label’s first record, The Songs of Jimmy Rodgers: A Tribute (1997). It is a loving and respectful 562-word canonisation, in which we already see unmistakable flashes of the stylist who a few years later would publish his fictionalised memoirs Chronicles, and some two decades later the essay collection The Philosophy Of Modern Song. Wild, poetic metaphors (“He gets somehow into the mystery of life and death without saying too much, has some kind of uncanny ability to translate it – he’s like the smell of flowers”); unambiguous superlatives (“He makes everything unmistakably his own and does it with piercing charm”); wondrous aphorisms (“His is the voice in the wilderness of your head,” and “Times change and don’t change”); and the integration of obscure and less obscure quotations from cultural history, such as “he is as in the Warren Smith ballad, the man who …held your hand and sang you a song” – an insider reference to
Somebody saw you at the break of day Dining and a-dancing in the cabaret He was long and tall, he had plenty of cash He had a red Cadillac and a black mustache He held your hand and he sang you a song Who you been loving since I been gone
Bob Dylan – Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache
… to Warren Smith’s “Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache”, the song for which Dylan demonstrates the same missionary zeal as for Jimmie Rodgers’ legacy: he adds the song to his set list a few times (three times in 1986); he seems to have played “Red Cadillac And A Black Moustache” during the Knocked Out Loaded sessions (but unfortunately rejected it, apparently); he contributes his (awesome) cover of the song to the tribute project Good Rockin’ Tonight: The Legacy Of Sun Records in 2001; he plays it as DJ of Theme Time Radio Hour in 2007 (episode 43, “Colours”); and he pays perhaps the most regal reverence of all in 2020:
Red Cadillac and a black moustache Rings on my fingers that sparkle and flash Tell me what’s next, what shall we do? Half my soul, baby, belongs to you I rollick and I frolic with all the young dudes I contain multitudes
… the third verse of the opening song of Rough And Rowdy Ways, from “I Contain Multitudes”. In that opening song we see more offshoots of the tribute Dylan wrote almost a quarter of a century earlier on the back cover of his tribute album. “He sings not only among his bawdy, upbeat blues and railroading songs, but also Tin Pan Alley trash and crooner lullabies as well,” he roared at the time, praising Jimmie Rodgers’ “refined style, an amalgamation of sources unknown, too cryptic to pin down. His is a thousand and one voices.” The Singing Brakeman, Dylan states in many words, contains multitudes.
After this remarkable aha-moment, the door to Rough And Rowdy Ways swings open even wider. In track 2, “False Prophet”, we hear the prophet proclaiming “I’m first among equals, second to none”. About Jimmie Rodgers, tribute writer Dylan says:
“A blazing star whose sound was and remains the raw essence of individuality in a sea of conformity, par excellence with no equal.”
A little later, Dylan calls him “a performer of force without precedent”, even attributing sheer messianic qualities to Rodgers when writing: “He gives hope to the vanquished and humility to the mighty.”
In March 2007, when DJ Dylan plays a Jimmie Rodgers record for the fourth time (episode 45, Trains), “Waitin’ For A Train” from 1929, he goes even further than his usual praise:
“Well, you can’t do a show about trains without playing something by The Singing Brakeman. We played him a bunch of times and we’ve talked about him. And the most you’re gonna get here is a sample. There’s no substitute for going out and listen to all of his records or reading about his life. […] Jimmie was the first performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, and I couldn’t have made a better choice myself. Not that anybody asked, but if they did, I would have chosen him.”
And once we’re in that Jimmie Rodgers tunnel, we naturally arrive at Side A’s closing track, “My Own Version Of You”, the song about the how and what of songwriting. And at what Dylan had to say about songwriting in 1985, in the Biograph interview with Cameron Crowe:
“He was combining elements of blues and hillbilly sounds before anyone else had thought of it. He recorded at the same time as Blind Willie McTell but he wasn’t just another white boy singing black. That was his great genius and he was there first. All he had to do was appear with his guitar and a straw hat and he played on the same stage with big bands, girly choruses and follies burlesque and he sang in a plaintive voice and style and he’s outlasted them all.”
Twelve years later, while promoting the tribute album, Dylan unequivocally expresses what drove him: “I had to find another way just to get Jimmie’s music out there properly” (telephone interview with Nick Krewen, published in the Long Island Voice, September 1997). It is obviously the mission of a prophet – this is not a musician seeking inspiration or a record executive hungry for profit. After all, the ultimate Jimmie Rodgers tribute album already exists, was made long ago, says prophet Dylan – way back in 1969: Same Train, A Different Time – Merle Haggard Sings the Great Songs of Jimmie Rodgers.
“Probably the definitive Rodgers record,” declares the man who knows a thing or two about it. But thirty years after that Merle Haggard record, the name of Jimmie Rodgers has once again disappeared under thick layers of dust. Determined, the prophet blows the dust off again, releasing yet another tribute album. And the DJ plays the records of the Singing Brakeman. And the performer plays the songs on stage. And in 2020, the artist produces his own Rough And Rowdy Ways – so that the spirit of Jimmie Rodgers lives on.
Merle Haggard & The Strangers – Waitin’ For A Train:
Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
- Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
- Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
- Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
- Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
- Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
- Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
- Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
- John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
- Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
- Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
- Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang
- Time Out Of Mind: The Rising of an Old Master
- Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic
- Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music
- Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece
- I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B
- Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)
- Bob Dylan’s 1971
- Like A Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door
- It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry b/w Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues – Bob Dylan’s melancholy blues