Start date: Sunday, September 10, 2006
Event is ongoing: Until Saturday, October 7, 2006

One of the first recording artists to sell a million records, Jimmie Rodgers was born in Mississippi, but performed more in Texas than anywhere else in the world. His 111 recorded songs include “ Blue Yodel (T for Texas)”, “Waiting for a Train” and “In the Jail House Now”. He built his home in Kerrville and had several recording sessions in Dallas at the Jefferson Hotel. In 1931 he toured Texas with Will Rogers in a Red Cross benefit for drought relief. His influence on popular music was profound and inspired countless artists. Tom Piazza of the New York Times writes “his career was a meeting point for images and folk material from the American South and West, from black and white traditions, and it offered clues to ways in which that material could be blended into the mainstream of popular music.”

In recent years his work has inspired numerous tribute albums by the likes of Merle Haggard and Bob Dylan, who wrote in his liner notes: ”Jimmie Rodgers is one of the guiding lights of the 20th century ... a blazing star whose sound was and remains the raw essence of individuality in a sea of conformity, par excellence with no equal.” The first artist to be inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame, Rodgers’ success helped the popularity of phonograph machines, recordings and guitars. An East African tribe even chose him for a deity. In 1986 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Undermain’s play follows Rodgers’ path through drama, song and dance along with images of the early 20th century. The play explores Rodgers’ childhood adventures performing in medicine shows, his work on the railroad and his early tutelage from black musicians he encountered in these formative stages. The interwoven plot provides brief glimpses of his partnership with Ralph Peer who produced his recordings for the Victor label, his relationship with his wife Carrie and his collaborations with other songwriters and recording artists including Louis Armstrong and the Carter Family.