Jimmie Rodgers
I think this qualifies as news: The Humanities Montana board of directors is sending me and my brother, John, on the road with our presentation, “Jimmie Rodgers: The Life and Times of the Father of Country Music.”
We will be taking this around the state under the auspices of the Speakers Bureau program of Humanities Montana. We have the Western Heritage Center to thank for this.
I think it was Community Historian Kevin Kooistra who came up with the idea of having a monthly series of presentations in 2013 that focused on individual musicians or musical genres. For me it was kind of a dream come true. I had been a fan of Jimmie Rodgers for 30 years or more and was always telling people about him, asking them to listen to his music (and his hilarious spoken schticks, here and here), or even subjecting them to my own attempts to sing his songs.
So being asked to make a presentation on Jimmie before a crowd of people expressly gathered for that purpose — why, it was like telling an old codger who had spent his life collecting patent medicine bottles that people would love to hear him give a speech on that subject.
We gave our presentation in February 2013, then put it on again last fall when Humanities Montana met for its annual conference at the Western Heritage Center. It was after that show that we were invited to apply for a slot in the Speakers Bureau.
As I understand it, we will be asked to take the presentation around the state for a year, starting sometime this summer. My hope is that I can combine visits to towns in Eastern Montana with reporting forays for Last Best News. I believe this is what they call a win-win situation.
It’s a pretty low-tech show. We do show a couple of slides and let you listen to the schticks mentioned above, but otherwise it’s just me telling a bit about the life and music of Jimmie Rodgers, mixed in with seven or eight songs, with me on guitar and harmonica and John on dobro, guitar and bass. Come to think of it, though, I doubt John’s going to lug an upright bass around the state, so probably just guitar and dobro. We both sing. Only I attempt to yodel. You have been warned.
I have no idea how this works, or whether I’m violating protocol by mentioning it, but if anyone in Eastern Montana is interested in having us bring Jimmie Rodgers to your town, let me know and I will relay the information to Humanities Montana.
