CoronaVinyl Day 315 (R): The Best of Jimmie Rodgers Folk Songs by Jimmie Rodgers

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "R," and I have two Jimmie Rodgers albums, so I decided on his 1961 album, The Best of Jimmie Rodgers Folk Songs.

There have been two famous Jimmie Rodgers in the course of 20th Century music.  The first was country music pioneer Jimmie Rodgers, aka "The Swinging Breakman."  He died in May 1933, which, coincidentally, was a little more than three months before the second Jimmie Rodgers was born.  Though they are of no blood relation, maybe Jimmie Rodgers is just Jimmie Rodgers reincarnated, but I don't think any of us can reasonably say one way or another if that's true or false.

Anywho, this is the younger Jimmie Rodgers, who was a folk, country, and pop singer, mostly popular in the '50s and '60s.  His music is pleasant to listen to, and this album, as the title implies, is a collection of classic folk songs recorded by Rodgers.  There are some international selections, like "Woman From Liberia," "English Country Garden," "The Riddle Song," "The Wreck of the 'John B,'" "Froggy Went A Courtin'," and "Waltzing Matilda," Americana selections, like "Shenandoah," "The Frozen Logger," and even some more modern songs, like Bo Diddley's "Bo Diddley" and Pete Seeger's "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine." 

Of the songs on the album, several charted on the Billboard Hot 100 when they were originally released or after this album was released:
-"Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" (#7; 1957)
-"Waltzing Matilda" (#41; 1959)
-"The Wreck of the 'John B'" (#64; 1960)
-"A Little Dog Cried" (#71; 1961)

In 1967, he suffered a fractured skull during a traffic stop in LA, and had to have multiple surgeries, which took him away from music for a year.  It's rumored that it was actually a mafia hit set up by Morris Levy, the owner of Roulette Records, which had been Rodgers's former record label, because Rodgers had been trying to get unpaid royalties from the label.

He came back and continued to make music into the late '70s, and he re-recorded two of his songs to be adapted for famous advertising jingles:  "Honeycomb" for the cereal Honeycomb and "Oh-Oh, I'm Falling in Love Again," which was adapted into the famous "Uh Oh, SpaghettiO's" jingle for SpaghettiO's.

In total, Rodgers had 14 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 or its precursor, including 5 Top 10s and one #1 (1957's "Honeycomb").  He died in January of this year from COVID, at the ripe age of 87.

Spotify did not have this album, and I couldn't find it on YouTube either, so I just embedded another Jimmie Rodgers folk album that Spotify had.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Riddle Song"
You likely know this song as the song that Stephen Bishop sang on the stairs of Delta Tau Chi in Animal House before Bluto grabs his guitar and smashes it.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Froggy Went A Courtin'"
This is a take on an old Scottish folk song that originated in the 1500s.  It's got a nice little rock and roll beat, and it's a fun little song about a frog who's trying to court a mouse, and then he kills the mouse's other suitors before being killed himself by a snake.  Circle of life.