Narration #5

(album: Same Train, A Different Time - 1969)

Jimmie Rodgers knew when the time was near
But he still had a lotta songs he wanted to record
So he made arrangements to go from his home in Texas to Galveston and
then on farther by boat. And he left the boat someplace on the east coast
and continued on to New York by train. But by the time he arrived in New
York City he was so weakend by tuberculosis. It was necessary for him to
have a cot in the recording studio so that he might rest in between songs.
Amazingly his voice tho weak never broke while recording his last twelve
numbers Jimmie Rodgers used his last bit of strength for recording
He died in a hotel in New York City on the night of May 26, 1933
His railroad buddies paid Jimmie Rodgers his last homage
The engineer of the train upon which his body was placed pulled his quill
down to a sad low moan and this sound was maintained all the way to
Mississippi. His fans gathered at small whistle stops all along the route all
the way to Meridian. Jimmie Rodgers rests today in Meridian Mississippi
In the shadow of the great locomotive he loved and sang of so well...
The blue yodler has been gone almost 40 years
But he left us one of the greatest legacies in country music