Singer and guitarist Jimmie Rodgers was born in 1897 in the town of Mississippi, America. He was one of the first superstars of country music who became famous for not only his talented guitar skills but also his yodelling. Also known as “The Father of Country Music”, Jimmie Rodgers was very well known for his blues music and his distinctive style of playing it. He is also known as one of the pioneers of flatpicking, which is a technique of striking the strings with a pick held between the thumb and one or two fingers, which Rodgers mastered. Jimmy Rodgers did not invent country music, but he certainly did some important adaptations to the music. He also took the blues and adapted it towards the country feel, which is called hillbilly music. …show more content…
Regardless of which, he was still an incredible influence to the music culture with the understated effectiveness of his self-accompaniment. Rodgers made a very popular series of thirteen songs called the “Blue Yodel” songs, which were based on 12-bar blues format and featured his trademark yodel refrains. “Blue Yodel #12’ in particular, which was recorded just a week before his death in May 1933, demonstrates all of the essential elements of his style (which are sufficiently clear-cut and audible as to make a transcription of little immediate benefit): an introductory guitar solo with bluesy chromaticism; chordal accompaniment with integrated bass motion, typically alternating the root and fifth of the chord, in a boom-chuck pattern; scalar bass runs from the fifth degree up to the tonic just after a return to the tonic chord, reinforcing its structural weight; fills occurring in the characteristic locations of the twelve-bar blues form (between vocal phrases such as the third and fourth bars of each four-bar segment); and syncopated strumming between vocal phrases to generate rhythmic interest and prepare a change in