{"id":4848,"date":"2024-06-01T12:28:28","date_gmt":"2024-06-01T16:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=4848"},"modified":"2024-06-01T12:28:01","modified_gmt":"2024-06-01T16:28:01","slug":"rough-and-rowdy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/","title":{"rendered":"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers)\" width=\"474\" height=\"267\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ej8Z_lY4blc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\r\n<p>This is probably my favorite Jimmie Rodgers song, which is saying a lot. I don&#8217;t remember when I first heard one of Rodgers&#8217;s records, but whenever it was, I already knew at least a couple of his songs. I&#8217;d learned &#8220;Mule Skinner Blues&#8221; from Cisco Houston and &#8220;T. B. Blues&#8221; from Pete Seeger, and I&#8217;d tried to manage the yodel on the latter, but I couldn&#8217;t get it &#8212; <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-4851 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg?resize=239%2C307&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"239\" height=\"307\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg?w=295&amp;ssl=1 295w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg?resize=234%2C300&amp;ssl=1 234w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 239px) 100vw, 239px\" \/>maybe in part because at that point I was eleven or twelve years old and my voice hadn&#8217;t changed, but I didn&#8217;t get appreciably better with adolescence.Not that I ever stopped trying &#8212; I worked on Bob Dylan&#8217;s version of &#8220;Freight Train Blues&#8221; and Jack Elliot&#8217;s &#8220;Sadie Brown,&#8221; and later on I managed to get some kind of handle on Hank Williams&#8217;s version of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/lovesick-blues\/\">Lovesick Blues<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n<p>By that time I would have been more familiar with Rodgers&#8217;s originals. I loved the way he sang, yodeling or not, and his guitar work, as well as some of the more pop arrangements like &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/any-old-time\/\">Any Old Time<\/a>,&#8221; which I originally heard and learned from Maria Muldaur&#8217;s version. I&#8217;d also heard Merle Haggard&#8217;s tribute album, with its gorgeous version of &#8220;Miss the Mississippi and You.&#8221; What I hadn&#8217;t heard, and still haven&#8217;t, is the recording of Mississippi John Hurt and Skip James doing a duet of &#8220;Waiting for a Train&#8221; &#8212; it exists, but has never been released &#8212; but I was aware of how many great Black blues artists recognized Rodgers as one of the defining masters of that genre. Tampa Red, Tommy Johnson, and the Mississippi Sheiks all recorded yodeling blues in his style; B.B. King often named him as a favorite; and Howling Wolf said he always wanted to yodel like Rodgers, but the closest he could get was his namesake falsetto howl.<\/p>\r\n<p>That&#8217;s probably the only thing Wolf and I have in common, and without the yodel I didn&#8217;t see the point of doing Rodgers&#8217;s songs&#8230; and then I was hitchhiking across the US in 2005, the trip I wrote about in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/hitchhiking.html\"><em>Riding <\/em><em><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-3151\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/hitchcover.jpg?resize=155%2C238&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"155\" height=\"238\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/hitchcover.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/hitchcover.jpg?resize=195%2C300&amp;ssl=1 195w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 155px) 100vw, 155px\" \/><\/em><em>with Strangers<\/em><\/a>. (There&#8217;s more about that in some previous posts, like &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/key-to-the-highway\/\">Key to the Highway<\/a>&#8221; and, yeah, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/ive-been-everywhere\/\">I&#8217;ve Been Everywhere<\/a>.&#8221;) That time, I mostly stuck to the interstates, but from St. Louis to Iowa City I followed the old roads. The most memorable part of that leg was a night in Hannibal, Missouri, sleeping rough in the yard of the Mark Twain house: the cops rousted me around midnight, and I explained that I&#8217;d asked myself, &#8220;What would Huck Finn do?&#8221; &#8212; which got a laugh, but they moved me on and I slept the rest of the night under some pine trees outside town. I got back on the road early the next morning, and after an hour or so watching the local going-to-work traffic, got a lift from a guy who was inspecting grain elevators and took me a couple of dozen miles to his rural turn-off.<\/p>\r\n<p>Here&#8217;s how I wrote about it in the book:<\/p>\r\n<p><em>It was the first time this trip that I was somewhere I could walk. For a hitchhiker, that\u2019s a pretty fair definition of \u201ccountry\u201d: a stretch of road where you might as well be walking as standing in a good spot. This was not a particularly scenic bit of country. It was flat and dust-yellow, and there was some kind of electrical plant or generator over to the right&#8230;. I\u2019ve always liked the periods of walking, as long as the weather cooperates. It makes a change from riding, a chance to stretch your legs, and there\u2019s also the macho pleasure of covering ground under your own steam. That\u2019s one pleasure that grows with age, the enjoyment of pushing your body, going hungry, sleeping on bare ground, then shouldering a pack and walking ten or fifteen miles if you have to.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p><em>Also, it was an opportunity to yodel. Set me out in the middle of the prairie and I can sing like Jimmie Rodgers, especially if there\u2019s no one for miles around. It had been over a year, and the flat farmland roofed by a cloudless blue sky formed a perfect concert hall:<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2356 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/hitchpic.jpg?resize=175%2C250&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"175\" height=\"250\" \/><\/em><\/p>\r\n<p><em>I may be rough, I may be wild,<\/em><br \/><em>I may be tough and accounted vile,<\/em><br \/><em>But I can\u2019t give up my good old rough and rowdy ways<\/em><br \/><em>Yodel-ay-ee-hoo, de-lay-ee-hoo, de-lay-eeee . . .<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p><em>I was kind of disappointed when a car pulled over.<\/em><\/p>\r\n<p>I swear, under the open sky, when no one is around, I really can yodel like Jimmie Rodgers. Indoors, with people listening, it&#8217;s not the same, but I still like to give this one a try.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is probably my favorite Jimmie Rodgers song, which is saying a lot. I don&#8217;t remember when I first heard one of Rodgers&#8217;s records, but whenever it was, I already knew at least a couple of his songs. I&#8217;d learned &#8220;Mule Skinner Blues&#8221; from Cisco Houston and &#8220;T. B. Blues&#8221; from Pete Seeger, and I&#8217;d &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A favorite song from Jimmie Rodgers, the Yodeling Brakeman, with some stories about hitchhiking and the pleasures of singing in open country.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A favorite song from Jimmie Rodgers, the Yodeling Brakeman, with some stories about hitchhiking and the pleasures of singing in open country.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-06-01T16:28:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/hitchcover.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"384\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers)\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-06-01T16:28:28+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":818,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2023\\\/05\\\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/\",\"name\":\"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2023\\\/05\\\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-06-01T16:28:28+00:00\",\"description\":\"A favorite song from Jimmie Rodgers, the Yodeling Brakeman, with some stories about hitchhiking and the pleasures of singing in open country.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2023\\\/05\\\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg?fit=295%2C379&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i0.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2023\\\/05\\\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg?fit=295%2C379&ssl=1\",\"width\":295,\"height\":379},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/rough-and-rowdy\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/\",\"name\":\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\",\"description\":\"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":[\"Person\",\"Organization\"],\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\",\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\",\"width\":70,\"height\":85,\"caption\":\"Elijah Wald\"},\"logo\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/i1.wp.com\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2015\\\/12\\\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","description":"A favorite song from Jimmie Rodgers, the Yodeling Brakeman, with some stories about hitchhiking and the pleasures of singing in open country.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","og_description":"A favorite song from Jimmie Rodgers, the Yodeling Brakeman, with some stories about hitchhiking and the pleasures of singing in open country.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/","og_site_name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","article_published_time":"2024-06-01T16:28:28+00:00","og_image":[{"width":250,"height":384,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/hitchcover.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Elijah Wald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ElijahWald","twitter_site":"@ElijahWald","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Elijah Wald","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/"},"author":{"name":"Elijah Wald","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"headline":"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers)","datePublished":"2024-06-01T16:28:28+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/"},"wordCount":818,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg","inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/","name":"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers) - Old Friends: A Songobiography","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg","datePublished":"2024-06-01T16:28:28+00:00","description":"A favorite song from Jimmie Rodgers, the Yodeling Brakeman, with some stories about hitchhiking and the pleasures of singing in open country.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg?fit=295%2C379&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Jimmie_Rodgers_in_1931.jpg?fit=295%2C379&ssl=1","width":295,"height":379},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/rough-and-rowdy\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"My Rough and Rowdy Ways (Jimmie Rodgers)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/","name":"Old Friends: A Songobiography","description":"Revisiting the songs that have made a home in my head","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":["Person","Organization"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/#\/schema\/person\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9","name":"Elijah Wald","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","url":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1","width":70,"height":85,"caption":"Elijah Wald"},"logo":{"@id":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/elijahbut.jpg?fit=70%2C85&ssl=1"}}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2703,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/any-old-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":4848,"position":0},"title":"Any Old Time (Jimmie Rodgers)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 1, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Living with the vagaries of the folk scene, I came late to Jimmie Rodgers -- not because he was obscure, but on the contrary because his albums were available on a major label, RCA, at a time when I was buying reissue records on labels like Folkways, Yazoo, and Arhoolie.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Maria-Muldaur-300x298.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5211,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/cigarettes-and-coffee\/","url_meta":{"origin":4848,"position":1},"title":"Cigarettes and Coffee Blues (Lefty Frizzell)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"June 8, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"I have Bill Morrissey to thank for turning me into a Merle Haggard nut, and making me realize how close country\u00a0 music -- especially the strain popularized as \"honky tonk\" -- is to blues. Of course, to a large extent it came out of blues; Jimmie Rodgers was primarily a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Leftys-Greatest-Hits.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":836,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/hes-jailhouse-now\/","url_meta":{"origin":4848,"position":2},"title":"He&#8217;s In the Jailhouse Now (Pink Anderson)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"April 25, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A popular ragtime song I learned from a wonderful record by Pink Anderson, with some cursory musings on politics and updated lyrics.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"American Street Singers","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/American-Street-Singers.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2245,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/down-and-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":4848,"position":3},"title":"Nobody Knows You When You&#8217;re Down and Out","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"January 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Most blues fans associate this song with Bessie Smith's version from 1929 and think it was written about the Depression, but it was originally popularized in the early 1920s by its composer, Jimmie Cox. Like most of the first round of commercial blues performers, Cox tends to be left out\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"jimmie-cox-and-magnolia-cox-from-lynn-abbott","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/Jimmie-Cox-and-Magnolia-Cox-from-Lynn-Abbott.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3898,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/johnson-city-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":4848,"position":4},"title":"Johnson City Blues (Clarence Greene, Ida Cox)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 11, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Along with all the great African American blues artists who recorded in the 1920s, there were also some interesting Euro-American players who came up with distinctive styles. The most famous was Jimmie Rodgers, but the best guitarists tended to come from around the mountain communities of Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/clarence-greene-300x291.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3014,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/ragged-but-right\/","url_meta":{"origin":4848,"position":5},"title":"Ragged, But Right (Greenbriar Boys, etc.)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I've testified in a previous post about my love of the Greenbriar Boys, and in particular their album with this title track. It was one of the formative records of my early teens, in a large part because it was so much fun -- kind of like the Kweskin Jug\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/greenbriar-boys-300x299.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4848"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5237,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4848\/revisions\/5237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}