Jimmie Rodgers credits his Mother, a piano teacher, for giving him a love for music. However, his career in show business started when he was a solider station in Seoul, Korea. He bought a used guitar and learned to play it. He starting winning talent contest while he was in the Air Force. When he came back to the states he was hired to play at Nashville's Unique Club. At that club Jimmie heard another musician preform "Honeycomb." Jimmie re-arranged the song to fit his style on the song that would become the #1 hit on the charts on this day in music history on September 30,1957.Sometime later, while he was preforming at the Fort Cafe in Vancouver, Washington, the singer Chuck Miller saw Jimmie preform. He told Jimmie he should fly to New York and audition for the TV show Aathur Godfrey's Talent Scouts and for Roulette Records. Miller was so impressed he even paid Jimmie's air fare. Jimmie won on the TV show and played "Honeycomb" as his audition for Roulette Records.
Not long after he got him Jimmie got a telegram asking him to come back to New York to sign a contract with Roulette Records. After he signed with them Jimmie had a string of hits for the label. He was given his own TV variety show in 1959. Later he starred in the movie "The LIttle Shepherd of Kingdom Come."
In 1967 he left Roulette for A&M. He was also cast in a new movie. Jimmie only released one album for his new label and never got to be in the movie.
IN December of 1967 Jimmie was pulled over by an off duty police officer. Two uniform police officers came to assist. A few hours later Jimmie's musical conductor, Ed Samuels, found him unconscious in his car. He had to have three operations on his brain and a steel plate was put in his skull. He sued the city for $11 million dollars.
It took a long time for him to recover but Jimmie returned to show business in 1969 when he preformed at a concert at L.A.'s Cocoanut Grove.
No comments:
Post a Comment