Paul Burch is a writer, composer, recording artist, and producer in Nashville whose credits include studio production for artists as diverse as Mark Knopfler, Ralph Stanley, Lambchop, and Charlie Louvin. He’s also written and recorded an album of his original songs about the life of The Singing Brakeman, the great Jimmie Rodgers.
Now he has taken the many hours of reading and research he’s done on Jimmie’s life, and pulled it together into a work of historical fiction with the same title as the album, Meridian Rising. It is published by the University of Georgia Press, and early reviews praise the work for combining known facts about Rodgers’ short and brilliant music career, with a good many stories told about him by those who were in proximity.
Born James Charles Rodgers in 1897, he lived only 35 years before succumbing to the tuberculosis that he had contracted in 1924, passing eventually in 1933. Regarded widely as the Father of Country Music, his music career helped define that strain of American folk music. Rodgers was the first big star in radio and on recordings in this style, which appealed both to people in the rural south, and in the industrial cities of the northeast and midwest.
Continuing to record and perform even as his disease progressed surely added greatly to his legend, built on the truth of his early life working on the railroads, and performing in old time string bands where his own blues-inflected approach took shape. But nothing distinguished Rodgers more than his yodeling, the sound that made him famous.
It is said that he earned as much as $75,000 in royalties in his best year as an artist, worth nearly a million and a half dollars today, making him very much a star in his time.
Burch combines all that has been uncovered about Jimmie’s life, gleaned from correspondence and memoirs as well as historical research, and writes it in novel form as a sort of fictionalized biography. The known facts are there, in proper chronological order, but brought to life in a way that a dry retelling never could. It is as though Rodgers had kept a diary, or captured his many exploits in the sort of vlog many people record today.
The title comes from Rodgers’ hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, where his father also worked on the railroad. Younger readers may have difficulty understanding just how crucial this industry was in the US during the 19th and early 20th century. Trains captured the imagination of many a pioneering spirit, and might be compared to the way the space industry is seen as the future these days.
The book details Jimmie’s life as a railroad man, something that popped up in many of his original songs. It’s written in the form of remembrances, a set of Rodgers’ imagined memories of important recording sessions, songs, and travels, paired with fictional accounts by those who knew him well.
It’s a daring approach, but one likely to make Meridian Rising a cherished read for another with a fascination with Jimmie Rodgers and his legend.
Meridian Rising is available now from popular online booksellers, at quality bookstores, or directly from the publisher online.
