MERIDIAN, Miss. (AP) — On May 26, 1953, the first Jimmie Rodgers Music Festival was put on by country music legends Hank Snow and Ernest Tubb on the 20th anniversary of Rodgers’ death.
“They (Snow and Tubb) wanted to have the Country Music Hall of Fame in Meridian,” said Betty Lou Jones, president of the Jimmie Rodgers Foundation.
“This was one of the first things they did to try to encourage that. They loved, respected and appreciated Jimmie Rodgers and wanted to pay respect to him for that. They saw Meridian was the right place to have a festival, so they arranged that,” Jones said.
Since then, the festival has been held the third weekend of May every year. The date will change for 2015, when the 62nd Annual Jimmie Rodgers Music Festival take place May 1-2.
Jones tells The Meridian Star (https://bit.ly/1xnLvso) festival organizers have hired Ardenland Entertainment of Jackson to promote the festival, which will be on the lawn of Meridian City Hall. Ardenland is currently booking performers for the annual event.
Born in Meridian on Sept. 8, 1897, Rodgers, the “Father of Country Music,” recorded more than 120 songs. Rodgers was also known as the “Singing Brakeman” for his work on the railroad. He made his first recording in 1927.
Rodgers died of tuberculosis at the age of 35 on May 26, 1933 in New York City. He was the first performer elected to Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame in 1961.
Rodgers also has been inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1970) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1986). He also has been honored with a Mississippi Blues Trail marker in Meridian in 2007.
The first star on the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Center’s Walk of Fame was dedicated to Rodgers in 2009. Rodgers was honored with the first marker on the Mississippi Country Music Trail in 2010.
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Information from: The Meridian Star, https://www.meridianstar.com
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