Narration #5

[Spoken]
Jimmie Rodgers knew when the time was near, but he still had a lot of songs he wanted to record, so he made arrangements to go from his home in Texas to Galveston, then on further by boat. And he left the boat someplace on the East coast and continued on to New York by train, but by the time he arrived in New
York City, he was so weakened by tuberculosis that it was necessary for him to have a cot in the recording studio, so that he might rest in between songs

Amazingly his voice, though weak, never broke while recording his last twelve numbers. Jimmie Rodgers used his last bit of strength for recording

He died in a hotel in New York City on the night of May 26, 1933

His railroad buddies paid Jimmie Rodgers his last homage. The engineer of the train upon which his body was placed pulled his quill down to a sad low moan and this sound was maintained all the way to Mississippi. His fans gathered at small whistle stops all along the route, all the way to Meridian

Jimmie Rodgers rests today in Meridian, Mississippi in the shadow of the great locomotive he loved and sang of so well

The Blue Yodeler has been gone almost forty years, but he left us one of the greatest legacies in country music