The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers

The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers is a tribute studio album from Alison Krauss and Union Station, the Champaign, Illinois singer and her ensemble presenting the songbook of Jimmie Rodgers — the Meridian, Mississippi yodeler whose 1927–1933 Victor recordings established one of the foundational voices in American commercial music — in the acoustic ensemble context that Krauss and her band had built into the most commercially successful in contemporary bluegrass. Krauss plays fiddle and sings; Dan Tyminski plays mandolin and sings; Ron Block plays banjo and sings; Jerry Douglas plays dobro; and Barry Bales holds the bass. The program draws from Rodgers' most enduring compositions — the Blue Yodels, the sentimental pieces, and the novelty songs that documented his eclectic musical personality — presented in arrangements that honor the original while bringing them into the acoustic tradition Krauss and Union Station inhabit.