Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine: Steve Forbert Any Old Time: Songs of Jimmie Rodgers.

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The country music industry was born in August 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee when the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, country music's first big stars, recorded their first sides. Until his death from tuberculosis in 1933, Rodgers created a timeless body of work that remains highly influential on generations of performers that have followed. On this celebration of Rodgers' legacy, Steve Forbert who shares Jimmie's hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, pays tribute to the father of country music with a sometimes infectious, always charming, set of a dozen Rodgers classics.

Forbert accomplishes just what he needs to do in a tribute such as this. His arrangements retain the spirit that Rodgers first brought to these songs while tastefully making them seem both contemporary and timeless. Many of the songs, including "Blue Yodel #9 (Beale and Main)," which featured back-up from Louis Armstrong on Rodgers' original, and "Gambling Barroom Blues," a descendant of "St. James Infirmary," which itself was a descendant of "The Unfortunate Rake," a traditional British folksong, point out the relationship of white country music and African American blues that was already evident 75 years ago. Forbert also shows how adaptable these songs are when he adds a rockabilly rumble to "My Rough and Rowdy Ways" that you can easily imagine Rodgers himself might have used had he lived into the 1950s. If I had to pick a favorite here, it would be the up tempo version of the title song featuring some wonderful piano and accordion playing by Bobby Ogdin and a cool electric guitar solo by Bill Hullett.--MR