Dickey Betts

Jimmie Rodgers makes an ideal folk icon for these troubled times. His brief Depression-era
career, cut short by a fatal case of tuberculosis, blurred racial divisions by drawing from
white country and black blues traditions. In a world of greedy haves and struggling
have-nots (so what's new?), Rodgers – a railroad worker known as the Singing Brakeman –
championed the common man Against a backdrop of rapid economic and techno... More >