Jimmie Rodgers: Peer Is Home To Rodgers’ Music

It’s doubtful that back in 1927, when Ralph S. Peer traveled to tiny Bristol, TN looking for talented local musicians that he could ever have imagined what the results would lead to. On a hot August day, the first steps were taken to lay foundation for what would become the country music industry and the first country music publishing company.

It’s doubtful that back in 1927, when Ralph S. Peer traveled to tiny Bristol, TN looking for talented local musicians that he could ever have imagined what the results would lead to. On a hot August day, the first steps were taken to lay foundation for what would become the country music industry and the first country music publishing company.

Partly because Peer met and recorded Jimmie Rodgers and the legendary Carter Family, Nashville is today called Music City with Music Row and Sixteenth Avenue, the Grand Ole Opry and pretty much every other facility, business, job, and dream related to making country music what it is.

At the time, Peer represented Victor Talking Machine Company. He’d already worked for Okeh Records, where he made the first ever commercial blues recording by a black artist. In 1929, he founded Southern Music Publishing, which later became Peer Music. Initially in partnership with RCA, Peer became sole owner by 1932, with the catalogs of the Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers in his possession. Today the company still owns and administrates both of these catalogs.

Early on, Peer took an active interest in expanding publishing in a variety of musical directions. Even in the 1930s he was making recordings of artists in places like Puerto Rico and Mexico, South America, and after WWII, all over Europe. He was also constantly picking up the rights to new material. He opened an office in London in1932, becoming a pioneer in international publishing.

Today the company maintains a worldwide system of 30 offices in 23 countries. The material represented includes every genre of music from R&B through country, rock, pop, Latin, classical, and film scores. Altogether, Peer Music encompasses a network of 74 wholly-owned publishing companies. Since 1980, the company has been directed by Ralph Peer II.

The Jimmie Rodgers catalog is basically administered through the Nashville office. According to J. Kevin Lamb, the vice-president, with in the Rodgers catalog the copyright on each song dates from its inception, meaning that the copyrights will eventually run out at different times. The original Copyright Law of 1909 covered a fixed period of 28 years, with an option of renewal for another 28. The Copyright Law of 1976 (effective 1978) allowed for an extension on this renewal for a total of 75 years, which is why material as old as this catalog is still under copyright. Royalties collected have all been paid over the years to the Rodgers estate, although his last direct heir, a grandson, recently passed away.

That being the case, when a request is made to record a Rodgers song, the process is basically the same as when an artist wants to record a song copyrighted in 1996. While Lamb doesn’t keep track of the frequency of requests for Rodgers’ material, it happens more often than you might think. Bob Dylan is currently finishing up a project, The Songs of Jimmie Rodgers: A Tribute, featuring various artists. Merle Haggard recorded a tribute album, Same Train, A Different Time, a few years ago. Over the years, countless artists have drawn on the songs for various projects.

“It goes through phases,” Lamb remarks. “When Bill Monroe died last year, we had a lot of requests for his songs.”

Discussing the pitching process, Lamb feels there’s usually no reason to treat a catalog like Rodgers’ any differently from more contemporary work.

“From a songpluggers viewpoint, I wouldn’t steer away from pitching material just because they’re older songs,” Lamb explains. “If someone wanted something simple and bluesy, for instance, I’d think of going back to the Rodgers catalog. The question is really about what’s appropriate to the situation. Is it suitable to the individual artist? Is it timely?

“There are some things in an older catalog that can sound dated. The language of the lyric may have fit in the 1940s but now. Also, the subject material can make a difference sometimes. Labels and artists seem to go through periods where they steer away from certain topics—for awhile it was songs about drinking.”

Lamb says the most frequent requests that come to mind for Rodgers material are songs like “Any Old Time,” “Waitin’ For A Train,” “”T for Texas,” “In the Jailhouse Now,” “Mule Skinner Blues” and “Peach Pickin’ Time in Georgia.” These are songs that have become so ingrained in the collective consciousness that almost anyone has heard them, even without knowing who wrote them.

Thanks to a random meeting one August day 70 years ago and the foresight and ambition of Ralph Peer, the musical legacy of Jimmie Rodgers not only still lives, it still plays a role in the musical landscape of today in tying our musical past to its future.