Meridian Rising by Paul Burch; 2025. Hardcover.

Known for “Blue Yodel (T for Texas),” “Waiting for a Train,” and “In the Jailhouse Now,” Jimmie Rodgers’s impact on American music is incalculable. Paul Burch's bio-fictional tale of the short and poignant life of the "Father of Country Music” includes an imagined first-person memoir, accompanied by spirited, hilarious, and often conflicting recollections of Jimmie’s family and music colleagues, along with period black-and-white illustrations.

Born in 1897 in Meridian, Mississippi, Rodgers remains the only artist voted into the Rock & Roll, Country, Blues, and Songwriters Halls of Fame. Generations of fans from B. B. King and Johnny Cash to George Harrison and Dolly Parton recall a Rodgers record as the first music played in their home. But his fame extended far beyond America to Africa, Ireland, England, Australia, and Russia. His disciples include Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, John Prine, the Clash’s Joe Strummer, Jack White, and anyone over the last century who has picked up a guitar to sing about life and the world around it.