ABSTRACT
It is an odd story, but it is one of those country music legends that oldtimers in Georgia and the Carolinas never seem to tire of telling. It was the spring of 1928, and country music as we know it was only about five years old. Jimmie Rodgers had made his debut recordings in Bristol, and had recently released his first big hit, “Blue Yodel.” Jimmie, the story goes, was not happy with Victor and approached Columbia for an audition in Atlanta. Frank Walker, the head of Columbia’s “Old Familiar Tunes” division, the man who would twenty years later sign Hank Williams to MGM, listened to Jimmie sing. Shrugging, he turned to his assistant Bill Brown and said, “We don’t need Jimmie Rodgers. We’ve got Riley Puckett.”
