Jimmy Rogers (June 3, 1924 – December 19, 1997) was a Chicago blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player, best known for his work as a member of Muddy Waters's band in the early 1950s. He also had solo hits on the R&B chart with "That's All Right" in 1950 and "Walking by Myself" in 1954. He withdrew from the music industry at the end of the 1950s but returned to recording and touring in the 1970s.
Rogers was born Jay Arthur Lane in Ruleville, Mississippi, on June 3, 1924. He was raised in Atlanta and Memphis. He adopted his stepfather's surname. He learned to play the harmonica with his childhood friend Snooky Pryor, and as a teenager he took up the guitar. He played professionally in East St. Louis, Illinois, with Robert Lockwood, Jr., among others. Rogers moved to Chicago in the mid-1940s. By 1946, he had recorded as a harmonica player and singer for the Harlem record label, run by J. Mayo Williams. Rogers's name did not appear on the record, which was mislabelled as the work of Memphis Slim and His Houserockers. |
James Cotton, Sonny Boy Williamson, Jimmy Rogers, Muddy Waters, Otis Spann. |
Rogers recorded several sides of his own with small labels in Chicago, but none were released at the time. He began to achieve success as a solo artist in 1950, with the hit song "That's All Right", released by Chess Records, but he stayed in Waters's band until 1954. In the mid-1950s he had several successful records released by Chess, most of them featuring either Little Walter or Big
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Walter Horton on harmonica, notably "Walking by Myself". In the late 1950s, as interest in the blues waned, he gradually withdrew from the music industry.
In the early 1960s, Rogers briefly worked as a member of Howling Wolf's band, before quitting the music business altogether for almost a decade. He worked as a taxicab driver and owned a clothing store, which burned down in the 1968 Chicago riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Rogers gradually began performing in public again, and in 1971, when fashions made him somewhat popular in Europe, he began occasionally touring and recording,
Rogers died of colon cancer in Chicago, December 19, 1997. At the time of his death, he was working on an all-star project featuring contributions from Eric Clapton, Taj Mahal, Robert Plant, and Jimmy Page, and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards; upon its completion, the disc was issued posthumously in early 1999 under the title Blues, Blues, Blues.
Jimmy has been a major influence on numerous rock superstars. Eric Clapton called him, "one of my all-time great guitar heroes, one of my earliest influences." Keith Richards said, "I recognize myself in there between Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, and Jimmy Rogers." And Mick Jagger offered, "The first time I heard Jimmy was when I was buying my first blues records and listening to Muddy Waters ... and eventually I found out that Jimmy was the guitarist on these records that I loved."
Here's Jimmy with James Cotton at Antone's Live. Austin Texas, 1985. Luther Tucker is on second Guitar.