“Blue Yodel just swept the country,” Peer recalled ... Ralph Peer, the man who discovered him, put it more simply: “A fellow like Jimmie Rodgers appealed to a much wider audience because ...

And part of that was quite deliberate: if you couldn’t spend seventy-five cents to hear Jimmie Rodgers sing “Blue Yodel Number Four” on RCA, you might be tempted to spend thirty-five cents ...