The Jimmie Rodgers Museum invites the public to take advantage of free tours Thursday in celebration of Jimmie Rodgers’ 114th birthday.

     The museum was established  in Meridian in 1976 by country music artists Hank Snow and Ernest Tubb and many other loyal fans who wanted to preserve his music and his contributions to the development of American music. The Jimmie Rodgers Museum is one of the projects of The Jimmie Rodgers Foundation and is visited by thousands of fans from all over the world each year.

    One of those fans, J. Alan Burton of Scarborough, Ontario in Canada, recently contributed several RCA Victor album reissues of Jimmie Rodgers’ music, released between 1956 and 1964, to the museum.

    “These albums, containing 108 performances, have been a cherished part of my life since I was 16 years old when I first discovered The Blue Yodeller,” Burton wrote in a letter to Susan Parker, who runs the museum.

    Burton also contributed two books, “The Recordings of Jimmie Rodgers, An Annotated Discography” by Johnny Bond, and “Jimmie The Kid, The Life of Jimmie Rodgers,” written by Mike Paris and Chris Coomber.

    Tribute albums from Burton’s collection by Hank Snow, Lefty Frizzell and Merle Haggard, and an anthology album with performances by Ernest Tubb, Stuart Hamblen, Roy Acuff, Red Foley, Bill and Cliff Carlisle and Gene Autry also were donated.

    Burton, 67, is semi-retired. He and a friend were in Meridian this spring as part of a country music pilgrimage and they considered the Jimmie Rodgers Museum in Meridian’s Highland Park a “must see” attraction.

    “In 1960 I discovered a couple of Jimmie Rodgers songs that were overdubbed by Chet Atkins,” Burton said in a telephone interview Monday. One of those overdubs, “In The Jailhouse Now,” gave the song, originally released in 1928, a more contemporary feel.

    “Once I heard him, I wanted to hear more,” Burton said. “It seems that each generation discovers Jimmie Rodgers.”

    Charlie Daniels has been a recording artist since 1958. The Charlie Daniels Band will be in Meridian for a performance at the MSU Riley Center on Sept. 17. During a telephone interview Friday, Daniels said he was inspired by Jimmie Rodgers through his second generation of fans, the likes of Ernest Tubb and Hank Snow, who Daniels said made a big impression on him.

    “My dad was a huge Jimmie Rodgers fan,” Daniels said. “Country music claims him, but he was so much more than that. He went across the board.”

    Daniels recalled visiting the Jimmie Rodgers Museum, and noted that Rodgers’ own influences included blues, folk, even rag time.

    His music inspired artists who inspired the next generation, who continue to inspire future generations of artists, indirectly influencing all types of popular music long after his untimely death from tuberculosis in 1933. He was just 35 years old and had been recording for six years.

    Posthumously Jimmie Rodgers was honored by The Country Music Hall of Fame as one of its first inductees. He is also a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, The Songwriters Hall of Fame, and The Blues Hall of Fame. He has received several Grammy awards and was recently honored by the International Folk Alliance with a Lifetime Achievement award. In 1978 a United States postage stamp was issued in his honor. He is buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in Meridian.

    Artists continue to record Jimmie Rodgers’ music, and fans continue to request it. About six months ago Burton said he was at Hugh’s Room in Toronto to hear some acoustic music by a guy named Steve Forbert.

    Forbert, a Meridian native and Mississippi Music Hall of Famer, performed in Meridian Friday along with fellow MMHF inductee Webb Wilder, at the Temple Theater as part of the Sucarnochee Revue syndicated radio and television program.

    “I said since your from Meridian how about playing a Jimmie Rodgers song,” Burton said. “He said, well which Jimmie Rodgers song do you want to hear? I said how about “Away Out On The Mountain.”

    Burton was delighted that Forbert went right into it.