Ed and John Kemmick

Ed Kemmick has been a newspaper reporter, editor and columnist since 1980. Except for four years in his home state of Minnesota, he has spent his entire journalism career in Montana, working in Missoula, Anaconda, Butte and Billings. "The Big Sky, By and By," a collection of some of his newspaper stories and columns, plus a few essays and one short story, was published in 2011.

Jimmie Rodgers, who was born in 1897 and died in 1933, was known in his time as The Singing Brakeman and The Blue Yodeler, and after it as The Father of Country Music. Bob Dylan wasn’t satisfied with any of those titles, so he came up with his own: The Man Who Started It All. Jimmie Rodgers has influenced countless musicians in many different genres, but his own music remains as powerful and affecting as it was when it was new. There was and there is something fresh, honest and big-hearted about his music, whether he was singing about ill-fated railroad men, lonely cowboys, love-struck city slickers or gun-toting gamblers. John and Ed Kemmick talk about Jimmie Rodgers’ life and influence, interspersed with their performance of some of his songs.