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Jimmie Rodgers’ guitar hangs in the Barter Theare lobby while the play “America’s Blue Yodeler: Jimmie Rodgers” is performed. Come mid-November, the guitar will be moved to The Mountain Music Museum in the Bristol Mall.

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In the museum house now, Legend’s guitar on display at Barter

By CAITLIN SULLIVAN/Staff

The wood is worn between the first three frets and the shell inlay, grooved from decades of metal grinding on wood.

The neck itself is thin from a hand slipping back and forth.

Across the right corner, in a small, neat and faded script, reads, “Sincerely Jimmie Rodgers.”

It’s an Oscar Schmidt guitar. One the country music icon played. For now, its in its glass case in the Barter Theatre lobby, there for the run of “America’s Blue Yodeler: Jimmie Rodgers.”

Come mid-November, the guitar will move to its permanent home in Bristol, Tenn., at the Mountain Music Museum.

Tim White, president of the Appalachian Cultural Music Association which operates the museum and host and executive coordinator for Song of the Mountains music series on PBS, bought the guitar last February.

White collects a lot of things but this guitar is by far the most valuable instrument he owns, he said.

“It gives people goose bumps to hold that guitar,” he said.

Butch Robins used it last month to record, he said.

“It sounds nice. It sounds old, woody,” he said. “You could tell it’d been played.”

White sold two acres of land to buy the instrument. The hardest part wasn’t deciding whether to buy it, but convincing his wife to swap a piece of land for it.

“She knew what it symbolized, though,” he said.

“I know of only three other Jimmie Rogers guitars, but I’ve heard of as many as six,” White said.

According to White, the guitar was given to Bill Bruner as a gift from Rodgers for stepping in and doing some shows for Rodgers while he was sick with tuberculoses. The guitar was then passed on to Hank Snow, who supposedly had it nailed to the wall for 50 years, White said.

A hole still peaks through the sound hole where it was nailed.

“A guitar or artifact doesn’t do any good sitting under a bed,” White said.

He said most of the artifacts in the museum were donated.

“People have them under their beds, in closets,” he said. “A lot of artifacts belong to everyday people and there’s a sense of pride for them to see them on display.”

For White the guitar is just another way to share the music he loves. And he does love it. His footprints are all over the region as he’s found ways to promote traditional music. There’s the mural in downtown Bristol. Radio shows. The museum. The Song of the Mountains. And his banjo picking with the VW Boys.

“There’s a high you get off music that no drug or alcohol can match,” White said. “I just wanted to share it.”

White started the picking porch, a free music concert every Thursday in the Bristol Mall. He said the porch is an important contrast to the museum. It allows people to see the future of the music, not just the past.

“I wanted to not just look at artifacts but I wanted to look forward,” he said. “For young people to come and play and practice their craft.”
Besides, tourism is big business, White said.

“It’s important to do this business and do it right,” he said.

And he’s not done yet.

This spring, White’s opening two more music museums in Marion and Kingsport.

He wants a picking porch in Marion and maybe even a school of music someday.

One of the artifacts that will make its way to the new Marion location is a Coca-Cola cooler that used to sit on the porch of A.P. Carter’s store.
The other is Jimmie Rodger’s guitar.

To contact Caitlin Sullivan e-mail or call (276) 628-7101.