DATES
LOCATIONS
ACTS
FILMS
AUTHORS
SPONSORS
TBA
Jimmie Rodgers
Texas Music & Film Fiesta
On track for Sept. 8-11, 2024 -- San Antonio, TX
In
celebration of his birthday 127 years ago on 9-8-1897
We
invite you to scroll down the Dream-Scape
and see the early blueprint for the Fiesta
and we would love to have you on the
JIMMIE RODGERS'
WILD WEST RUNAWAY TRAIN
IT'S
COMING
FOR MORE
INFORMATION
westmultimedia
@gmail.com
A DIGITAL META
EXTRAVAGANZA
Music, Books, Films, Chili
Cookoff, Margarita Mixoff,
Trains, Buskin' Musicians
A Fiesta of Live and
Virtual Entertainment
JimmieRodgersSaga.com
PRODUCTION OVERVIEW
The
Dream-Scape & Planning-Site
Producer/Director/Creator Benford Standley
Associate Producers James
and Austin Court
the great
grandsons of Jimmie Rodgers
Buffalo Multimedia,
LLC
THE EVENT WILL BE STREAMED
WORLD WIDE LIVE & VIRTUALLY LIVE
online for months and on multiplatforms after
the live broadcast we go virtually live...
Musicians,
Actors, Venues, Filmmakers, S
ponsors,
Production Staff,
Volunteers
Jump on the Train
Contact us Below if you
want to be part of the
festival
CONTACT US FOR A LIST OF
MUSICIANS, ACTORS
&
CHARACTERS
META EXTRAVAGANZA IN THE MAKING...
Dream and brainstorm with
us to create a one of
kind Festival of Music,
Film, Digital Media, Art, Books and History
STREAMED LIVE AND
VIRTUALLY
North, Central and South
America
September 8-11, 2024
Jimmie Rodgers Texas Music
& Film Fiesta
On Houston
Street in Downtown San
Antonio
Will be a 4-day event will be a Fiesta of music, films,
books food
and spirits,
with special Music and Film Awards...a Multiplatform and Multicultural
Roundup of unique talent that is a blend of the music history of the
State
of Texas with a cast of artist from across the miles and miles of
Texas.
JUMP ON BOARD AND HELP US BRAIN STORM...DREAM UP
AND CREATE THE BEGINNING OF A FUN AND EDUCATIONAL
EVENT FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY AND GIVE REGARDS TO
THE MANY TEXAS MUSICIANS AND PLAYERS THAT HAVE
MADE THEIR MARK IN A WIDE RANGE OF MUSIC STYLES.
JIMMIE RODGERS
"The
Father of Country Music”
and the only man in history to be inducted
into the Country, Rock, Blues, Songwriter
and Grammy Halls of Fame, plus the W.C.
Handy Blues Award...2017 he received a
Lifetime Achievement Grammy. On his
plaque at the Country Hall of Fame it says
"Jimmie Rodgers' name stands
foremost in the
country music field as
the man who started it
all ..."
Very important to the Rodgers' Legacy
is that the last years of his historic
career he lived in San Antonio, Tx.
BenfordStandley.com
Producer Benford Standley has a
long history on the digital cutting
edge and STREAMING EVENTS going
back to 1995 at the Troubadour
in Hollywood, producing one of the
early online webcasting events. In 1997 he streamed
Willie Nelson from the Jimmie Rodgers Festival in
Kerrville, Tex working with the Bob Dylan camp and
Sony Multimedia
as broadcast partner. Later streamed
the Ronnie Mack Barn Dance from corner of Hollywood and
Vine in 1998. From 1999 to 2004 he streamed
the Malibu Film Festival.
November 2008 he launched the Paso Robles
Digital Film Festival for a 4 year
run leading to the first Silicon Valley.
PASOROBLESDIGITALFILMFESTIVAL.COM
DIGITALMEDIAFESTIVAL.COM
JIMMIE RODGERS SAW MILES
AND MILES OF TEXAS AND
MOVED TO SAN ANTONIO
CLICK
PICTURE BELOW
JIMMIE LOVED SAN
ANTONIO, TEXAS
The Event is Dedicated to
Jimmie Rodgers, Merle Haggard,
and runaway children & youth...
Austin Court, Buffalo Benford, James Court
James and Austin are Great-Grandsons
of Jimmie
Rodgers
contact us
westmultimedia@gmail.com
for more info or ideas
JIMMIE RODGERS RIDES
THE DIGITAL TRAIN OF TECHNOLOGY
Jimmie Rodgers story
rides the same track that the cutting edge of the advancement of
the
entertainment business and the technologies that drove it
along. From running away with a
medicine show as a
boy then later producing his own tent show. He was doing
radio in
the early days, before he
was recorded on some of the first portable recording equipment
in 1927, with his
record being released on the wind-up Victrola on cylinders, record
and
disks. He was discovered at one of the early field
recording of Victor Talking Machines.
From the 1830s and for the next 100
years wandering
troubadours, medicine shows, and
traveling circus,
wild west and minstrel shows, tent shows, rag-operas,
tent repertoires,
or tent reps as the were called, the tabernacles, freak shows and dime museums, store
shows, and concert saloons gave stage to the medicine doctors, charlatans, and bombastic
grifters, the
buffoonery of the barkers, and the snake oil doctors with tonics, ointments,
liniments,
elixirs and snake oil jive "that it will cure whatever ales
you," were traveling
from town to
town. Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Gene Autry
to Buck Page
of the Riders of the Purple Sage made their first money
as musician in medicine shows.
Riding the train technology in 1929 to
Hollywood, where he would star in one of the
early "talkie" films at RCA's new
studio to further their ride into "sound on film" when
they teamed up with Columbia Screen
Gems to produce a 3 song movie short of
Jimmie Rodgers in his brakeman's
uniform before he took the actual train back to
his home in Texas. Rodger's
story rides the history of the early days of technology.
PLEASE CLICK TO SEE MORE
Texas Premiere of the film Jimmie Rodgers
Saga
as one of the Festival's events
coming
to downtown San Antonio.
During the Festival scenes for the biopic movie Jimmie Rodgers:
The Man That Started
It All will be filmed.
Four Act Extravaganza
Act I: The Medicine Show
Act II: The Tent Show
Act III: The Vaudeville Show
Act IV: The Motion Picture
Premiere
Remember it is a
FILM & DIGITAL MEDIA FIESTA VIDEO
Back is Steven
Johnson, grandson of Robert
Johnson and setting in the front is his
dad
Claude Johnson the son of Robert Johnson.
The TJRMFF is proud to have the association of
Steven Johnson the grandson of the one and only
Robert Johnson . Steven and his band will be at
the Sept 2024 Fiesta to honor his grandfather and
his historic 1936 recording session in Rm 414 of
San Antonio's own Gunter Hotel and flagship hotel
for the JRTMFF and where you can meet special
guest Stephen, and see some of the artifacts from
the
RobertJohnsonBluesFoundation.org
You can visit Steven Johnson at:
StevenJohnsonMusic.com
San Antonio, Texas
The
diverse and multicultural city of San Antonio has a
Native
American
history going back past 10,000 BC...on through the
Mexican
American and Spanish colonial
heritage, a true multi-
cultural
city, and is the 7th most populous city in the USA
and
2nd in Texas. Now a
large convention and tourist city and the
miles long San Antonio
River with the River Walk and the
Alamo, an 18th-century
Spanish mission now a
museum, all
make it one of the top tourist destinations
in the state. As seen
in the picture to the right
the downtown is home of the Hemis-
Fair Park's 750-ft
Tower of the Americas overlooking the
grand city
that is now
"Bigger Than Dallas."
IF YOU'D LIKE TO PERFORM OR HAVE A DOWNTOWN
LOCATION
AND/OR WOULD LIKE TO BE PART OF THE FIESTA, AS VOLUNTEER,
EXTRA IN THE MOVIE, ON STAFF, OR A SPONSOR...contact us
below
We want to not only celebrate the music of Jimmie Rodgers
each year, but celebrate
the cross section of who he'd became during the last 5 years
of his life in Texas. The
range of influence in music has inducted into the Blues,
Country, Rock, Grammy
& Songwriter Halls of Fame, and at the same time
the rich heritage, the diversity
and wide range of music styles born of the Great State of
Texas from the Mexican,
Blues, Tejano, Western, Country to the Austin Cosmic Cowboy
Outlaw, Gonzo
Armadillo music scene. from rocker Steve Miller from
Dallas, Buddy Holly from
Lubbock, Bob Wills from Kosse, Rosie Flores from San
Antonio, JoJo, Henry,
Ringo of Los Lonely Boys from San Angelo, Guy Clark from
Monahans, Willie
Nelson from Abbott, Roy Orbison from Odessa, Lefty Frizzell
from Corsicana,
Gene Austin from Gainesville and on and on across the miles
and miles of Texas.
EACH YEAR ONE OF THE EVENTS WILL BE THE AWARDING OF
MUSICIANS CREATING A JIMMIE RODGERS HALL OF TEXAS FAME
The Cast of Characters for the show will
be entertainers and actors from a cross
section of their career in the music history
of our star Jimmie Rodgers, who will be
played by Chance Wilson. Some will be
from the cast of our actual documentary
and many musicians from Texas music
scene performing a wide range of music
styles together with variety acts, movie stars...plus many Surprise Guests...
A VAUDEVILLE EXTRAVAGANZA
EMAIL FOR
INFO
westmultimedia@gmail.com
From 1916 Jimmie was in and
out of San Antonio, Texas, in 1929
he bought a house in Kerrville and had a
suite he was living in at the
Gunter
Hotel, and buying a house in 1931 in San Antonio. He became
an horary Texas Ranger, wrote songs
about Texas, had a radio show in
San Antonio, living there the last 4 years
of his life...Our hope is that
the city of San Antonio will make him a
Favorite Son after our Festival
and jump on board this Wild West Runaway
Train and the First annual
J IMMIE RODGERS TEXAS MUSIC FESTIVAL
___________________
The Book Barn Expo
GET
IT ON THE PAGE
IN ADDITION TO MUSIC, FILMS, FOOD, DANCE &
SPIRITS,
WE WILL HAVE A NUMBER OF AUTHORS ATTENDING
WITH THEIR BOOKS ON MUSIC HISTORY TO GIVE
TALKS AND PRESENT THEIR WORKS...
AT THE WRITERS EXPO THERE
WILL BE AUTHORS LIKE
KATHLEEN HUDSON,
DAN
SaSuWeh JONES,
DAVID LEE HOMB,
CHRIS FELVER,
BOBBY BRIDGER,
GARY P. NUNN, BARRY
MAJOR,
...and more
westmultimedia@gmail.com
JIMMIE RODGERS
& THE RKO VAUDEVILLE SHOW
OPENS THE
MAJESTIC THEATER
JUNE 14, 1929 ,
WITH 18 CURTAIN
CALLS
Nine
decades ago in 1929 all seats for the grand opening of the
Majestic
Theater were reserved and ticket prices ranged
from $2-$10. Headline
act was
"The Singing Brakeman"
himself Jimmie
Rodgers,
who'd hit the
the top of the Hillbilly Charts with his
million seller "T For Texas". He
was one of the biggest radio
and record stars in America and on RCA
Victor was not a bad train to
ride.
There were performances by banjoist
Mexican Troubadour
Don Galvan,
aka Banjo Boy, acrobatic group called
the Seven Nelsons, Eddie Sauer
and his jazz band called
the Syncopators,
comedians Morton and Stout, the Shaw-Carroll Dance Revue,
Harrington
Sisters, "Rays of Sunshine" and
few other local
acts.
The
Proceeds
were donated to the
Ella
Austin Orphans Home
and the
Children’s Hospital
f und
of SA
Junior League,
and 94 years later both
organizations are still
active in San Antonio
helping children.
The
night
featured the moving picture show
Follies of 1929
by Fox
Movietone, one
of the early films that
William Fox
produced with Multicolor sequences
filmed in the experimental
Grandeur wide-screen. These were the times
that the "talkies" were
presented the same night with the vaudeville shows
as this form of entertainment
was going the way of the medicine shows,
vaudeville stages would become
movie houses and movie theaters.
The
Majestic Theater
was a theater chain part
of RCA Victor and RKO
Radio Pictures Vaudeville Shows aka the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Interstate
Circuit originating with deals
between David Sarnoff of RCA
Victor/NBC
and Joseph Kennedy. The original beginnings evolved from the
Orpheum
Circuit, a chain of vaudeville and movie theaters founded in
1886 where in
1927 it was merged into the Keith-Albee-Orpheum Corporation
evolving
part of the Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) Corporation.
The Majestic
was compared to the Fox in Atlanta
and the Paramount on Broadway in
New York. The opening night of the 4-day run was a very
formal night
with the Texas Governor and a number of
dignitaries. It was
a big
night for Jimmie, for he was a local boy with his
suite at the Gunter
Hotel across
the street and house in Kerrville, Texas and he received 18
curtain calls as
reported in the local news papers.
JIMMIE RODGERS TEXAS
MUSIC and FILM FIESTA IS ABOUT HISTORY
With percentage of the proceeds going
to help
Runaway
Children & Youth
Dedication
The movie and the production is dedicated to
Jimmie Rodgers and my pal Merle Haggard,
plus the millions of runaway, homeless and
missing children in these United States...
Merle and Jimmie were both runaway kids
Standley has written 3 books on the subject.
Benford's Kid Work Bio
We plan to support and call to center stage
three great organizations that are helping to
lessen the tragedy of homeless, runaway,
missing and abused children and youth.
ELLA AUSTIN COMMUNITY CENTER
Help with early childhood, youth services while
promoting healthy life styles, leadership skills,
and self sufficiency to kids in San Antonio.
ROY MASS YOUTH ALTERNATIVE
Where they are restoring hope one child at a
time... An
emergency shelter service and 24
hour drop in center,
long term residential center,
transitional living program
and family counseling. RMYA's goal is to create brighter
futures for
kids in crisis by promoting success in a healthy
living in a safe, healing environment and giving
kids and
the families the tools to end the cycle
of abuses
TEXAS YOUTH HOTLINE -866-638-7925
Originally called Peace of Mind in 1973 and operating
still
today. Producer of the Jimmie Rodgers Fiesta has a
special
relationship with the program since those days for the
50
years the program has been in existence.
From 1929, till he passed away Jimmie Rodgers would
have a suite at the famous Gunter Hotel on Houston Street
The
Hotel was built in 1909, the historic hotel's roots
date back to the first year of the Republic of
Texas. In
1837, at the corner there had been a old Frontier Hotel and
the location was stop when
the
stage coach came in town. There is a long and exciting
history to the landmark and it's
known
that
Jimmie Rodgers,
actor/writer/ humorist Will Rogers, Mary Pickford,
Mae
West, and
cowboy
film stars Tom Mix, Roy Rogers, John Wayne and Gene Autry
stayed at the hotel,
with
Will and Jimmie
having suites there. Jimmie bought a house in
Kerrville in 1929, yet he
was
spending most of his time in San Antonio where he was
doing a radio show at KMAC, and living
in his suite at the Gunter Hotel,
and bought a house
in Alamo Heights. In 1931, when Jimmie
Rodgers
and Will Rodgers began their historic tour to raise money
for the Red Cross they had
a huge
send off party
at the Gunter Hotel's Crystal Ballroom with the Mayor and
the who's who
of San
Antonio. The tour is known to have saved the Red Cross
from bankruptcy due to the
Depression and
the Dust Bowl days, the situation that set the California
migration in motion.
B lues
singer
Robert Johnson
who was a big fan of Jimmie Rodgers and played many of his
songs,
considered him a
music influence and would end up in room # 414 for the first of
the
only
two recording sessions he would ever record
in that room on
November 23, 1936, some 3
years after Jimmie's death.
A talent scout had arranged
the session with
Don Law
who had
produced
Lefty Frizzell's 1951 tribute album to Jimmie Rodgers.
Johnson recorded 16 songs
that
session and later Law would produce the Bob Wills recording
"San Antonio Rose."
We are excited to announce that Steven Johnson, Robert
Johnson's
grandson to be part of the celebration, and we plan to team
up with
the San Antonio Blues Society to make this a big part of the
Jimmie Rodgers Texas Music Festival, blues band and all...
The Wild West Runaway Train set
will include medicine and tent shows
EXPERIMENTAL THEATER SYNOPSIS
Theater with a digital
century twist, cow-chips to computer
chips vaudeville-style
extravaganza combined with the
premiere of the
Jimmie Rodgers Saga
"talkie" ...in
Hollywood dialect "It's a medicine show
meets rag opera
canvas tent show movie premiere in a
vaudeville theater
staging...where a snake doctor
brings out his troupe of vaudevillians to gather him a crowd, being our audience,
and they're transported to a Hollywood red carpet
movie
released of a musical play
documentary film during the
Jimmie Rodgers Texas
Music & Film Fiesta
An over the foot-lights show that'll be a true integrated
multimedia
theatrical dime museum experience. With
singing cowboys, rope
tricks, Mexicans vaqueros, Tejas
hill country Native
Americans, famous characters from
history including Bob Wills, Will Rogers, Sam Houston,
Texas Troubadour Ernest Tubb, and others
all presented
in lost gonzo cosmic
vaudevillian musical theater style...
Houston St. the old Theater District of
San Antonio will rock like the era of
the 1920's and 1930's...for the times
they were a changin'...
VIDEO
St. Louie Blues
The song was written in 1914,
and considered by many
as the most important blues/jazz
song ever written. This
16 minute film directed by
Dudley Murphy and working with
WC Handy who wrote the song and
got Bessie Smith to
star in the movie, and is the
only song of her singing on film
anywere. Filmed in 1925,
it is considered one of the first
music videos and one of the most
important recordings in
history. Erin Murphy ,
Dudley's daughter will screen her
Dad's film and do a Q&A about
him coming out of the
silent film era into the
"talkies" the "soundies" AKA
the beginning of the sound on
film era.
A BIG PART OF
THE FESTIVAL
WILL BE THE
SCREENING
OF MUSIC
DOCUMENTARY
MOVIES...
We will show films all three
days of the festival, not as
a traditional "film festival,"
but a festival of movies &
new media on music history.
TO SUBMIT A FILM
contact us at email below
VIDEO
Blaze Foley: Duck Tape Messiah
A documentary on the everyday
man behind the legend
Blaze Foley. Born in a
tree house, killed in a friend's
living room and 86'ed from his
own funeral, said to be a
kind of character that kept
Austin weird. Merle Haggard
called him a hero and recorded
some of his songs as
did Willie Nelson, John Prine
and Lyle Lovett. I was
proud to première the film in
2008 at a Digital Film Fest.
Written and directed by
Kevin Triplett who we're going
to Stream to the
screening from where he is living in the
Middle East. Recently
Ethan Hawke produced a very
successful biopic about the life
of Blaze Foley.
Carrie Rodgers
Jimmie's Wife who lived
until her death in San Antonio
..
Jimmie Rodgers
Chance Wilson
Playing Jimmie Rodgers
..
Charlie Walker, Carrie, Johnny Cash
Anita at the 1957 Jimmie Rodgers Festival
From 1953, and for the next number of years Carrie
and Anita Rodgers would travel from San Antonio to
Meridian, Mississippi to support the Jimmie Rodgers
Festival and traveled there on a number of occasions
with San Antonio KMAC Radio DJ Charlie Walker.
Same radio station Jimmie Rodgers had his show.
Elvis & Charlie Walker 1955. Elvis
would
be on Walker's KMAC show in San Antonio
Wine Taste-off
Taco Cook-off
Margarita Mix-off
VIDEO
California/Montana/Texas
and south of the Rio Grande
contact us
westmultimedia@gmail.com
for more info or ideas
VIDEO
SPECIAL DEDICATION OF THE
SHOW TO MERLE HAGGARD
WILD WEST RUNAWAY TRAIN
Four act Play
It's Bigger Than Dallas...
Act I: The Medicine Show
Act II: The Tent Show
Act III: The Vaudeville Show
Act IV: The Motion Picture
Premiere
Jimmie Rodgers Saga
FLYER FROM THE 2021 DATE THAT WE
CANCELED BECAUSE
OF COVID-19