Gene Autry
A radio and recording yodeler who reinvented himself as "America's Singing Cowboy," Gene Autry became the first and biggest star of the singing-cowboy film genre in the 1930s and '40s, turning smooth, guitar-strummed western songs like "Back in the Saddle Again" into some of the best-selling and most recognizable American pop music of the era. His clean-cut, radio-friendly cowboy persona -- built out of Jimmie Rodgers' blue yodel and Tin Pan Alley pop songcraft -- helped move country and western music from regional novelty to national mainstream.
Autry started out as a straightforward Jimmie Rodgers imitator, recording nearly thirty of Rodgers' songs between 1929 and 1937 -- including his own version of Rodgers' "T.B. Blues" -- before smoothing the blue-yodel sound into the more polished, radio-ready cowboy persona that made him a star. NOTE: sources document only this one clearly-named influence on Autry; fewer than three influences reflects the source record, not an incomplete search.
listen forAutry's "T.B. Blues" keeps Rodgers' talking-blues phrasing and the melancholy subject matter, but softens the rougher, bluesier edge of Rodgers' own guitar and vocal into Autry's smoother, more polished delivery.