BRANSON, MO, USA, August 29, 2002 — Singer Jimmie Rodgers had the world at his feet when a terrible beating changed his life -- and brought him back to God.
Now 68 years old, Rodgers spent much of last year delighting audiences at the Remember When Theater in Branson, MO, singing many of his 38 top 40 hits, including "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine," "Honeycomb," and "Secretly."
Jimmie's last show there was December 11, 2001 and it has been made into a 90-minute video and will soon be available (details below).
Rodgers was one of the biggest stars in early rock and roll history, especially when he played the Brooklyn Paramount with Buddy Holly, The Diamonds and the Del Vikings.
Buddy Holly was his roomate
"I roomed with Buddy Holly and we also shared a dressing room at the Paramount," he said in an interview. "Buddy was very much the gentleman and I had the feeling that he was not a four-letter word guy and pretty much kept to himself. In fact, both of us did. We were both really shy kids."
A savage beating ended his career
But it all came to a crashing halt in December of 1967. "I had been at the Twentieth Century Fox studios in L.A. all day," Rodgers explained. "I was getting ready to do a film with them and I was working on a motion picture script and musical story for stage called 'The World Through the Eyes of Children,' which is a complete two-hour musical.
"We had been to a Christmas party and I had been with my conductor all evening. He was staying at my place and he was following me home. I was driving at about 2:00 AM and someone pulled up behind me and blinked his lights. I thought it was my conductor, so I pulled over and stopped in a little side street in the San Fernando Valley. Some guy came up to the window and, thinking it was my conductor, I rolled the window down and that is last thing I can remember."
Jimmie was beaten so badly that doctors had to reconstruct his skull and use a 20-inch square plate.
He continued the story: "My conductor had gone on to my home and waited for me there. When I did not show up, he came back and found my car and there was car parked behind my automobile with a police car behind it. The car behind my automobile took off and then the police car left. We eventually found out was the guy that stopped me was an off-duty policeman who later called the police to come out to the scene where I had been beaten. Everybody suspected that it was the off-duty policeman who attacked me, but nobody can prove it."
Three brain surgeries -- then God intervened
Jimmie Rodgers was so badly injured that he underwent three brain surgeries following the beating. "This ended my career at that time and it took just about thirty years for me to get back to being able to work," he said. "I had to learn to do everything all over again. That's when God came back into my life.
Jimmie had been raised in a Christian home in the town of Camas in Washington. He had had committed his life to Jesus Christ "My mother was a strong Christian with a lot of faith and us kids were raised that way; but when I grew up I went sideways."
But a healing miracle brought him back to a full commitment to God. "After the beating, I couldn't walk very well and I couldn't speak or pick things up," Rodgers recalled. "I could ambulate a little bit, but I had a lot of difficulty with my motor senses and the nerves. I suffered from seizures because of the extensive surgery. I was fortunate to be alive."
The miracle took place at a prayer meeting at his Southern California home. "Some of the members of my church came over one evening," he said. "I was bedridden at that time. After the prayer meeting where I was prayed for, everybody left and this was at Christmas time and I told my wife, 'I'm starting to feel very strange.' It was like air going out of my body. We had prayed about this. The next day I got out of bed, got off all the medication and ended up never really going back, except to sleep. It was a sudden healing.
"God just reached out and put his arms around me. There is no doubt about it whatsoever. I went from walking with a walker to running 23-mile marathons! I was running 10 miles every other day."
He went on to say, "Unfortunately, it sometimes takes something dramatic to bring you back to God. I now have a sign on my word processor that says, 'What God doesn't protect you from He provides you through." I believe that. I don't think that the Lord is meant to protect us from everything. We have choices and we make those choices and sometimes those choices get us into trouble. That's the freedom of being a Christian. We all have a choice."
When asked what it was like to back singing his old hits, Rodgers said, "It's exciting. It's a revelation for me to have been out of the business for so long," he said. "I was always able to write and create things and my background is one of being artistic, so I've always worked; but to be able to sing again and entertain audiences in terrific."
Jimmie has now been busy singing in churches and writing his autobiography.
His first wife, Colleen, died from a clot on the brain shortly after the beating. He is now married to Mary, and they have a little girl who is 12-years-old, and they have now been married for 26 years.
For Jimmie, he has discovered that God's embrace is really sweeter than wine.
Source: Dan Wooding, ASSIST News Service
|
