As we scoured the web, dusty vinyl, and music books for material for the Mississippi music issue, we came across this interesting piece of Jimmie Rodgers trivia. Rodgers had a strange allure for members of the Kipsigi tribe of East Africa, who after intercepting a phonograph and some of The Singing Brakeman's records in the early '50s, came to revere him as a demigod of sorts. Convinced that no man could produce the sounds that Rodgers did in his recordings, the Kipsigis attributed them to a centaur-like spirit they called "Chemirocha." This half-man half-antelope was honored in fertility rites in which young Kipsigi maidens would dance seductively to the music in the hopes that Chemirocha will join them in dance. Who knew that a man from Meridian, Mississippi would be deified so?

This particular clip was collected by a British/South African coffee farmer named Hugh Tracey. For similar Chemirocha recordings, visit South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal page.