Elsie McWilliams

Induction Year: 1979

Birth Name: Elsie Williamson

Birth Date: 06-01-1896

Place of Birth: Harperville, Mississippi

Death Date: 12-30-1985

Place of Death: Meridian, Mississippi

Elsie McWilliams was the sister-in-law of the first country superstar, Jimmie Rodgers. She wrote or co-wrote 39 of Rodgers' 111 recorded songs with him but is officially credited with only 20 of his titles. For instance, she and Rodgers collaborated on his famous "Waiting for a Train," but his name alone appears on the song. She also recalled writing "My Little Old Home Down in New Orleans," "Hobo Bill's Last Ride," "Mississippi River Blues" and more than a dozen other Rodgers songs but again is uncredited.

McWilliams was one of nine children born to a highly musical Methodist minister and his wife. All of her brothers and sisters played and sang. As a girl, she played organ at religious revivals.

She was married to Dick McWilliams, a policeman in Meridian, Mississippi, Jimmie Rodgers' hometown. Elsie played the piano accompanying silent movies in one of the city's theaters. Around the time her sister Carrie married Jimmie Rodgers in 1920, she joined him in forming a small Meridian dance band.

After Rodgers secured a recording contract in 1927, he pressed McWilliams to write songs for him. Wanting to help her sister, she agreed to travel to Rodgers' recording sessions and collaborate with him. She particularly enjoyed providing sentimental tunes to his repertoire but was embarrassed to be associated with his rowdier songs. Even though she co-wrote many of them, she did not want her name on them.

McWilliams wrote with Rodgers during the early years of his career at recording sessions in Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans and Camden, New Jersey. She did not like leaving her three children to travel, so she stopped writing songs to be a homemaker instead.

After Jimmie Rodgers died in 1933, she provided some memorial songs about him to a young Ernest Tubb. She spent much of the rest of her life as the unofficial hostess in Meridian to the thousands of Rodgers fans who traveled there each year.

Elsie McWilliams was country music's first female songwriting success. Her piano is on display in the Jimmie Rodgers Museum in Meridian. The lyrics to "Home Call," which she co-wrote with Rodgers, are inscribed on the marble Jimmie Rodgers monument there.

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Song Catalog

"Anniversary Blue Yodel / Blue Yodel No. 7"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1930 
Gene Autry1930 
Frankie Marvin1930 
Bill Monroe1941 
Hank Snow1953 
Doc Watson1994 
Merle Haggard2002 

"Daddy and Home"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1928 
Gene Autry1929 
Bill Cox1929 
Arkie the Arkansas Woodchopper1931 
Red River Dave1940 
Tanya Tucker1989 #27 country
Robin & Linda Williams2007 

"Everybody Does It in Hawaii"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1929 
Ernest Hare1930 
Frankie Marvin1930 
Carson Robison1930 
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys1938 
Chet Atkins & Hank Snow1969 
Hank Snow1970 
Steve Forbert1997 
 

"I'm Lonely and Blue"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1929 
Hoke Rice1929 
Carson Robison1929 
Cliff Carlisle1930 
 

"Lullaby Yodel"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1928 
Gene Autry1929 
Hoke Rice1929 
Lefty Frizzell1951 
Grandpa Jones1962 
 

"Mississippi Moon"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1932 
Jess Hillard1933 
 

"My Little Lady"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1929 
Carson Robison1929 
Grandpa Jones1962 
Slim Whitman1963 
David Houston1964 
Elton Britt1968 
 

"My Old Pal"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1928 
Bill Cox1929 
Red River Dave1940 
Lefty Frizzell1951 
Merle Haggard1969 
 

"My Rainbow Trail Keeps Winding On"

Mrs. Jimmie Rodgers1937 
Ernest Tubb1940 

"My Rough and Rowdy Ways"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1930 
Gene Autry1930 
Bill Cox1930 
Lefty Frizzell1952 
Webb Pierce1961 
Merle Haggard1967 
Doc Watson1967 
Hank Thompson1969 
Hank Snow1970 
Steve Forbert2002 

"Never No Mo' Blues"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1928 
Carson Robison1928 
Hugh Cross1928 
Cliff Carlisle1930 
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys1935 
Whitey McPherson1937 
Lefty Frizzell1953 
Tommy Duncan1959 
Hank Snow1960 
Doc Watson1966 
The Blasters1980 
Merle Haggard1990 
 

"Nobody Knows But Me"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1931 
Lefty Frizzell1959 
Merle Haggard1969 
Hank Snow1972 
Doc Watson1988 
 

"Since That Black Cat Crossed My Path"

Ernest Tubb1937 
 

"The Last Thoughts of Jimmie Rodgers"

Ernest Tubb1936 
 

"The Passing of Jimmie Rodgers"

Ernest Tubb1936 
 

"The Sailor's Plea"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1929 
Bill Monroe1951 
 

"Yodeling Cowboy"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1930 
Bill Cox1930 
Frankie Marvin1930 
Hank Snow1952 
 

"You and My Old Guitar"

(written with Jimmie Rodgers)

Jimmie Rodgers1929 
Tex Morton1949 
Hank Snow1960 
Grandpa Jones1962 
Elton Britt1968 
Jorma Kaukonen2002 

Other Media

Elsie McWilliams

Induction Year: 1979