Meridian Rising

Meridian Rising is a first-of-its-kind concept album based on the life of Jimmie Rodgers - the genre-breaking superstar of the late 1920s whose blend of pop, folk, and blues anticipated rock 'n' roll.

For more than two decades, Burch has combined an indie rock ethos with a personal vision of roots music that has attracted a mix of equally ineffable collaborators including Lambchop, Mark Knopfler, Vic Chesnutt, Candi Staton, the Waco Brothers, and Ralph Stanley.

Meridian Rising is an imagined autobiography of Jimmie Rodgers and takes the listener along for the ride as Burch - writing and singing as Rodgers - recalls the locales, love affairs, and harrowing scraps that were all part of the Blue Yodeler's brief but colorful life.

Meridian Rising is scored to the sounds and rhythms of Rodger's time and follows his life from his childhood in Meridian, Mississippi, to his death at the Hotel Taft in New York in 1933. The album was inspired by a studio outtake of the Rodgers classic "Let Me Be Your Sidetrack" recorded with bluesman Clifford Gibson.