and iconic singer-songwriter Hank Williams. Rodgers was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and, as an early influence, to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. "Blue Yodel No. 9" was selected as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. Rodgers was ranked No. 33 on CMT's 40 Greatest Men of Country Music in 2003. Meridian, Mississippi's Jimmie Rodgers Memorial Festival has been held annually during May since 1953 to honor the anniversary of Rodgers' death. A song "Chemirocha III" collected by ethnomusicologist Hugh Tracey in 1950 from the Kipsigis tribe was written in honor of Jimmie Rodgers. The song's title is an approximation of the musician's name. According to legend, tribe members were exposed to Rodgers' music through British soldiers during World War II. Impressed by his yodeling, they envisioned Rodgers as "a faun, half-man and half-antelope." Both Gene Autry and future Louisiana governor Jimmie Davis (said to have been author of "You Are My Sunshine") began their careers as Jimmie Rodgers copyists, and Merle Haggard, Hank Snow, and Lefty Frizzell later did tribute albums. Haggard's, titled Same Train, A Different Time: Merle Haggard Sings The Great Songs Of Jimmie Rodgers, was released in 1969. Haggard also covered "No Hard Times" and "T.B. Blues" on his best-selling live albums Okie from Muskogee (1969) and Fightin' Side of Me (1970). Ernest Tubb considered Rodgers an idol and began each episode of his radio show Midnite Jamboree with a Rodgers recording, a tradition that the Jamboree has continued after Tubb's death. The foundation for Waylon Jennings 1975 song Waymore's Blues is based on Rodgers' although Jennings stood by originally telling Shel Silverstein when he had first sung the song out loud it had no meaning but would later in life in an interview with his wife Jessi Colter and long-time producer Chet Atkins it was based on Rodgers, and many other things calling it a “concept song”. Rodgers' "Blue Yodel No. 1 (T for Texas)" was covered by Lynyrd Skynyrd on its live album One More from the Road. Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant was quoted at a July 13, 1977 concert in Asbury Park, New Jersey as saying that the band had "always been interested in old country music" like Jimmie Rodgers and Merle Haggard before launching into playing "T For Texas". Lynyrd Skynyrd has also