Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
(Victor 20502)
Recorded 2/17/1927 Atlanta, Georgia. Elyea Talking Machine Co.
Ernest Rogers (vocalist : baritone vocal)
Ernest Rogers (instrumentalist : guitar)
Ralph Sylvester Peer (session supervisor)
Ernest Rogers (songwriter)
Willie, the chimney sweeper (Primary title)
AKA Willie the weeper (Alternate title)
A hop fiend's dream (Alternate title)
"Willie the Weeper" is a song about drug addiction. It is based on a standard vaudeville song, likely written in 1904. It is credited to Walter Melrose, Grant Rymal and Marty Bloom, who published it with Morris Edwin H & Co Inc in 1908. Many artists recorded the song in 1927, including Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon, Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven, and King Oliver. Ernest Rogers recorded a version, also in 1927, which shares several lines with Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher".
The song has many different versions, but all share a common theme: Willie, a chimney sweeper with a dope habit, is introduced. The rest of the song is a description of his drug-induced dream.
William Ernest Rogers was born on October 27, 1897 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was crippled by infantile paralysis at the age of two, but that evidently didn’t slow him down. He attended Emory University—where he was the champion debater, a member of the glee club, mandolin club, and literary society, and founder of the campus newspaper, the Emory Wheel—and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1920. After college, Rogers found work as an editor, reporter, arts critic, and features writer for the Atlanta Journal, with whom he remained until 1962.
Ernest Rogers died on October 9, 1967 in Atlanta.
During his own life, Ernest Rogers was best known as a newsman, rather akin to the South’s answer to Walter Winchell as host and lead reporter of the Atlanta Journal‘s daily “Radio Headlines” program on Atlanta’s pioneering radio station WSB (“Welcome South, brother”). Today however, it is his musical proclivities—namely the five records he made for Victor in 1927 and ’28—that have won him his most enduring fame, yet his activities in the field were far from limited to making records.
Victor 20502 was recorded in two quite separate sessions: the first side was at the Elyea Talking Machine Co. in Atlanta, Georgia on February 17, 1927, while the second was recorded almost two years earlier in New York City on June 25, 1925. It was released in May of 1927, and remained Victor’s catalog all the way into 1944.
First, Ernest Rogers sings a classic vaudeville song by the name of “Willie the Weeper”, or in this case “Willie the Chimney Sweeper”. You may notice more than a passing similarity to Cab Calloway’s famous “Minnie the Moocher”, which drew heavily on the song.
On the reverse, our ol’ pal Vernon Dalhart sings a perfectly solid rendition of another old vaudeville standby, “Casey Jones”, with Carson Robison on guitar, and harmonica and Jew’s harp played by Dalhart himself. Say what you will about Dalhart, but this record—both sides—truly is a great piece of Americana.
(Victor 20502)
Recorded 2/17/1927 Atlanta, Georgia. Elyea Talking Machine Co.
Ernest Rogers (vocalist : baritone vocal)
Ernest Rogers (instrumentalist : guitar)
Ralph Sylvester Peer (session supervisor)
Ernest Rogers (songwriter)
Willie, the chimney sweeper (Primary title)
AKA Willie the weeper (Alternate title)
A hop fiend's dream (Alternate title)
"Willie the Weeper" is a song about drug addiction. It is based on a standard vaudeville song, likely written in 1904. It is credited to Walter Melrose, Grant Rymal and Marty Bloom, who published it with Morris Edwin H & Co Inc in 1908. Many artists recorded the song in 1927, including Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon, Louis Armstrong and His Hot Seven, and King Oliver. Ernest Rogers recorded a version, also in 1927, which shares several lines with Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher".
The song has many different versions, but all share a common theme: Willie, a chimney sweeper with a dope habit, is introduced. The rest of the song is a description of his drug-induced dream.
William Ernest Rogers was born on October 27, 1897 in Atlanta, Georgia. He was crippled by infantile paralysis at the age of two, but that evidently didn’t slow him down. He attended Emory University—where he was the champion debater, a member of the glee club, mandolin club, and literary society, and founder of the campus newspaper, the Emory Wheel—and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1920. After college, Rogers found work as an editor, reporter, arts critic, and features writer for the Atlanta Journal, with whom he remained until 1962.
Ernest Rogers died on October 9, 1967 in Atlanta.
During his own life, Ernest Rogers was best known as a newsman, rather akin to the South’s answer to Walter Winchell as host and lead reporter of the Atlanta Journal‘s daily “Radio Headlines” program on Atlanta’s pioneering radio station WSB (“Welcome South, brother”). Today however, it is his musical proclivities—namely the five records he made for Victor in 1927 and ’28—that have won him his most enduring fame, yet his activities in the field were far from limited to making records.
Victor 20502 was recorded in two quite separate sessions: the first side was at the Elyea Talking Machine Co. in Atlanta, Georgia on February 17, 1927, while the second was recorded almost two years earlier in New York City on June 25, 1925. It was released in May of 1927, and remained Victor’s catalog all the way into 1944.
First, Ernest Rogers sings a classic vaudeville song by the name of “Willie the Weeper”, or in this case “Willie the Chimney Sweeper”. You may notice more than a passing similarity to Cab Calloway’s famous “Minnie the Moocher”, which drew heavily on the song.
On the reverse, our ol’ pal Vernon Dalhart sings a perfectly solid rendition of another old vaudeville standby, “Casey Jones”, with Carson Robison on guitar, and harmonica and Jew’s harp played by Dalhart himself. Say what you will about Dalhart, but this record—both sides—truly is a great piece of Americana.
