"Blue Yodel" influenced artists including Johnny Cash, George Harrison and Ronnie Van Zant.

[6] In February 1927, he moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where he appeared on broadcasts of the recently established radio station WWNC.

[11] The session took place at the Victor Talking Machine Company's Studio 1 in a repurposed building that had been the former Camden Trinity Baptist Church, favored for its acoustics.

[10] The series of songs, later known as "Blue Yodels", often featured the story of a man who exaggerated his qualities as a lover, faced the threat of other men taking his woman, and then used violence against them when they did.

[13] Rodgers either developed the usage of yodeling in his act over the years,[14] or was inspired by Emmet Miller's recordings and live appearances.

[15] Jimmie Rodgers's wife Carrie suggested that her husband chose not to record one of his Blue Yodels during the first session so as not to distract Peer from his vocal and guitar abilities.

The narrator declares "I can get more women than a passenger train can haul",[20] and he says he is going to shoot Thelma "just to see her jump and fall".

Around the same time as Rodgers's recording, the line appeared in Lonnie Johnson's rendition of Jackson's song, and later in Frank Stokes's "Nehi Mamma Blues".

[24] Bessie Smith's 1924 recording of the Spencer Williams-penned "Ticket Agent, Ease Your Window Down" features the line, "I can get more men than a passenger train can haul."

In Papa Charlie Jackson's 1925 ""The Faking Blues", the line is changed to, "I can get more women than a passenger train can haul."

Contemporary to Rodgers's recording, the line "just to see her fall" is echoed in Lonnie Johnson's "Low Land Moan".

[23] The end of each stanza features a yodeling break, as its turnarounds emulate the conventional blues licks of the time.

Its modal frame features flatted seventh and third chords, characteristic of African American music and suggesting a "grinding, sexual movement".

The aggregate score of 83 was based on the reviews of disc jockeys, record dealers, and jukebox operators.

[51] Grandpa Jones's 1962 version for Monument Records peaked at number five on Billboard's US Hot Country Songs chart.

The publication's staff defined it as "a phenomenon that created country music's very first superstar", and described Rodgers's yodel as "the sound of pain made charming, even sweet".

[59] Rodgers's lyrics from "Blue Yodel", "I'm gonna shoot poor Thelma/Just to see her jump and fall" inspired Johnny Cash, who listened to Rodgers, to write the line "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die" for 1955's "Folsom Prison Blues".

[60] In his book, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece, Michael Streissguth comments "a case of plagiarism [over the line] can, and has, been made".

[63] During band member George Harrison's childhood, his father returned from a trip to the United States with records by Rodgers, including "Blue Yodel".

Harrison credited Rodgers for his interest in learning to play the guitar,[64] and use the song's in his "Rocking Chair in Hawaii" on the 2002 posthumous album Brainwashed.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, whose lead singer Ronnie Van Zant considered Rodgers one of his favorite artists, often performed the song.