Q. What Scenic City area native released his first album 50 years ago in 1975?
A. James Rogers began his career as a singer and entertainer at East Lake Elementary School when his class picked him to compete in a talent show. For the first time, “Rogers met his audience,” according to a biography on his official website.
Born in Chattanooga, raised in Fort Oglethorpe, a veteran of the National Guard and graduate of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Rogers has been entertaining audiences for half a century. He’s performed at the Grand Ole Opry, Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, in Europe and Asia.
By 1998, he had recorded 30 or 4o records and hundreds of songs, he told the Chattanooga News-Free Press that year. But Rogers is probably best known for his showmanship — his ability to entertain an audience.