The (Blues) Christmas Train #6

Happy New Year everyone! Today’s the last run for the (Blues) Christmas Train, but don’t worry—there will be plenty of blues & trains on Robert Frost’s Banjo in 2010! For today, we’ve got three great songs for you, two of which prove you can construct an amazing tune using just one chord.

When you're done here, please consider visiting Eberle's Platypuss-in-Boots blog, where yours truly is making a guest appearance, along with an even more special guest star. In the meantime, hope you enjoy these tunes!

PEAVINE BLUES: This song begins, “I thought I heard that Pea Vine when she blows,” & as explain at shows when I perform it, this doesn’t refer to an exploding vegetable—it refers to the whistle on the Peavine train line. The Peavine was a branch of the Yazoo Delta Railway that ran from Dockery Plantation to Boyle; as we learned when we were listening to Patton’s “Green River Blues” earlier in this series, the Yazoo Delta was nicknamed the Yellow Dog.

“Peavine Blues” is one of my all-time favorite train songs, tho in all honesty only the first & last verses refer to the Peavine Railroad—the rest is about a woman who’s done Charlie Patton wrong, & how he’s gotten over it—“I cried last night, ain’t gonna cry no more.” It’s closely related to his song “Banty Rooster Blues” in terms of melody & also a characteristic riff he does on the bass string involving the minor third (or blues note). In fact, when Rory Block covered “Peavine Blues,” she mixes in some of the lyrics of “Banty Rooster Blues.”

This song, & the next in this list are two of the very greatest country blues numbers ever, at least for my money! Charlie Patton: The Best of Charlie Patton (Yazoo); Rory Block: Gone Woman Blues (Rounder)



ROLLIN’ STONE 1 & 2: There’s a good chance you haven’t heard either "Rollin’ Stone" part 1 or part 2 or about its performer & composer, Robert Wilkins; I’m happy to remedy that! Some people have called this the greatest country blues song ever. Now, I’m of a non-hierarchical bent, so I’d never make that kind of claim for any song, but I’ll say this: it’s a deeply moving song, both in terms of its music & its lyrics.

It might further amaze you to learn that “Rollin’ Stone” is based harmonically on a single chord, tho Robert Wilkins does imply chord changes with his artful bass runs. The lyrics tell a tale of desertion & loneliness; the sort of emotions you associate with a train whistle in the night, or with looking down a stretch of train track. Trains signify several things in blues: the freedom to travel, the urge (sometimes, the compulsion) to move on—but behind the image there’s usually a stark loneliness, & it’s never captured any better than in this great song. Robert Wilkins: The Original Rolling Stone (Yazoo) or Memphis Blues 1928-1935 (Document)—the latter has the advantage (I think) of running the two parts consecutively on the album, whereas the Yazoo release separates them.



SMOKESTACK LIGHTNIN’: What better way to conclude this series than with this Howlin’ Wolf song? Again, we have a song constructed on a single minor chord—essentially, built on a riff. But “Smokestack Lightnin’,” with Wolf’s falsetto “boo-hoo” train whistle & driving beat is a classic.

Wolf explained the title as follows: "We used to sit out in the country and see the trains go by, watch the sparks come out of the smokestack. That was smokestack lightning." The song is based on an earlier Howlin’ Wolf song, “Crying at Daybreak,” which was itself based on Charlie Patton’s “Moon Goin’ Down.” It’s a fun song to play (& a surprisingly fun tune on the banjo), & has been covered by a slew of other musicians, including Muddy Waters, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The AnimalsThe Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, The Who, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Soundgarden, Widespread Panic, & George Thorogood. Howlin’ Wolf: The Definitive Collection (Geffen Records)



The top pic shows an O gauge Lionel locomotive. The photo is by Flickr user JJW, who has posted it to Wiki Commons under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License.

The (Blues) Christmas Train #5

Merry Christmas to everyone who keeps the holiday, & happy Friday to those who don’t! It’s a lovely winter day here in Idaho, tho very cold. Eberle & I saw Christmas come in at Marymount Hermitage, where we played music for the Christmas Eve midnight mass & I got to break in a brand new banjo! More on that later on, but now hope you enjoy these blues songs that the Christmas Train is bringing into the station.

LONG TRAIN BLUES: This song is by one of the unquestionably greatest blues guitarists & singers ever, tho his name may not be familiar to many. Robert Wilkins was born in 1896 & lived to be 91 years old. Wilkins was not the prototypical bluesman, haunted by demons of various descriptions. He was apparently abstemious in his habits even before he gave up secular music in 1930 & became an ordained minister. He did continue to play gospel music after this, & even changed the lyrics to one of his best known songs, “That’s No Way to Get Along,” renaming it “Prodigal Son”—the Rolling Stones later covered this, & the song also heavily influenced Led Zeppelin’s “Poor Tom.”

“Long Train Blues” is curiously upbeat in terms of tempo, & its bright melody belies the tale of a lover whose woman has left him on “the longest train she seen.” The second verse is a “floating lyric” that is similar to one found in Tommy Johnson’s “Bye Bye Blues” (a different song than the old standard of the same name:

“It's two bullyin' freight trains runnin' side by side
It's two bullyin' freight trains runnin' side by side
They done stole my rider and I guess they're satisfied”

Check out Wilkins’ guitar playing—some intricate fingerpicking mixed with interesting riffs. His guitar work is always first rate, tho it doesn’t have the pyrotechnic qualities of a Robert Johnson or Skip James. & by the way: check in on Wednesday’s final installment of The (Blues) Christmas Train for Wilkins performing one of the very greatest blues songs ever! Robert Wilkins: The Original Rolling Stone (Yazoo)



LOVE IN VAIN: Here’s another great blues tune that was later covered by the Rolling Stones, Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain.” As in “Long Train Blues,” again the lover watches his woman leave him on a train, tho Johnson’s song is starker than Wilkins’, both lyrically & melodically. In fact, “Love in Vain” showcases some of Robert Johnson’s songwriting strengths—his choice of details in the lyrics is superb, with the great verse about the train’s lights:

When the train, it left the station, with two lights on behind
Well, the blue light was my blues, and the red light was my mind

The song’s structure is based on Leroy Carr’s “In the Evenin' When the Sun Goes Down,” but just as Johnson makes Skip James or the Mississippi Sheiks musical material his own in songs like “Hellhound on My Trail” or “Come on in My Kitchen,” the musical style is unmistakably Robert Johnson. The song was autobiographical, & records his emotions at the end of a love affair with one Willie Mae Powell; in fact, we see Willie Mae, now elderly, listening to the song in the film The Search For Robert Johnson. As with all of Johnson’s recordings, this is essential listening for anyone with an interest in the blues. Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings (Sony)



MOON GOIN’ DOWN: We wrap up our Blues Christmas Train installment with the great Charlie Patton. Patton’s singing & playing are elemental—if the term “force of nature” could be used to describe a musician, it certainly fits him. It’s also impossible to overstate Patton’s influence as a renowned player in the area of the Dockery Plantation; he played with Son House & Willie Brown & many others, & was known to Robert Johnson & such later players as Howlin’ Wolf & John Lee Hooker.

“Moon Going Down” doesn’t create a narrative as much as a landscape—this can be said of a number of older blues tunes, with their use of “floating lyrics.” The train references in “Moon Going Down” don’t come up until the fourth verse: “Lord, I think I heard the Helena whistle.” Some have speculated that this may refer to a steamboat rather than a train; however, the next verse is a floating lyric: “Well, the smokestack is black & the bell it shines like gold.” As far as I know, the latter verse always refers to trains in other songs, which makes me think the “Helena whistle” also is a train reference. Helena, Mississippi is a town in the delta region; Robert Johnson also mentions it in “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom.”

Patton recorded this song in 1930 in Grafton, Wisconsin; Son House, Willie Brown & Louise Johnson accompanied Patton to Wisconsin & also made recordings at this time. Rory Block also does a powerful version of “Moon Going Down.” Charlie Patton: The Best of Charlie Patton (Yazoo); Rory Block: Best Blues & Originals (Rounder)

Top Pic:"American Flyer model of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's Royal Blue 4-6-2 "Pacific" steam locomotive" photographed by Wiki Media user JGHowes, who "allows anyone to use it for any purpose, provided that the copyright holder is properly attributed. Redistribution, derivative work, commercial use, and all other use is permitted."
Other pics thru Google Images

The (Blues) Christmas Train #4

Wow! The Blues Christmas Train is way behind time today, but it’s chugging into the station at last with three blues tunes for your listening pleasure.

In other news: I’m keeping my fingers crossed a bit on these items, but if all goes as planned there should be another Holiday Song tomorrow & another installment of The (Blues) Christmas Train on Christmas Day. The Holiday Song won’t be featuring the mandolin (as advertised earlier)—that simply didn’t come together, but it will be played on neither the guitar nor the banjo—so stop by tomorrow to check it out. Also, I understand that Platypuss-in-Boots has big plans this week—including a wedding!—so do swing by there to catch up on the adventures of the Big Bed Land gang whenever you need a break from the holiday festivities.

Hope you enjoy the songs!

HOBO BLUES: I tend to favor the old acoustic blues, but I also respect a lot of the blues players generally associated with the “electric” blues sound, & among these there’s no one better than John Lee Hooker. Hooker came from Clarksdale, Mississippi, from the area that fostered such greats as Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Willie Brown & many others; in fact Hooker saw Patton as an influence.

John Lee Hooker’s guitar style, whether electric or acoustic (as in the accompanying video) is always recognizable—lots of boogie lines on the bass strings, frequent drone notes, the frenetic fills at the end of lines, the urgent triplets. His baritone voice is also remarkable, both from sheer musicality & also in terms of emotional directness. In short, Hooker was among the very best blues artists.

“Hobo Blues” itself is a classic song, as great a song about life on the road as Hank Williams’ better known “Ramblin’ Man.” The first two lines sum up the freedom of this life & the cost of this freedom, in which a man has no attachments either to constrain or comfort him:

When I first start to hoboin’, hoboin’,
I took a freight train to be my friend, oh Lord

We see the singer’s mother accompany him to the freight train yard, praying for his safety; we hear that the next time he hobos, he wants to have his baby by his side, so the night’s won’t be so lonesome.

But enough from me—the song has a stark & compelling beauty that speaks for itself, so check it out. John Lee Hooker: Hobo Blues (Roots)



KASSIE JONES: Everyone knows the legend of Casey Jones, the famous engineer who died in a train wreck. However, some folks may not know that Casey Jones isn’t merely the stuff of folk tales; he was a real person, an engineer on the Illinois Central line, who died in a train wreck on April 30, 1900. As is so often the case in song & actuality, “many a man has lost his life just trying to make lost time,” & this was Jones’ undoing.

Casey Jones had completed his usual run north to Memphis in the evening of April 29th, when he was asked to double back because another engineer had called in sick. He took Engine 382 south to Canton, Mississippi, but he started 95 minutes behind schedule. Jones apparently was quite determined to get the train in on schedule, & so was “highballing” (running at excessive speeds) the whole way, despite the fact that it was a foggy night. Near Vaughn, MS, the passing tracks were filled with stopped freight trains, & so many cars were involved that some were on the main line. Engine 382 came around a long curve at about 75 miles an hour when Jones’ fireman Sim Webb called, “"Oh my Lord, there's something on the main line!” Jones ordered Webb to jump, & then blew the whistle & braked the train, slowing the vehicle from around 75 to about 35 at the moment of impact. Because of this, Jones was the only fatality in the wreck. Interestingly, the line Casey Jones was running is still in use as Amtrak's City of New Orleans line.

There have been a number of songs based on this event, from the well-known folk version popularized by Pete Seeger (the melody of which had been turned into a union song by Joe Hill) to the Grateful Dead’s eulogy of Neal Cassidy on their Workingman’s Dead album. One of the greatest versions of the tune is Furry Lewis’ “Kassie Jones,” which you can hear on The Anthology of American Folk Music (volume 1, Ballads). Lewis’ song doesn’t dwell too much on the wreck, but it’s a great tune with some wonderful guitar fingerpicking. Furry Lewis: Kassie Jones (Future Noise Music Ltd.)



LAST FAIR DEAL GONE DOWN: This is the first time Robert Johnson has appeared on The (Blues) Christmas Train, but it won’t be the last. “Last Fair Deal Gone Down” tells about working on the “Gulfport Island Road,” which is the Gulf & Ship Island Railroad. This line carried freight from the docks in Gulfport to the main Illinois Central line, & was in operation from 1850 to 1945, at which point it was absorbed by the Illinois Central Railroad.

Johnson’s guitar work on this tune has always amazed me—the great separation between the damped bass line & the slide work (not to mention the chime-like harmonics in the last verse), the hurtling turnarounds (a musical phrase that takes you from the end of one verse to the beginning of the next) all add great excitement to the accompaniment, & Johnson’s singing is always first-rate. One note: “the captain” is never a benign figure in old blues songs, as the term refers to a white supervisor or work crew overseer.

Sadly, Gulfport suffered severe damage from the 2006 Hurricane Katrina. Robert Johnson: King of the Delta Blues Singers, vol. 1 (Sony)

Pix from Top:
N Scale Model of the CSXT4346 locomotive: generously released into the public domain by Wiki Commons user William Grimes
Riding an oil car: from the Hobohemia site, which is well worth a visit
3-cent Casey Jones stamp: public domain image from Wikipedia
Railworkers: from The Life & Times of the Belmont Line

The (Blues) Christmas Train #3

The Blues Christmas Train has pulled into the station once again, right on time—let’s catch it!

FREIGHT TRAIN: You can’t have a list of blues train songs with including Elizabeth Cotten’s great song “Freight Train.” Perhaps it is stretching the definition of blues a bit—the song doesn’t fall into the standard 12-bar or 8-bar formats, & it isn’t built on a blues scale. No matter. It’s an iconic song by an extremely important artist.

Elizabeth Cotten was a musical prodigy; she played the banjo at seven & the guitar by age 11—we know she could play the guitar by that age, because that’s how old she was when she composed “Freight Train.”

The song isn’t about some imaginary train line either—tho it seems literal train lines have as much power to capture the imagination as imaginary ones would! Elizabeth Cotton grew up in Carrboro, North Carolina, a small town near the university town of Chapel Hill, & the Carrboro Branch line ran near her home. This short 10-mile line was founded in 1873 to serve a local iron mill. That venture failed, & the line has passed thru the ownership of a number of large railway companies, including the Southern Railway. The Carrboro line is still operating. It carries coal to the University of North Carolina’s Cogeneration Facility three times a week, & also transports other local freight.

If you’d like to read more about this marvelous guitar player, whose unique playing style was such an influence on folk guitar playing, you can read my earlier post about her in the Guitarists We Like series here. I should mention that Cotton’s style has been imitated but not really copied. She was left-handed & literally played the guitar upside-down & backwards, using her index finger to pluck the bass strings & her thumb to play the treble strings.

The video shows Ms Cotton on Pete Seeger’s old Rainbow Quest show. They play “Freight Train” as a duet, & she gives quite a detailed introduction. Elizabeth Cotten: Freight Train and Other North Carolina Folk Songs and Tunes (Smithsonian Folkways)




THE GONE DEAD TRAIN: Not very much is known about King Solomon Hill. He probably was born Joe Holmes in 1897, & took his later stage name from his address in Mississippi: King Solomon Hill Baptist Church. We do know that his playing was memorable & powerful, tho unfortunately he left behind only 8 tracks (a total of six songs, with two takes each of “Whoopee Blues” & “Down on Bended Knee”); we do know that the tracks were recorded for Paramount in Grafton, WI in 1932. It could be argued that “The Gone Dead Train” is the masterpiece among them.

Hill’s diction is difficult; he has a very thick Delta accent, & this combined with the condition of the recordings & his eerie falsetto make the lyrics a bit hard to understand. The song tells the story of a “death train”—a train on which hobos lost their lives, possibly from the cruelty of rail workers & possibly simply from the inherent danger of riding train hobo fashion. There were a few methods of doing this: perhaps the least dangerous was to ride in an empty boxcar, but there was always the danger of being locked in—& of course, it was an almost certain death sentence to try riding in a refrigerator car—a “reefer.” The other methods all involved some form of riding on the outside of the moving train. As I’ve mentioned earlier in this series, riding the blinds meant to ride on a train by riding on the front platform of a passenger car’s baggage car. There was also the practice of “riding the top”—laying down on the top of a moving car in such a way that you wouldn’t be thrown off at turns or by stops. Finally, the most dangerous method was to “ride the rods.” According to Jack London (who spent time as a hobo):

But to "ride the rods" requires nerve, and skill, and daring. And, by the way, there is but one rod, and it occurs on passenger coaches. Idiomatically, it becomes "rods," just as idiomatically we speak of "riding trains." .... A four-wheel truck is oblong in shape and is divided into halves by a cross-partition. What is true of one-half is true of the other half. Between this cross-partition and the axle is a small lateral rod, three to four feet in length, running parallel with both the partition and the axle. This is the rod. There is more often than not another rod, running longitudinally, the air-brake rod. These rods cross each other; but woe to the tyro who takes his seat on the brake-rod! It is not the rod, and the chance is large that the tyro's remains will worry and puzzle the county coroner.

This is a great blues song. You may be interested to know that King Solomon Hill used a cow bone as a slide! King Solomon Hill: Backwoods Blues (1926-1935) (Document)



GREEN RIVER BLUES: This great blues song is notewrothy on a number of counts. There’s been more than a little speculation that this may have been the song W.C. Handy heard at the Tutwiler, Mississippi train station in 1903 (tho if so, the version Handy heard was played slide style)—at any rate, Handy reported that the song he heard, which he described as "the weirdest music I had ever heard," contained the lyric “I'm goin' where the Southern cross the Dog” Ma Rainey also reported hearing a song with this lyric in 1904; in both cases, the experience contributed to a keen interest in the blues by two musicians who were crucial in the development of this music as a popular genre.

My thought (it's just a guess) is that it’s by no means certain the song they heard was “Green River Blues” per se—after all, this song is made up of “floating lyrics”—lyrics that recur in any number of songs, sometimes slightly altered to fit the context. In this case, the second, fourth & sixth verses all fit in that category, so it’s quite possible that the “Southern cross the Dog” verse does as well. Still, Charlie Patton was one of the early blues greats, & his repertoire no doubt contained very early material.

“I'm goin' where the Southern cross the Dog” is of course crucial to the song’s inclusion in our Christmas Train Songs list. The Southern Railway crossed the Yazoo & Mississippi Valley line in Moorhead, Mississippi. How did the rail line get the knickname of “the Dog,” tho?

The Yazoo & Mississippi Valley Railroad was originally the Yazoo Delta Railroad, & its cars were marked with the initials “Y.D.” According to W.C. Handy, locals began to call the train the “Yellow Dog” because of those initials. Charlie Patton: The Best of Charlie Patton (Yazoo)



Pix from Top
4-6-0 Locomotive with coal car: by Wikipedia user Jonnic1, who graciously released it into the Public Domain
Reading 4-4-4 locomotive with coal car: Public Domain image from Wiki Commons
Photo of a man riding the roads: From Google Images - I assume this is in the Public Domain
Old photo of the intersection of the Southern & The Yazoo Delta Railroads at Moorhead, MS: From earlyblues.com; I assume this photo also is in the Public Domain

The (Blues) Christmas Train #2

Eberle & I have been so astoundingly busy of late that our own model train is still in the planning stages—but fear not! The virtual Blues Christmas Train is continuing to run here on Robert Frost’s Banjo, making a stop at the blog station every Wednesday & on Christmas, & delivering three songs each day. Contrary to what I announced originally, there won't be train song post this Friday—I'd overlooked the fact that there are five Wednesdays this December.

Let’s see what’s at the station today—

BULL DOZE BLUES: If you only have time to listen to one of today’s three songs, I’d urge you to make it this one—although you may know this song as “Goin’ Up the Country” by Canned Heat, this is the original version by one Henry Thomas. Fans of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music will know one other song by Thomas—his “Fishin’ Blues,” which is the final song on the album (& which has been covered by Taj Mahal). Thomas was born in the 1870s, so he really came from a generation before the great early bluesmen such as Charlie Patton & Blind Lemon Jefferson. By the time Henry Thomas recorded in the late 1920s, he was over 50 years old; those sessions produced 23 tracks.

Thomas had a wonderfully bouncy guitar style & was an appealing singer; but what really sets him apart is his use of the quills, a form of pan pipe made from sugar cane reeds. The quills can be held in place with any device similar to a harmonica holder, & thus allows the player to accompany himself on guitar or banjo.

As far as trains go, “Bull Doze Blues” tells how the singer is going away “just as sure as that train leaves out of that Mobile yard.” In Thomas’ day, “that train” would probably refer to the M&O, the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. This train line is also referred to in Willie Brown’s song “The M&O Blues,” which for complicated reasons won’t be on our holiday train song list, but which you can hear on YouTube here; I also did a version on Robert Frost’s Banjo for the Monday Morning Blues series.

The M&O could have taken Thomas to Tennessee, but not directly to Memphis. For that he would have had to change to the Illinois Central line in northern Alabama. Interestingly, the Illinois Central merged with the M&O (which by then had become the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio) in 1972. Henry Thomas: Texas Worried Blues: Complete Recorded Works 1927-1929 (Yazoo)



CHICKASAW TRAIN BLUES: It’s an unfortunate fact that the world of early blues guitar was almost exclusively a “man’s world”—& it’s great that this has since been redressed to some extent with the careers of performers such as Rory Block, Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi & many others. But there was one woman guitar player in the early days of blues who had all the chops, & that was Memphis Minnie.

Born Liz Douglas in 1897, Memphis Minnie became an extremely popular performer from the 20s thru the 40s. Although her early sides such as “Chickasaw Train Blues” were recorded on acoustic guitar, she was one of the first to take up the electric guitar, & after her move north to Chicago in the 30s, she became one of the pioneers of what would become the Chicago blues sound. She really deserves to be much more widely known.

It took me a while to research the reference (at least the literal reference) to the “Chickasaw Train” in Memphis Minnie’s song. There was a train named the Chickasaw on the Illinois Central line. Of course, the train itself didn’t have the reputation of only letting men ride; but here the Chickasaw stands in for some seductress who pays women “no mind” while stealing their men. What exactly Memphis Minnie means by the Chickasaw’s attitude toward women is open to conjecture—it could simply be she has no concern for the heartbreak she’s causing other women; on the other hand, the line “I walk down the railroad track, that Chickasaw even wouldn't let me ride the blinds” suggests that there may be some sort of sexual rebuff.

In any case, it’s a great tune—Memphis Minnie’s singing is as good as her guitar playing—& like last week’s “Broke Down Engine,” another example of the train being used as a personification. Memphis Minnie: Hoodoo Lady (Snapper UK)



DEPOT BLUES: What would a list of blues songs be without Son House? I wanted to include his “I Want to Go Home on the Morning Train,” but there doesn’t seem to be a YouTube video for this. As a result, I’ve included “Depot Blues,” a song I’m less familiar with, & also a song he plays “Spanish style”—without a slide; quite unusual for House.

“Depot Blues” tells a familiar story: the train has taken the singer’s woman away, & what’s more, she isn’t “comin' back no more.” House often used so-called floating lyrics—such as the “blues is a worried old heart disease” or “I wish I had me a heaven of my own”; he also uses a lyric about hanging crepe on a door in several songs. Usually, he is hanging crepe on his woman’s door, to symbolize that the feelings between them have died—in this case, the woman has hung crepe on his door to let him know that her feelings for him have grown cold.

“Depot Blues” is an enjoyable track, tho not very representative of Son House’s usual playing style—not only is he playing with no slide on his left hand, but his fingerpicking is more delicate than his typical vigorously strummed attack. His singing is also a bit subdued on this one—usually when House sings, you can understand another of his favorite floating lyrics in an almost visceral way: “the blues is a lowdown aching chill.”
Son House: Delta Blues (Snapper UK)


Pix from Top:
A Bachmann 2-6-6-2 locomotive: (2-6-6-2 refers to the wheel arrangement - & if you read last week's post you know that the 6's are driving wheels) by Wikipedia user Freddie10538, who generously released it to the Public Domain
A 1903 Poor's Map of the M&O Railroad: Public Domain image from Wikipedia
Illinois Central Diesel Locomotive: by Wiki Commons userWisekwai under a GNU Free Documentation License
Hattiesburg Union Station in the early 1900s: Public Domain image from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History

The (Blues) Christmas Train #1

The Yuletide season is upon us, & what better way to celebrate it musically than with blues songs about trains! Now before you think this is just a crackpot idea, consider: what puts you in mind of Christmas morning more than a train set circling the tree? In fact, one of the earliest toys I remember was an HO train set that my father assembled on a sheet of plywood. I loved to watch the train go around its long loop.

Perhaps becuase of this memory, I've harbored a wish for a model train for years, but I never acted on it until a couple of weeks ago when we were visiting our dear friend & ex-Alice in Wonder Band singer Deadre Chase in her fabric shop in McCall. In addition to her beautiful hand-painted fabrics, she always has some used knick-knacks on hand, & that week, she had an N-scale model train set for a price that couldn’t be beat. As a result, I am now the proud owner of said set as an early Christmas present (Eberle also got an early present that one or both of us will write about soon).

So this month’s song series combines two loves: blues music & railroads! I’ll be going into a bit more depth on the songs, especially in terms of railroad lore suggested by the lyrics, so I’ll only write up three songs per post. The posts will come each Wednesday, as well as Friday the 11th & Christmas morning!

& there’s a bonus this week—I’ll be writing about Tommy Johnson’s “Cool Drink of Water,” on Just a Song—the post should be up by mid morning here in western US time. It's not only about trains; it’s one of the most haunting blues songs I know. But in the meantime, hope you enjoy these.

B & O BLUES: The B&O is the Baltimore & Ohio, one of the earliest U.S. lines, with the first section opening in 1830. It’s also represented in the game Monopoly (between Illinois & Atlantic Avenues), despite the fact that the B&O didn’t service Atlantic City. In fact the railroad ran from New York to St Louis, tho its headquarters were in Baltimore; the B&O also had branch lines that serviced Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland & Chicago. How a song about this rail line became so associated with Georgia blues singers is anyone’s guess; some attribute the song’s composition to the great Blind Willie McTell, who recorded it during a 1933 session in New York City; another Georgia bluesman, Buddy Moss, also recorded it in 1933; that’s the version in the accompanying video. Interstingly, there’s another song called “The B&O Blues” by yet another Georgia blues musician, Bumble Bee Slim, but this has a different melody & different lyrics. Blind Willie McTell: The Best of Blind Willie McTell (Yazoo); Buddy Moss: Complete Recordings, Vol. 2: 1933-1934 (Document)



BAD LUCK BLUES: Blind Lemon Jefferson catalogs a host of woes in “Bad Luck Blues”—he lost his money at cards, his “some joker” stole off with his “long-haired gal,” & he hasn’t seen his “sugar in three long weeks.” In the midst of this there are a couple of verses in which Blind Lemon sings about catching the Santa Fe (pronounced “Fee,” as is often the case in traditional music), while his “sugar” will catch the Katy. Of course, these are both train lines. The Santa Fe, also known as the Atcheson, Topeka & the Santa Fe (in yet another song) is another old line, with its charter dating to 1859. From the Texas shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the train worked its way up across Oklahoma & Kansas & into Colorado. The Katy is the standard slang for the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad, in the past often referred to as the K-T, & by extension, as the Katy. This train line also comes up in the great Yank Rachell song, “She Caught the Katy (& Left Me a Mule to Ride”), popularized by both Taj Mahal & the Blues Brothers. The Katy also began its ride northward from Texas’ Gulf Coast, but it turned eastward, travelling thru eastern Oklahoma & Kansas, & on to Missouri. Sounds like Blind Lemon & his sugar are going in different directions! Blind Lemon Jefferson: Blind Lemon Jefferson (Milestone)



BROKE DOWN ENGINE: We hear about driving wheels in a number of traditional songs—specifically, about locomotives that have no driving wheel. But what is the train engines driving wheel? Actually, it’s always plural, of course, since you have to have an even number of wheels with two per axle. The driving wheels are the large wheels you see on a locomotive—on old passenger trains the driving wheels could be up to 100 inches in diameter, with driving wheels on freight trains topping off at around 60 inches in diameter. According to the pithy Wikipedia definition:

On a steam locomotive, a driving wheel is a powered wheel which is driven by the locomotive's pistons (or turbine, in the case of a steam turbine locomotive)….On Diesel and Electric locomotives the driving wheels may be directly driven by the traction motors.

The driving wheels are connected to the pistons by a series of roads, tho the diesel & electric locomotives often have separate motors for each driving wheel. Let’s put it this way: if the locomotive has a lost or broken driving wheel, it’s not going anywhere—& in Blind Willie’s case, to add insult to injury, he “ain't got no whistle or bell.” Blind Willie McTell: The Best of Blind Willie McTell (Yazoo)


Pix from Top
N Scale Santa Fe locomotive: posted to Wiki Commons by Winius under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Columbian in 1949: Public Domain photo from Wiki Commons
A Katy locomotive: Posted to Wiki Commons by Sean Lamb under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license
Driving Wheels from a 4-6-2 locomotive: Public Domain image from Wikipedia