Johnny Cash and THE ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL, rolling down the Seaboard Linel.
“The Ballad of the FRISCO” and “Jerry Go and IleThat Car.”
The story of “The Wreck of the Old 97” has some interesting twists and turns. The book “Scalded to Death by the Steam” by Katie Letcher Kyle goes into some detail on it. For example, a lot of people think the engine was no. 97, but it was train no. 97, a fast mail train. (The engine was 1102, a 4-6-0.) “Old” was a term of familiarity, like “good old Charlie Brown”, the train had only been running a few years at the time the wreck happened.
The melody was borrowed from the 1860’s shipwreck song “The Ship That Never Return’d”, which had been borrowed or parodied many times in the intervening years. Melodies often migrated from song to song back then - “The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane”, referencing slave shacks in the Old South, then “My Little Old Sod Shanty on my Claim” about an Old West homesteader, to “The Little Red Caboose Behind the Train”.
No one really knows who wrote the lyrics - remember, publishing a song doesn’t mean you wrote it!! Many performers picked up folk songs ‘up in the hills’ and recorded / published them as their own. One version is that a local man wrote the lyrics, perhaps as a poem more than a song. (The wreck happened on a Sunday afternoon, and many people saw it happen. Rescuers were on the scene quickly, and several photographs of the wreck taken soon after were published nationally.)
Henry Whittier from rural Virginia was the first person to record it after singing it regularly in his act for years. Some believe he inspired others to sing and record it, because his version was so bad that almost anyone could have done better. In any case, the song wasn’t recorded until 20 years after the wreck, and most likely it is the work of several people, and could include lines from other songs woven into it.
Vernon Dahlhart’s version was the one that made the song famous, partly because it was on the flip side of "The Prisoner’s Song&q
Anyway…I’ve always liked “I’m Movin’ On” written and recorded by Hank Snow, but if I had to pick one it would be former L&N call boy Roy Acuff and “The Wabash Cannonball”. Here’s two versions 50 years apart (note that Pete “Bashful Brother Oswald” Kirby is playing dobro in both clips!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-gwQkJOphI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1i9DXaEYWI
Interestingly, Roy Acuff and his band, the Crazy Tennesseans, couldn’t get on the Grand Ol’ Opry at first. Judge Hay (who introduces him in the 1940 clip) thought they were “too modern” for the show. When Judge Hay was out with an extended illness, he was replaced by announcer David Stone, and it was Stone who first introduced Acuff on the show. Later Stone moved to the Twin Cities and hosted a local country music show called “The Sunset Valley Barn Dance”, and later an early morning tv show with farm news and music videos (that he and his staff created) that I watched in the sixties.
As to the “Wreck of the Old 97,” There is a division point named which means absolutely nothing to many people nowadays. I have heard, “You must get her into Atlanta on time” sung by someone who had no idea that Spencer, North Carolina (just above Salisbury) was as far as that engineer could run.
You’d have to be a railfan to know that Spencer NC was a division point on the old Southern Railway. Nowadays it’s the home to the North Carolina Transportation Museum.
Then again, us railfans know everything, don’t we?
Good song, Robert Willison! No arugments from me with this one as I have always enjoyed Peter, Paul and Mary!
Here’s one on my personal favorites… Dusty Boxcar Wall. It kind of haunts me everytime I hear it…[*-)]
The original version of The Wreck of Old 97 included the lines “This is not 38; but it’s Old 97; You must get her into Spencer on time.” However, it appears that early recording artists learned the song by ear, and not from written lyrics. They seem to have misheard the lyric as “into Center on time”, and repeated the incorrect version on early recordings. A similar problem crops up with “It’s a mighty rough road from Lynchburg to Danville and a line on a three mile grade.” I’ve heard Lynchburg’s revered old name butchered into “Lanksbury” and several other ungraceful things. Maybe the worst of all is “…when he lost his air brakes; see what a jump he made.” More than one singer would have us believe “he lost his average.” Who knows what that is supposed to mean?
Tom
In Henry Whitter’s version, which Vernon Dalhart said he misunderstood, “air brakes” sounds to me like “ab bricks,” and probably close enough to “average” to Dalhart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b8fUJT_ZNA
https://casetext.com/case/victor-talking-machine-co-v-george
Anyone else remember: I’ve Been Working on the Railroad very popular with kids when I was young:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkQQbRqLoCI
Rembering it prompted me to look up background info on the song:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I've_Been_Working_on_the_Railroad
Wanswheel:
That’s an interesting variation of “97”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the engineer called Pete before. His actual name was Joseph A. Broady, but he went by the nickname Steve, for reasons evidently lost to history.
Tom
Buddy Get On Down The Line as recorded by the Kingston Trio.
there is cd I have called Lonesome Whistle. It is bluegrass train songs. They are as follows:
wabash cannonball
john henry
city of new orleans
orange blossom special
train 45
wreck of the old 97
reuben’s train
life’s railway to heaven
glendale train
freight train
fireball mail
kansas city railroad blues
nine pound hammer
last train home
also like Alabama’s song “Ride the Train”
Joe, funny you should conclude your list with “Last Train Home.” I don’t know whether you had Pat Metheny’s version from 1987 in mind, but it’s VERY much on my mind lately, what with Winterail’s first gig in Corvallis, Oregon, now just under two months away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq5oqY3-vhg
My memory on this is a bit fuzzy, but I believe it was Ted Benson who first turned Railfan & Railroad editor Jim Boyd onto this song. Or perhaps Boyd simply caught it on the radio or MTV/VH1. Anyway, it soon became a prominent piece of background music for one of Boyd’s more memorable multimedia slide shows.
Back then, after repeated viewings of that show at more venues than I could keep track of, the song began to wear a little thin on me, conjuring up images of ridiculously long road trips, long nights spent in the R&R offices during deadline week (because some folks were terrible procrastinators), late and tiresome nights at some rail group’s chapter meeting, and so on.
But now, almost 30 years later, Metheny’s “Last Train Home” is a real gem to my ears, and my heart. Not just because it’s a musical masterpiece that I can finally appreciate in my older age, but because it brings back memories that I now cherish, whether it was those railfanning trips with Boyd and fellow R&R associate editor Mike Del Vecchio, or the visits to places from the East Coast to California where that Boyd slide show got shown, and I in turn got to meet up with countless folks whose photography and friendship still inspires me to this day.
P.S. In a nod to Winterail organizer and fellow prog rock follower Vic Neves, I submit the following piece by former Genesis guitarist and outspoken railway fan (especially when it involves steam) Steve Hackett.
Steve Brodie was the first man to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge (as a stunt) and survive, it happened in 1886. After that any man with the last name of Brodie, or a variation thereof, usually wound up with the nickname “Steve.”
That lasted for years, along with the saying you don’t hear anymore “Take a Brodie,” usually meaning a bad fall or a slip.
Good old Merle is gone.
