I just dug out a handful of CD’s to take to my model railroad room and noticed that 2 of the CD’s had links to railroads. The CD’s in question are
Bob Seger his Greatest Hits album where he is standing on the rr tracks and
Chis Isaak San Francisco Days which has a picture of ATSF Stockton depot on the rear cover
so does anyone else have CD’s or Vinyl (that’s the big round black plastic ones for those who are not old enough to remember them) that has a railroad connection on them?
I have a huge stack of wax… well in boxes anyway, been about 10 years since I pulled them out, might be a nice winter project, since I forgot what I have.
Back in the 70s jazz saxman Gerry Mullligan released an album with a number of railroad titled instrumentals called The Age of Steam.
One of the tracks is titled K-4 Pacific!
George
I am a classical music buff, so I don’t hear many songs with railroad lyrics - but there are two works from the Classical Pops repertoire that fit the bill:
Interestingly, radio announcers almost always title the latter, “Pacific two thirty one.” Typically technologically challenged media types, they don’t realize that the numerics are the axle arrangement, not the road number.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Some songs come to mind:
Long Train Runnin’ - Doobie Brothers
Train Kept a Rollin’ - Aerosmith
That’s all I can think of off the top of my head. I know there’s more, I just can’t think of them right now.
Well, I’m a classic rock guy mainly. One song, I know pretty well.
Crazy train.
I have an old Bobby Vinton LP with him standing next to an old steamer with the big stack and cowcatcher, looks like the background scenery is mostly desert type scene, probably taken somewhere in southern California.Not long ago, I read somewhere that this particular steam engine was used in a lot of TV westerns and movies, I believe it is the same steam engine used in the making of the Tv series"The Wild Wild West".
I also have an old “Boxcar Willie” casstte tape with him standing next to steam engine.He did a lot of train songs.
I also have the sound effects CD from Nickel Plate 765 that was put out by the local railroad Historical Society as a fund raiser.
You can get it at www.765.org also an interesting story about NP 765 on their website.
If you’re looking for railroad songs/recordings, go looking in Country & Western / Hillbilly / Blue Grass. Some of the earlier (1920’s) railroad recordings was done by Jimmy Rodgers “The Singing Breakman”. For a number of years he had been a breakman on one of the southern roads, off the top of my head, I don’t remember which. But if your interested, thats the place to start. John T.
I live and work in Nashville, TN now and I have shot numerous music videos that involve trains or tracks for country music artists. It suprises me how many people just want the steam engines though for the videos and how many still write trains into their songs.
Josh Turner for instance, the song that really launched him was Long Black Train. Shot at the Tennessee Valley Railroad.
I’ve got a recording of “The Wreck of the Old 97” on 78! Got it from my mother-in-law.
George
Phil Manzanera’s LP cover for “Diamond Head” was I believe a RR publicity shot of a Union Pacific passenger train lead by E units under a cliff.
The Doobie Brothers box set cover design is of a locomotive.
Rod Stewart had an album out in the '80s where he is sitting under a freight car, next to the trucks. (nice railroad safety practices there, Hot Rod…)
Mike Post’s “Railhead Overture” cover is artwork of a rail line heading toward the horizon.
On the back of a Lynyrd Skynyrd hits CD (there’s so many of these now, I don’t remember the title of it) the band is photographed sitting on a railroad trestle near their practice site. (they learned safe railroad practices from Rod the Mod)…and on the front of their debut album “pronounced leh-nerd skin-nerd” it’s been my belief that they are photographed near a small town depot.
Think it was John Deere…not sure now…but somewhere I have a collection of railroad songs on an album put out by a farm implement manufacturer that used a CB&Q train to promote that years’s new line. They had the new tractors on flat cars being pulled by a Burlington GP on the cover.
There was a collection of soul music put out by the Soul Train TV show where the album cover featured a caricature of a steam locomotive on a track.
There must be hundreds of other examples, but those are the ones off the top of my head.
I just remembered that Johnny Cash recorded “The Orange Blossom Special” , anyone remember this song? I think “Orange Blossom Special” was on the album he recorded while playing for inmates at Folsom Prison. Boxcar Willie sang “The Wabash Cannonball” and the" Legend of Casey Jones".
The Bobby Vinton LP I have doesn’t have any train songs, but the album cover was photographed by an old train.
Merle Haggard has a great album called My Love Affair With Trains…Its all train songs with train sounds and merle talking about trains between cuts…The album cover has pictures of Merle’s layout…It cme out back in the mid 70’s…And who could forget Roy Acuff’s Wabash Cannonball…Cox 47
Box Car Willy. He has his own music/train museum.
Let’s see…Arlo Guthrie, City of New Orleans…Many different artists…Midnight Special…and, if you like soft jazz, Last Train Home by The Pat Metheny Group. No lyrics but a steam engine whistle at the end and one of the most haunting songs you’ll ever hear.
GREAT SONG!!!
When I was stationed on a Nike Hercules missile base in Korea in 1973, we had a juke box in the base club, (not much more than a very small bar, and a pool table, and a jukebox, between myself, and a buddy and a Lieutenant we worked with, the three of us just about wore that record out!!!
One of my favorites!
Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Gordon Lightfoot.
David B
Crazy Train? Classic? oh God I must be getting old…[:D]
The Grateful Dead - Casey Jones, early 1970’s
Josh Turner - Long Black Train, 2003
Just to add another one, Lee Hazlewood - Trouble is a Lonesome Town it didn’t click with me at first as the UK cover is very different to the US version and I just bought a copy from the US which has him sitting by the tracks, plus the whole CD has references throughout to railroading.
Shaun