Train Music!

[christopher3393]

8 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

Blues is limited in its expressive means to two or three themes (as trains, for example), manic-depressive transitions between irrepressible longing and suspicious overexcitement, and a scarce musical arsenal. 

😊

Some people called it devil music. Of course they called jazz devil music for some of the same and some different reasons. As to its limits?

Blues is capacious. Lots of room inside. Topically it covers travel by multiple means, painful aspects of relationships (unfaithfulness, unrequited love, loss, loneliness), sexual longings , prowess, and flirtation, natural disasters (flooding), meager rewards for work, poverty, social dislocation, hypocrisy (including preachers), escape into euphoria with drugs and drink and the resultant troubles that follow, social inequity, racial prejudice, defeating or even killing adversaries, reversals of fortune and frustrated expectations, the inescapable immanence of violence and death, ignominy, on and on and on...

 

7 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

Some old healthy rock:

 

https://youtu.be/rNJ8MOAj4rY

 

 OK, so what is this? A jazz-rock showpiece with room to stretch out and show your chops, with a kind of white guy blues flavor, performed at a ski resort in Idaho for rich white folk. 😊

 

It starts off sounding like 2:19 Blues (Mamie's Blues), which goes like this:

 

Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton :: Mamie's Blues (Two Nineteen)

 

 

 

or like this (Louis Armstrong et. al.)

 

 

...or even like this:

 

Leon Redbone LIVE- 2:19 Blues (Mamie's Blues)

 

 

 

Even folkie Dave Von Ronk has a nice version. None of them sound like BS&T's cover to me.

 

Then David Clayton-Thomas seems to be quoting the blues standard "Trouble in MInd", which goes like this:

 

Trouble in Mind · Bertha "Chippie" Hill w/ songwriter Richard Johnson on piano and Louis Armstrong on trumpet.

 

 

Trouble in Mind - Dinah Washington

 

 

Trouble In Mind (Live In New York/1965) · Nina Simone 

 

 

and my personal favorite:

 

Lightnin Hopkins ~ Trouble in mind  

 

 

 

 

 

or even like this:

 

Trouble In Mind · Johnny Cash

 

 

or this!

 

 Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band cover of Richard M. Jones' "Trouble In Mind."

 

 

 

What they all have in common is that they respect the feel of the song, unlike BS&T.

 

Now the key lyric that makes this a train song is this and only this:

 

I'm gonna lay my head on some lonesome railroad line

and let that 2:19 special ease my troubled mind.

 

but Clayton Thomas doesn't include that. And then he goes on to throw some other random blues lyrics together, ending with a crude paraphrase of Mercy Dee Walton's "One Room Country Shack", a solid country blues song covered well by the likes of Buddy Guy ( a tradmark song for him), John Lee Hooker, and Paul Butterfield (a white guy from Chicago who understood the blues). They all kept it slow and mournful. They respected the song.

 

So in my opinion, BS&T's number is a showy, frivolous co-opting of blues, so that the players can strut their stuff. And it's not a train song except in a token way.

 

Sorry, Another Spin. I think we're a world apart on this. But, let the train song play on!

 

Everybody Loves a Train · Los Lobos  

 

 

 

 

[christopher3393]

KiNK - Express

 

 

[christopher3393]

Johnny Mercer, The Pied Pipers - On the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe

 

 

 

[christopher3393]

Louis Jordan - Choo choo ch'boogie

 

 

 

[christopher3393]

Down By The Station (Early In The Morning) - Tommy Dorsey

 

 

Down by the Station/ I've Been Workin' on the Railroad - Johnny Cash

 

[christopher3393]

On 4/4/2020 at 3:42 PM, sphinxsix said:

 

 

 

 

Train 45 · The New Lost City Ramblers

 

 

 

Foghorn Stringband - Reuben's Train

 

 

 

[christopher3393]

1 hour ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

Even more, blues has a huge advantage over other music styles that have been mentioned in your long message, such as jazz. The advantage is that after you have heard two or three blues songs, you don't have to try to hear any more, there will be the same repetitive thing - both in terms of music and lyrics 🙂 

 

🙄

 

 

 

 

...and my favorite:

 

 

I'm out.

[christopher3393]

Recorded Circa 1958...Let's hear from yodeling Texas Kitty Prins... from Groningen NL!

 

Texas Kitty - The Mule Train Yodel Blues [ed. mule train has not yet a certified "train" by OP: proceed with caution.]

 

 

Texas Kitty - De spooktrein [certfied kosher]

 

 

[christopher3393]

speaking of dead things:

 

Garcia on the Festival Express:
"That was the best time I've had in rock and roll. It was our train, it was the musicians' train. There were no straight people. There wasn't any show biz bullshit. There weren't any fans, there were nothing but musicians on the train. So immediately we started pulling furniture out of the two club cars and putting amplifiers and drums in. Jam sessions all the way across Canada, man. Played music all the way across Canada, and we juiced. Everybody juiced because nobody brought dope into Canada, everybody was chickenshit. [It lasted] about five days, six days maybe, but it was really fucking fun. Everybody got to be such good friends in that little world. It was like a musicians' convention with no public allowed... You name it, we did it. We had every conceivable kind of configuration that you could imagine, man. We had singers, lots of singers on the train, all kinds of trips. The most incredible combination of voices, like Delaney and Bonnie and Janis with Buddy Guy singing together, or Bonnie and Buddy Guy, or... Oh hey, man, there was one jam session with Ian and Sylvia and the Great Speckled Bird, me and Weir from our band, Rick Danko, Delaney and Bonnie and Eric Andersen... They got it all down on film. It'll really be far out." (from the Jazz&Pop interview, Feb '71)

 

...and...

 

Lesh wrote in his book:
"We received an offer to play three days of a 'Trips Festival' in Vancouver, British Columbia. It seemed like a good opportunity to bring our music to a new audience... Since we couldn't afford to fly, the band took the train, leaving Oakland one morning and arriving the next day, while the gear drove up in a truck. While on the train, we took smoke breaks in the only place where we could have a little privacy: the open vestibule between the cars. At one point, we were standing out there entranced by the rhythm of the wheels clickety-clacking over the welds in the rails; Billy and I looked at each other and just knew - we simultaneously burst out, 'We can play this!' This later turned into Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)... Based on the train rhythm, it had only one chord and was played at blistering tempo...
At the next moment, the train lurched, and Jerry, who was standing near the exit, lost his footing and started to fall! Outward! Quick as a mongoose, Bobby reached out and grabbed his shirt, pulling him back into the car just as another train roared past in the opposite direction at a closing speed of what seemed like 200 miles per hour. Whew!"

 

Let's throw CAUTION to the wind!

 

Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks) (1968 Mix) (2017 Remaster) · Grateful Dead   Anthem of the Sun [warning: may induce flashbacks]

 

 

 

[christopher3393]

Red Army Choir: Echelon's Song 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_Song

 

 

[christopher3393]

2 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

Of course, it wasn't an attempt at moderation, I don't need and want it. It's just a reminder to those who can't find anything really interesting on the subject, and posts all kinds of yodels and so instead of topic. 😎

 

 You have complained to the conductor about obscure music, blues, yodeling, and obvious train songs. All that you have complained about is on topic. You just don't like it. If we all did this, what would we have?

 

 

...and that would derail quickly.

 

 If you are unhappy with the ride or the other passengers, why not deboard at the next stop?

 

I'm Moving On by Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash

 

 

Emmylou Harris - I'm Movin' On

 

 

 

 

 

 

[christopher3393]

2 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Nobody wants to read two adults bicker back and forth. Enough of the nonsense. We all have bigger fish to fry and have limited mental capacity for such nonsense. People come here to have fun and enjoy this wonderful hobby.

 

You've got it wrong. Read the thread.

[christopher3393]

WhenThe Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam'

 

[christopher3393]

On 4/8/2020 at 7:57 AM, christopher3393 said:

 

Duke Ellington - Deep South Suite, Pt. 4 - Happy Go Lucky Local (1946)

 

 

Nice cover:

 

Happy Go Lucky Local: Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis

 

[christopher3393]

Amtrak Blues - Alberta Hunter

 

 

 

[christopher3393]

Talkin' 'bout "Ballin' the Jack" 

 

a popular song from 1913, it introduced a popular dance of the same name with "Folks in Georgia's 'bout to go insane." It became a ragtime, pop, and trad jazz standard, and has been recorded hundreds of times (!!!!) by many prominent artists.

 

 

"Around the same time the song came out, the expression "ballin' the jack" was used by railroad workers to mean "going at full speed." 'The 'Jack' was the slang name for a railroad locomotive, and balling meant going at high speed, itself derived from the ball type of railroad signal in which a high ball meant a clear line."

 

https://www.liveabout.com/balling-the-jack-404534

 

https://www.americanbluesscene.com/the-language-blues-balling-the-jack/

 

Ballin' The Jack - Played by Prince's Band - 1914 Columbia Grand Prize Record

 

 

Chicago Footwarmers - Balling The Jack 1927 - Jazz

 

 

Ballin the jack -Salty Dog Four (1930)

 

 

 

Jelly Roll Morton & The Red Hot Peppers » Ballin' the Jack (1939)

 

 

 

Judy Garland & Gene Kelly - Ballin' the Jack from For Me and My Gal (MGM, 1942)

 

 

 

Ballin' the Jack · The Chordettes (1950)

 

 

 

Ballin' The Jack · Sidney Bechet (1951)

 

 

 

Osmond Brothers - Ballin' the Jack (1963) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

Pearl Bailey - Ballin' the jack (1957)

 

 

Ballin' the Jack [Haunted Honeymoon (1986)] -Glida Radner Dom Deluise Gene Wilder

 

 

[christopher3393]

Gospel Train · African Head Charge

 

 

 

[christopher3393]

Honky Tonk Train Blues · Meade "Lux" Lewis 

 

 

[christopher3393]

Pete Johnson & Albert Ammons - Sixth Avenue Express

 

 

[christopher3393]

"So freight train blow your whistle
Take me far on down the track
I'm going away, I'm leaving today
I'm going but I ain't coming back"

 

Bill Browning Dark Hollow

 

 

[christopher3393]

DARK HOLLOW, RALPH STANLEY & LARRY SPARKS

 

 

[christopher3393]

Muleskinner w/Clarence White - Dark Hollow

 

 

[christopher3393]

Grateful Dead- Dark Hollow (Acoustic)- 10/26/1980

 

 

[christopher3393]

 

[christopher3393]

"Funiculì, Funiculà" is a Neapolitan song composed in 1880 to commemorate the opening of the first funicular railway on Mount Vesuvius.

 

 

Let's go from here below up to the mountain,

A step away! A step away!

You can see France, Procida, and Spain,

And I see you! And I see you!

You rise, pulled by a cable, quick as a wink,

Into the sky! Into the sky!

We'll rise up like a whirlwind all of a sudden...

 

The car has climbed up high, see, climbed up high now,

Right to the top! Right to the top!

It went, and turned around, and came back down,

And now it's stopped! And now it's stopped!

 

ANDREA BOCELLI  FUNICULI FUNICULA