Steel Rails CD
The rich history of railroad lore has provided the inspiration for hundreds of great American folk, country and bluegrass songs. Tributes to fast trains, heroes, outlaws, hoboes and disasters still capture our imaginations. Modern songwriters often portray the train as a symbol of freedom, as a means of escape from one's troubles, as the source of lost or returning love, or as a spiritual metaphor. Nostalgic songs about the age of steam reflect...
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Mystery Train CD
Real railroads haul passengers, freight, and mail. The trains of our music and literature also carry symbols: they can represent freedom and wanderlust, eros, machismo, escape, work, the ultimate journey that marks life's end, or nostalgia for a bygone age. This collection of songs about trains and railroads offers some of each of these, from the turn-of-the-century tale of Casey Jones to the "disappearing railroad blues" of the...
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Night Train CD
In the 100 year period that began in 1830, the steam locomotive was the prime industrial force that shaped our landscape. The railroad's impact on American music has been of equal significance, providing themes, metphors, and images that richly invest song after song with color and meaning. In the African-American tradition, the rhythms of the railroad - the chug chug of the steam engine, the clickety-clack of...
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Bluegrass Express CD
From the very dawn of country music in 1923, and from the first successful bluegrass in 1940, there's always been a special connection between high-balling trains roaring through the night and a bluegrass band slicing through the smoke of a Cincinnati bar like a white-hot laser. Welcome to our look at the magic and special relationship between bluegrass and trains. For years, musicians have...
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Raised By the Railroad Line CD
The America we know today probably owes more to railroads for its growth than it does to any other single development. We truly were "raised by the railroad line." Railroads made cities and towns possible and previously inaccessible areas by providing new and efficient means of obtaining goods and supplies. It was the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 that effectively removed the geographic hurdles...
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Johnny Cash: All Aboard the Blue Train
Riding the rails of America was a long-time lyrical passion for Johnny Cash. He wrote at least a dozen train songs including Hey, Porter!, the B-side of his first Sun Records single. He also recorded a couple of dozen more in the public domain and by other songwriters including Casey Jones heard on Mystery Train. In the liner notes to that compilation, Norm Cohen states that "Johnny Cash has established his credentials as far as...
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Johnny Cash: Ridin' the Rails,
The Great American Train Story DVD
There's nothing that stirs my imagination like the sound of a steam locomotive--that lonesome whistle cutting through the night and that column of black smoke and steam throwing shadows across the land. When I was a boy the trains ran past my house and they carried with them the promise that somewhere down the track anything would be possible. (Johnny Cash) Originally aired on television in 1974, this video is a nostalgic look at the history of the American railroad as told and sung by the legendary Johnny Cash. You'll ride the...
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