“Riding on the city of New Orleans Illinois Central, Monday morning rail Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders Three conductors, twenty-five sacks of mail” – City of New Orleans (Steve Goodman) © Sony/ATV Music The story goes that in 1970 Arlo Guthrie was doing five shows a night at the Quiet Knight bar in Chicago …
“Train, train, comin’ down, down the line Train, train, comin’ down, down the line Well, it’s bringin’ my baby ’cause she’s mine, all mine” – Mystery Train (Herman Parker Jr. / Sam Phillips) © Sony/ATV Music Born on his parents’ 200-acre farm near Florence, Alabama, the youngest of eight children, Sam Phillips was no stranger …
“Folsom Prison Blues”, is surely one of the best known train songs of the modern era. If not the most popular song in singer Johnny Cash’s catalog, it certainly ranks in the top five.
. . . What I didn’t know until just a few years ago, is that this song that has become so identifiable with its author, really isn’t Johnny’s song at all.
Born on September 8, 1897, in Meridian, Mississippi, James Charles Rodgers has become known as “The Father of Country Music”.