Page 54 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2021

When the train, it left the station, with two lights on behind
When the train, it left the station, with two lights on behind
Well, the blue light was my blues, and the red light was my mind
All my love’s in vain
- “Love in Vain,” Robert Johnson, 1937
“Midnight Special” was the name of a Southern Pacific’s
Golden Gate Limited train that left Houston at midnight,
heading west. The train ran past the Imperial State Prison
Farm in Sugar Land, TX, and the train’s light became a symbol
of freedom for the inmates. Huddie William Ledbetter, better
known as “Lead Belly,” recorded his version of the song for
Alan Lomax while imprisoned there.
Let the Midnight Special shine her light on me
Let the Midnight Special shine her ever-loving light on me
Inspired by the sound of the trains rolling in on the tracks
near her home in North Carolina, a teenage Elizabeth Cotten
was the original composer of “Freight Train” around 1912.
Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Please don’t tell what train I’m on
They won’t know what route I’m going
“Trains took on symbolic meanings that had been attached
to other forms of transportation in the past. The trains had
associations with romance and could be about reunion and
separation just as it had for ships and carriages,” wrote
Stephanie Hall in her blog, The Folklore and Folksongs of
4
Where the Southern Crosses the Dog in Moorhead, MS. This railway junction Trains in America, Pt II.
appeared in the lyric of W.C. Handy's 1914 composition, “Yellow Dog Blues." The fascination continues to this day. The Delta Cultural
Photo by Mark Anderson iv Center, home to King Biscuit Time, the longest running blues
It’s been noted that W. C. Handy, “The Father of the Blues,” coined radio broadcast in the world, is comprised of a Visitors Center
the term “blues” in 1903 after encountering a musician at a train in Helena, AR, and the restored 1912 Missouri-Pacific train
station in Tutwiler, MS, who was playing a mournful, “weird” depot just one block away. There are contemporary songs
sound on his guitar and was singing a similar line. about the “pull” of the train, and countless CD covers and
The Mississippi Blues Commission placed a historic marker videos featuring artists near and on train tracks.
You can even find some unique blues music experiences
at the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad (Y&MV) depot on trains available to the public. In January 2020, The Blues
site in Rosedale, MS, designating it as a site on the Mississippi Foundation partnered with the Delta Music Experience and
Blues Trail. The marker commemorates the original lyrics of Folk Alliance International to present “Rockin’ The Rails.” The
legendary blues artist Robert Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside music-filled train traveled from the Folk Alliance Conference
Blues,” which traced the route of the Y&MV. It ran south in New Orleans, LA, to the International Blues Challenge in
from Friars Point to Rosedale, with stops including Vicksburg, Memphis, TN. The folks at Telluride Blues Festival offer the
and north to Memphis. The marker emphasizes a common Durango Blues Train, a historic coal-fired, steam-powered
theme of blues songs of riding on the railroad, which is seen train that travels through Colorado’s San Juan National Forest,
as a metaphor for escape. including the world-famous “Highline,” a section of railroad
Even a young David “Honeyboy” Edwards hopped the that crawls along the cliffs above the Animas River. There are
freight trains of blues lore, traveling the Peavine, the Southern also mini music festivals most Saturday nights from October
and the Yellow Dog, eventually becoming an itinerant to May aboard The Blues Train out of Queenscliff, Victoria,
bluesman, like his mentor Big Joe Williams. Australia.
Life’s sorrows, hardships and means of desperate survival Whether you jump on board a “blues train,” take a train
have made many a songwriter commiserate and identify with trip and soak in the views, feel the rumble in your soul as a
the train’s raw power and means of the ultimate escape, train thunders by, or happen upon some old, deserted railroad
whether by them or a loved one leaving. tracks, let your imagination run free. Reflect back on these

52 Blues Festival Guide 2021