Bardentreffen |
Bardentreffen 2009 Bardentreffen 2008 Bardentreffen 2004-7 |
Nürnberg and its Bardentreffen festival was all about the 175th rail anniversary:
the steam-driven 'Adler' (Eagle) started to roll between Nürnberg and Fürth in 1835,
covering the fives miles in fourteen minutes. Well, the artists came by car or plane,
but for sure Arlo Guthrie & Co had their railroad songs on board.
But let's not get fooled, Nürnberg's Bardentreffen is about listening to music not about trainspotting ...
Riding on the City of New Orleans |
Arlo Guthrie @ FolkWorld: Wenzel @ FolkWorld: |
City of New Orleans: A train ride from Chicago to New Orleans via the Illinois Central Railroad. Steve Goodman's song was a big hit for Arlo Guthrie in 1972. Goodman himself won a posthumous Grammy Award for Best Country Song in 1984 for Willie Nelson's version. |
Nim Sofyan @ FolkWorld: FW#31, #37, #42 |
In eighteen hundred and forty-one Poor Paddy Works on the Railway: A popular Irish-American folk song, sometimes sung as a sea chanty. The Pogues did it too. During the 19th century, many of the men who built the American railroads were Irish immigrants. |
Early one morning 'bout seven o'clock |
OqueStrada @ FolkWorld: FW#43 |
Drill Ye Tarriers: Tarriers were the men drilling holes and blasting away rock to make way for track. The words of the song are attributed to one Thomas F. Casey, himself a tarrier and occasional entertainer; Charles Connolly is credited with the music (1888). |
Tinariwen @ FolkWorld: FW#33, #35, #38, #42 The Ballad of John Henry: John Henry is probably the most frequently performed and recorded American folk song (Josh White devoted an entire LP side to different versions). The song deals with the digging of the Big Bend Tunnel in West Virginia in the 1870s. John Henry is notable for having raced against a steam powered hammer and won - only to die in victory with his hammer in his hand. |
Some say he's from Georgia, some say he's from Alabam, |
Valravn @ FolkWorld: FW#39, #41 | From the great Atlantic Ocean to the wide Pacific shore |
Wabash Cannonball: Hobos imagined a mythical, Flying Dutchman of a train. The Carter Family made one of the first recordings of the song in 1929. |
Hammerling @ FolkWorld: FW#38 www.michaela-dietl.de |
Freight train, freight train, run so fast |
Freight Train: Elizabeth Cotten (1895-1987) was discovered in 1946 when working for the Seeger family as a housekeeper. A self-taught, left-handed guitar player, she composed her best-known song "Freight Train" when she was a child. |
Now this here's a story about the Rock Island Line |
Götz Widmann @ FolkWorld: FW#23, #26, #33, #37, #42 @ www.myspace.com/goetzwidmann |
Rock Island Line: The song is about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, first recorded by the Lomaxes and Leadbelly in 1934 from prison inmates. It became a huge hit for British skiffle musician Lonnie Donegan in the 1950s. |
Katzenjammer @ FolkWorld: FW#42 @ www.myspace.com/katzenjammerne The Ballad of Casey Jones: Engineer John Luther Jones was killed when the Southbound Passenger Train #1 of the Illinois Central Railroad collided with a stopped freight train on 30 April 1900. The incidence spawned a number of songs, (including one by blues guitarist Walter 'Furry' Lewis (1893-1981) who himself lost a leg in a railroad accident in 1917). This song here was made up by Wallace Saunders, a black engine wiper in the railroad shop at Canton. Legend has it that vaudeville performers Frank and Bert Leighton added a chorus to the tune. When the song was first published in 1902, it was credited to T. Lawrence Seibert (music) and Eddie Newton (words). |
Come all you rounders if you want to hear |
Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40912 |
Photo Credits:
(1) Adler (unknown);
(2) Arlo Guthrie & Wenzel,
(4) Oquestrada,
(7) Hammerling trifft
Michaela Dietl,
(by Tom Kamphans);
(3) Nim Sofyan,
(5) Tinariwen ,
(6) Valravn,
(8) Götz Widmann,
(10) Nürnberg (by Walkin' Tom);
(9) Katzenjammer
(by Dorthe Lübbert);
(11) 'Classic Railroad Songs' (by Smithsonian Folkways).
To the German FolkWorld |
© The Mollis - Editors of FolkWorld; Published 11/2010
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