Americana Railroad was first issued as a limited-edition, double vinyl album for Record Store Day back in November 2021. The music is now out on CD and digital release as of today. There are so many great train songs that one could create a vast anthology of outstanding railroad tracks (excuse the pun!) that could fill dozens of discs and still barely scratch the surface. Commissioning a new album of train songs seems a bit precious now that trains have faded into history, as Steve Goodman poignantly noted many years ago.
Producer (and musician) Carla Olson knows this. She includes former Creedence Clearwater Revivalist John Fogerty doing his rendition of the Goodman tune and other artists performing past masterworks. That consists of two versions of R&B master Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train” by two different rockabilly artists, Rocky Burnette and James Intveld; multi-instrumentalists Paul Burch & Fats Kaplin delivering Country music legend Jimmie Rodgers’ “Waiting for a Train”, and John York (former Byrd and Sir Douglas Quintet member) offering his rendition of folkie John Stewart’s “Runaway Train”. These new interpretations of old material reveal the depth and breadth of existing great railroad songs and the variety of styles they come in, from R&B to country to folk to what we now call Americana.
Most of the songs covered here are familiar and have been recorded by numerous artists over the years. These include Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready”, melodiously sung here by Deborah Poppink; Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s arrangement of the traditional “This Train”, earnestly reproduced by Peter Case; and Hedy West’s bluesy “500 Miles”, crooned with a lonesome ache here by Alice Howe. The artists do a fine job remaking these classic tunes, but the question of whether one needs to hear additional renderings is moot. The way things seem in America today, railroad songs will last longer than the railroad itself. One can nostalgically remember trains and their glory days, but what remains is far different than what used to be.
In terms of new material, Dave Alvin contributed an original song to Americana Railroad. His “Southwest Chief” captures the feel of the shambling cars rolling down the tracks and the sense of adventure one feels riding the rails. Album producer Olson (with Brian Ray) does the most surprising selection, a hard-rocking take on Procol Harum’s “Whiskey Train”. In sonic contrast, Don Flemon’s acoustic “Steel Pony Blues” reveals the power of a quiet story about people and trains. Robert Rex Waller, lead singer-songwriter of I See Hawks in LA, stalwartly contributes two songs: Cowpunk band Rank and File’s “The Conductor Wore Black” and Steve Young’s Western ode “Midnight Rail”. The mix of such different songs from the past to the contemporary keeps the album steadily moving forward like the freight cars they invoke.
Gene Clark’s “I Remember the Railroad”, done here by Olson and former Long Ryder Stephen McCarthy, sweetly closes the anthology. Clark connected the concept of the railroad to being home. This conceit makes sense as the myth of the rails belongs to memories more than the present—and that was just as true 50 years ago when Clark wrote the song as it is today. Americana Railroad will take you back there.