Railroad Blues (I)

DESCRIPTION: Floating verses; "Went to the depot and I looked up on the board, It read, good times, children..."; "Where was you, mama, when the train left the shed..."; "Met a little Gypsy in a fortune telling place/She read my mind, and then she slapped my face."
AUTHOR: unknown (probably fixed up by Sam McGee)
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (recording, Sam McGee)
KEYWORDS: railroading nonballad floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Burton-TennesseeTraditionalSingers, p. 111, "(Railroad Blues)" (1 text)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, p. 190, "Railroad Blues" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cohen-LongSteelRail, pp. 402-403, "The Railroad Blues" (1 excerpted text, 1 tune -- a subset of a song collected in 1915 and printed in JAFL, with fully 80 four-line stanzas, most of which could however be treated as double two-line stanzas and therefore sung as a true blues. It has floating verses from everywhere, which perhaps means it should file here. I don't list it as the Earliest Date, though, because it's so anomalous)
Roud #17787
RECORDINGS:
Jelly Roll Anderson, "Good Time Blues" (Gennett 6181, 1927) (Herwin 92014, 1927) (one of these two successive cuts is on TimesAint03)
Willie Hill, "Good Old Birmingham" (on FolkVisions2)
Daddy John Love, "Railroad Blues" (Bluebird B-6624, 1936)
Sam McGee, "Railroad Blues" (Champion 45033, 1935; Decca 5348, 1937; rec. 1934) (on TimesAint05); (on McGeeSmith1)
New Lost City Ramblers, "Railroad Blues" (on NLCR03, NLCR12, NLCRCD1)
Art Thieme, "Railroad Blues and Nine Pound Hammer" [medley] (on Thieme01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Baby, All Night Long" (words)
File: CSW190

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