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| Wreck of the Old 97 - Folk Song Histories - General - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
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banjo brad Super Moderator 
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I thought we had a post on this here once, but it must have been on another forum. Anyway, I ran across these 2 posts about the history of the tune on either the Banjo-L or the Fiddle-L list server. Some interesting information about the origin and the myths that have grown up about the song. "While getting ready to teach train songs to my third graders, I came across a photo and story of the REAL Wreck of the Old 97, which took place in Danville, Virginia on September 27, 1903. “Old 97” was Southern Railway locomotive No. 1102 along with four cars. Engineer Joseph Broady was trying to make up time as his train approached Danville down a three-mile grade. He realized he did not have enough air pressure to slow the train for an upcoming curved trestle, and he tried to reverse the engine to lock the wheels. The train vaulted off the 75-foot-high trestle and 11 of 16 people aboard the mailtrain were killed. Photographs taken from above the scene ran in newspapers across the country. Train wrecks occurred relatively frequently at the time, and it was the ballad which sustained this accident’s national fame. A song written by Charles Noell is the origin of the present-day ballad, which underwent many changes, especially as it was passed along orally. It was initially recorded commercially by Virginia musicians G.B Grayson and Henry Whittier, but when it was released by Vernon Dalhart, it became the first million-selling record in the United States. Although the song says that the train was “running 90-miles an hour” (as they do in many train songs), eyewitnesses put the speed much lower, somewhere around 55 miles an hour. He also wasn’t “found in the wreck with his hand on the throttle, scalded to death by the steam,” but the reality was just as bad. He was “found a little distance from the engine, horribly mangled and dead.” Newspapers, then as now, liked to report morbid details such as, “The skin and hair of the engineer and the fireman were torn off by the impact of the steam engine.” Interestingly, among the cargo were several crates of canaries, and the birds were completely unharmed and singing." (MH) I have used the initials of the posters and people they know instead of full names. I didn't know about the canarys. Brad
____________________ ezFolk Help Brad Prickly Pear Music Banjo Brad's ezFolk page TOTMC |
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Richard Hefner Administrator 
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Brad, We did have a discussion about this sometime in the past on ezFolk. Back in 2001 I met (through the Internet) the daughter of Fred Jackson Lewey, who claimed to be the author of the song and actually took his claim of ownership to court in North Carolina back in the 1920s or 1930s. His daughter, who was quite elderly in 2001 as you can imagine, provided me with a newspaper article and a pretty big story. Anyhoo, I forget how the story goes (according to this account anyway) and don't have time to re-read it at the moment, but it's all on the ezFolk site on this page... http://www.ezfolk.com/bgbanjo/bgb-tabs/wreck97/wreckbio/wreckbio.html 
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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banjo brad Super Moderator
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Richard- Yeah, in fact, I think that might have been the thread that brought about this forum. I just didn't have time to go searching through pages and pages of previous posts, so I started the new thread here.  Brad
____________________ ezFolk Help Brad Prickly Pear Music Banjo Brad's ezFolk page TOTMC |
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SouthernCelt Approved 
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Richard Hefner wrote: Anyhoo, I forget how the story goes (according to this account anyway) and don't have time to re-read it at the moment, but it's all on the ezFolk site on this page... I read the link page and it says you were given a copy of the original lyrics. Are those available anywhere? I presume based on the age of the original song, it's now public domain? Thanks, SC
____________________ Please let me in where you're singing your songs I'll just sit quiet...I won't try to sing along -- lyric excerpt from "Hey, What About Me?" |
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Richard Hefner Administrator
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The lyrics are on that same page, down at the bottom... http://www.ezfolk.com/bgbanjo/bgb-tabs/wreck97/wreckbio/wreckbio.html It's the same lyrics that I used on my own recording (although I didn't use all of them), and yes, they're public domain so feel free to use them... http://ezfolk.com/audio/play.php?mode=song_hifi&band_id=2&song_id=130 
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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| ezFolk Forums > General > Folk Song Histories > Wreck of the Old 97 | |
