RG - Posted - 10/14/2023:  08:39:37

Hello All,



Sorry I''m a day late and a dollar short in posting, this weeks TOTW, had some internet issues yesterday and service just got back to being restored a little while ago.

This weeks tune is my version of Pete Steele's "Train A-Pullin' A Crooked Hill/Heavy Loaded Freight Train." Pete Steele was a legendary banjo player, first recorded by Alan Lomax in March of 1938, and later recorded twenty years later for Folkways Records by Ed Kahn and Art Rosenbaum. This anecdote by Reed Martin describes Mister Steele much better than I could ever hope to do... it's a classic old-time tale. Here's video of Pete playing (recorded by Pete Seeger), and as you can see, and hear on his recordings, he mixed elements of many different styles of banjo playing, rapping, up-picking, and 2 finger thumb and index lead. He has always been one of my favorite OT banjo players.

On the Folkways recordings, Pete related that he had played this tune for 25 years, on the LOC Recordings he states that the tune is meant to replicate the sound of a train pulling (coal cars) through the (Kentucky) hills. Additionally, on the Folkways recordings, Mister Steele adds that the tune also attempts to replicate the sound of a train pulling heavy freight after kids had "soaped" the tracks to make the drivers slip. An excellent representation of that is from the 1973 film "Emperor of the North", about hoboing during the great depression (and starring Lee Marvin & Ernest Borgnine), where hobo Lee Marvin shows a young hobo named "Cigarette" (Keith Carradine) how to "grease the rails" so they could hop a fast passenger train. My dad always enjoyed that film, as he had hopped freights as a kid during the 1930's.

"Train A-pulling A Crooked Hill/Heavy Loaded Freight Train" was one of the first tunes I ever learned back in 1972 when I first started playing banjo... I was a big fan of trains as a kid, and we lived out in the country a valley over from the Southern Pacific freight line linking Los Angeles with northern California, so hearing the trains at night was always fun for me as a kid. It took me a while to figure the tuning out (eCGCD), but once I got it, it's a very simple left hand tune to play... the right hand however is a little different, requiring timing changes in the "driver's slipping" part, a 6/4 section when the train is highballing down the tracks, both an up and downstroke section where the train "slows" down, and then an odd drop thumb that is played "backwards" when the index hits the first string THEN the fifth, and then the thumb on the second and index on the first... a very interesting little tune indeed!

Hope you enjoy a little nostalgic banjo tune that represents an era when steam trains were king. Give this one a try, it's a fun tune to play!

Edited by - RG on 10/14/2023 10:31:00

Train A-Pullin' The Crooked Hill/Heavy Loaded Freight Train

 

janolov - Posted - 10/14/2023:  09:06:17

Thanks for a nice tune.

I learned it in the early 70's when I bought Art Rosenbaum's first book ( I think I bought the Pete Steele album about the same time). I have almost forgot it by now. If I remember right, he used a mixture of up-picking and down-picking.

RG - Posted - 10/14/2023:  10:15:46

quote:

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Originally posted by janolov

Thanks for a nice tune.

I learned it in the early 70's when I bought Art Rosenbaum's first book ( I think I bought the Pete Steele album about the same time). I have almost forgot it by now. If I remember right, he used a mixture of up-picking and down-picking.

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That's right Jan, in the "brush" part, it's down (fifth) up, down, pinch... lot's going on for a simple tune-haha

JanetB - Posted - 10/14/2023:  13:46:23

JanetB - Posted - 10/14/2023:  20:26:06

It was worth the wait, RG! This tune has a lot of history for you and your train sounds strong and heavy. I'm afraid mine is a smaller train, like the little engine that could. I've only known the tune for a day, and can see room for the creativity it allows. I used the recording by Pete Steele and found a bit of what he was doing, using the tuning you recommended and the pinch. Art Rosenbaum's tab was available to view and in the notes he wrote, "Part 1 might be called 'ad lib train music.'" That was a good cue to just have fun with the tune, so thanks for a fun challenge today. Hope to hear others try this one.

Heavy-Loaded Freight Train

Heavy-Loaded Freight Train

brasstown - Posted - 10/19/2023:  22:25:33

This is a wild one!