The Wabash Cannonball Train WABASH CANNONBALL IN THE DAY The real-life Wabash Railroad, named after the Wabash River, formed just after the Civil War to serve and supply the Midwest and Mid-Central United States. In 2004, James Henke, curator of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, compiled a list of the “ 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll“, giving Acuff’s “The Wabash Cannonball” a place of distinction as the oldest song on the list. Dubbed the “King of Country Music” Roy Acuff’s influence and style built a bridge between blue, jazz, and country to form the new-fangled rock n’ roll, and “Cannonball” became Acuff’s signature song. The most historically significant is 1936’s “The Wabash Cannonball” by Roy Acuff and the Smoky Mountain Boys. Carter, Song by Roy Acuff The Wabash Cannonball (Or Cannon Ball) first made its song appearance over 120 years ago in the tune “The Great Rock Island Route.” Since then, it has gone through several manifestations. You’re traveling through the jungle on the Wabash Cannonball…” ~Lyrics by A.P. Hear the mighty rush of the engine hear the lonesome hobos call “Listen to the jingle the rumble and the roarĪs she glides along the woodland through the hills and by the shore Once, on a speed run, Cal Bunyan’s Wabash Cannonball thundered along its track so fast that it rocketed straight off into space, never to be seen again.
According to versions of the Paul Bunyan folk tale, Cal created a locomotive engine so fast and long that it arrived at its destination before it left, dragging over 700 freight cars behind it. His extended family also made an appearance, including his younger brother Cal Bunyan. Paul’s family included his wife, Carrie, and his two children Teeny and Little Jean. By the early 1900s, Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe had collected a menagerie of family members.
Bunyan began as a French-Canadian tale circulated in the bunkhouses of the Midwest in the late 1800s, decades before anyone put his story to paper. Another variation worth mentioning is the absorption of the Wabash Cannonball tale into one of the most American of American Tall Tales: the legend of Paul Bunyan. In that context, the Wabash Cannonball story would become downright ominous. Such a story seems ridiculous, but imagine being told the tale in the dark of night, over a dying campfire. Hobos (hobo = migrant or traveling worker) would only see the Cannonball at their time of dying. Like the Dutchman, the Cannonball was supposedly a cursed train forever doomed to ride the rails for eternity. Probably the most prominent is the Wabash Cannonball’s place as a “Flying Dutchman” in hobo culture of the early 1900s. While half a dozen tall tales concerning this legendary locomotive have chugged around our American mythology, two stories are of particular note.
The legend of the Wabash Cannonball is one of the most well-known Midwestern folk tale.
0 kommentar(er)
