Smoke Along the Track

This train song came from the great Stonewall Jackson. Like many other train songs, this song is about wander lust and about loving travel more than his lady. If you're unfamiliar with Stonewall, he was a very popular country singer in the late 50's and early 60's. It's hard to describe his vocal style. He had a unique voice and unconventional phrasing. Pitch-wise he seemed like he was always bending the notes toward the correct pitch, rather than singing dead on pitch. Whatever he was doing, it worked well and made for a style all his own. He also wrote quite a few of his songs. This was back in the days when every singer was different and was immediately distinguishable from all the other singers. When I was very young, one of mine and Tipper's favorite songs was a Stonewall Jackson song called BJ the DJ, which was on a compilation album that Pap and Granny owned. Jackson had a lot of great story songs, and I hope to feature some of them in an upcoming story song series, Lord willing. When my nephew Ben (aka guitar man) was a kid, I remember that I made a tape for him of Jackson's song "Herman Swartz." Ben and his parents thought the song was really funny, and so did I. :-) Anyway, having said all of that, I first heard Smoke Along the Track from Dwight Yoakam in the early 90's or late 80's. Yoakam's recording is really solid and features some great "train" picking from his guitarist Pete Anderson. It wasn't until many years later that I discovered that Yoakam was covering the song from Jackson. I think that shows that Yoakam is well versed in a wide range of country material that pre-dates his own music, not just the typical stuff from Haggard, Nelson, Cash, etc. that most modern "country" stars know about. Yoakam changed the lyrics from Jackson's original in several places, seemingly just to "smooth" things up a little. I like the changes he made, so I sung this cover more with Yoakam's lyrical arrangement than with the original. I really enjoyed getting together with Tipper and the Pressley Girls, although we are all painfully out of practice. This is a second take of the song. The first one was so out of tune it wasn't useable or bearable. :-) I liked Katie's fiddle "whistle" and Corie's impromptu harmony. Lord willing, we'll close out this year's train song series next week with a train song that Pap and I recorded back in the day. Thanks so much for watching. I didn't include lyrics or links to Yoakam's version or Jackson's version, but you can easily find them by searching on YouTube.

Listen to original singles released on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5VX6Z...

Listen to original singles on YouTube:
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Listen to Shepherd of My Soul (Album released in 2016):
https://open.spotify.com/album/4VnoOy...