Down By The Station: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

In the sources consulted here, the earliest dated printing of "Down By The Station" is a 1948 popular song credited to Lee Ricks and Slim Gaillard, published in New York by the American Academy of Music and carrying a photograph of Guy Lombardo.[1] A second copy of the 1948 sheet music, held by a California public library, gives the same credits and lists several performers, among them Tommy Dorsey and Ray Noble.[2] Dorsey's orchestra recorded the song for Victor on December 15, 1948, with vocals by Denny Dennis, Lucy Ann Polk and the Sentimentalists.[3]

Photograph of a railway station with a large arched shed, freight wagons and tracks in the foreground

Edouard Baldus, Lyon, Gare de Perrache, albumen silver print from glass negative, ca. 1861. Shown for its subject; it has no connection to the song.

Mike Anderson includes it in Songs For Kids, a book of easy mountain dulcimer arrangements, all in DAD tuning, of songs popular with young children, published by Fingers Of Steel.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Down By The Station"

Sources

  1. UW-Madison Libraries, Popular Sheet Music Collection: "Down by the station".
  2. Santa Cruz Public Libraries Sheet Music Catalog: "Down By The Station".
  3. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Ricks, Lee".
  4. Fingers Of Steel: "Mike Anderson, Songs For Kids".
  5. Image: Edouard Baldus, Lyon, Gare de Perrache, albumen silver print from glass negative, ca. 1861. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

← Back to Browse By Song