Georgia Railroad: A Song History

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The Traditional Tune Archive describes “Georgia Railroad” as an American tune in A major with two repeated strains, filing it as a reel, a polka and an air, and gives “Peter and I Went Fishing” as another of its names.[1] The sources consulted here name no composer and say almost nothing about where the tune began.[1]

Etching of a wide rail yard with trains and figures on the tracks before a row of arched train sheds and church towers

Sion Longley Wenban, Railroad Station, etching, 1883. Shown for its subject, a busy rail yard; it has no connection to the tune.

The fiddler Gid Tanner, born near Monroe, Georgia, in 1885, sang and fiddled “Georgia Railroad” for Columbia in New York on September 11, 1924, with Riley Puckett playing banjo.[2][3][4] Columbia issued the side as 15019-D, and the Discography of American Historical Recordings also lists issues on the Harmony and Silvertone labels, the Silvertone one crediting Tanner under the name Tom Watson.[2] According to the New Georgia Encyclopedia, a session that March had already made Tanner and Puckett the first country musicians to record for Columbia.[5]

The tune later passed into the folk revival: David Brody printed it in The Fiddler’s Fakebook in 1983, and recordings listed in Jane Keefer’s Folk Music Index include ones by Allan Block and Ralph Lee Smith (1971), the Ledford String Band (1972) and Norman and Nancy Blake (1992).[1][6] Larry Conger includes “Georgia Railroad,” in DAD tuning, in Hoedowns & Breakdowns For Mountain Dulcimer, a book of danceable tunes that comes with an MP3 recording of each one, published by Fingers Of Steel.[7]

Our book that contains the song "Georgia Railroad"

Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Georgia Railroad".
  2. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix 140019. Georgia Railroad / Gid Tanner".
  3. Library of Congress, National Jukebox: "Georgia Railroad".
  4. New Georgia Encyclopedia: "Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers".
  5. New Georgia Encyclopedia: "Riley Puckett (1894-1946)".
  6. Jane Keefer, Folk Music Index: "Gee to Gesz" (entry "Georgia Railroad").
  7. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hoedowns & Breakdowns For Mountain Dulcimer".
  8. Image: Sion Longley Wenban, Railroad Station, etching, 1883. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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