Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Casey Jones
Transcript
Hal Cannon
0:00:00
In the 1930s if you grew up on big band and swing, you might remember Wingy Manon and his orchestra.
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0:00:07
song Casey Jones plays
Hal Cannon
0:00:13
In the early 1960s country music star Johnny Cash sang Casey's story this way.
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0:00:16
Johnny Cash version of Casey Jones
Hal Cannon
0:00:24
And by the 1970s rock and roll's Grateful Dead packaged this powdered version.
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0:00:29
Grateful Dead version of Casey Jones
Hal Cannon
0:00:39
Since it's first wax release 90 years ago, there have been scores of recordings from blues to bluegrass to burlesque, but most people are surprised to learn Casey Jones was a real man, an engineer who really died with his locomotive. Of all the Casey Jones recordings, this is the rarest.
Sim Webb
0:00:58
I, Simeon Webb, was his fireman and I will tell you about our last trip together the night in April, 1900, which ended in the fatal wreck. In those days [fade out]...
Hal Cannon
0:01:07
In those days Sim Webb worked alongside Casey on the Illinois Central Railroad as a fireman, stoking coal on those old steam engines. It was the highest position a black man could hold and next to the engineer the most important job on the Chicago to New Orleans line. Their run was a treacherous stretch of track on the Mississippi/Tenessee border.
Sim Webb
0:01:30
The run was given to him, I think, because he was known as a daring, but good engineer, and it required both.
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0:01:35
train whistle, music
Hal Cannon
0:01:42
Casey Jones always dreamed of becoming a railroad engineer and finally made it in 1890 at the tender age of 27. This was the golden age of steam and being an engineer was akin to today's jet fighter pilots. Historian and retired railroader, Bruce Gerner, found out just how important the railroad was from one of Casey's comrades.
Bruce Gerner
0:02:03
As old man Charlie, an old engineer, he was contmeporary with Casey, he used to tell people that the three most important institutions in the world were the United States Government, the Methodist church and the Illinois Central Railroad and he belonged to all three of them. Well now Casey felt the same way.
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0:02:25
music fades in, fades out
Hal Cannon
0:02:26
Casey was the consumate engineer of his day. He loved his locomotive and insisted it was kept in tip top shape. Dashing and bold, he stood 6'4" and people could hear him coming all up and down the line. Sim Webb:
Sim Webb
0:02:39
Casey installed on his engine a new whistle which a friend of his made specially for him. It was a sort of...had six tones.
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0:02:53
train whistle sounds, Casey Jones song plays
Hal Cannon
0:03:05
It was the last Sunday of April 1900. Casey and Sim's orders called for an extra shift after another engineer called in sick.
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0:03:13
sound of train
Hal Cannon
0:03:16
When they took over the train it was running an hour and a half late. Sim Webb remembers how determined Casey was to make up that time in their 150 mile run from Memphis down to Canton, Mississippi.
Sim Webb
0:03:30
As we traveled through the night, he sounded his new whistle for the crossings, stations, and sightings that we passed. Sim, he said, if you keep the old girl hot we'll go into Canton on time. I said, well I'll keep her hot and naturally I did.
Hal Cannon
0:03:49
Sim estimates they may have been going upwards of 100 miles per hour. Those last 36 miles snaked on a single track and they knew there were six other trains they had to share the line with that night.
Sim Webb
0:04:01
As we came out of the curve, there right ahead of us were the red rim lights of a train. At once I yelled to Casey, "Oh my lord! There's something on the main line!" He jumped to his feet and looked diagonally across the top of the boiler, at the same time setting the air brakes in an emergency stop. "Jump, Sim, jump!" he shouted. Casey never had a chance.
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0:04:31
song Casey Jones plays
Hal Cannon
0:04:50
A freight train had stalled on the main line with a broken air hose. Casey's locomotive plowed through the caboose, a car of corn, one of hay, and halfway through a car of lumber before it came to rest. Casey managed to slow his train so no passengers were injured, but even today the experts can't lay blame on the accident. When word spread, Casey was mourned up and down the Illinois Central Line.
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0:05:17
music fades in louder, then out
Hal Cannon
0:05:21
After the funeral, a $3000 insurance check came from the union to Casey's widow and that might have been the end of the story. After all Casey was just one of 2,500 railroaders killed in the line of duty that year, men who met their maker in anonymity.
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0:05:38
song plays
Hal Cannon
0:05:42
But Casey had a friend. A black engine wiper named Wallace Saunders. Saunders knew and admired Casey Jones and after the accident he set a few verses to song. Then years later around 1908, two Vaudevillians were passing through Mississippi and happened to hear Saunder's tune.
Norm Coen
0:05:59
And they took what they heard and they completely reworked it into a snappy, you know, lively, pop song with kind of a jolly, really jovial tune and a nice lilt to it.
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0:06:05
song fades in
Hal Cannon
0:06:11
Norm Coen is the author of "Long Steel Rail: the Railroad in American Folk Song." He says that Lawrence Seabird and Eddie Newton first performed the song in a cafe in Venice, California. Then published the sheet music in 1909.
Norm Coen
0:06:24
In fact the cover to the sheet music even says, "greatest comedy hit in years. The only comedy railroad song."
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0:06:29
song fades in and out
Hal Cannon
0:06:37
Casey Jones was an immediate sensation on the Vaudeville circuit and soon became a hit on the new medium of phonograph records. it wasn't long before the song became parodied. There were mining parodies, steamboat parodies, and during World War 2, Casey was an airman.
Norm Coen
0:06:52
Probably the most famous parody of all was one written by Joe Hill for a strike on the SP railroad in 1909 or 1910. He turned the song into Casey Jones the union scab.
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0:07:07
song plays
Hal Cannon
0:07:13
Even the Klu Klux Klan had their version.
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0:07:15
song plays
Hal Cannon
0:07:23
A folk song can go in the strangest directions.
Norm Coen
0:07:26
It has to be written in a way that speaks to some universal needs and universal feelings. And if it does that anybody can say, "I could have written that," or feels that relationship to the song, that it can be his song. Casey Jones was of course that kind of a song.
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0:07:43
song plays
Hal Cannon
0:07:48
But what makes this song part of our shared intellectual property? Is it a melody you can't get out of your head? Is it America's love affair with trains and tragedy? Or is it Casey Jones himself? Big, bold, with the reigns of that massive iron horse in his hand. Railroad historian Bruce Gerner:
Bruce Gerner
0:08:05
His death was a confluence of unfortunate circumstances and his fame was the same thing. You never heard of Mr. Bill Halloway. He got killed the same month that Casey got killed and left a couple little girls. That was the sad thing was the families that were left without a papa. Casey just happened to be the fellow that they wrote the song about. They just happened to hit the American public when they needed another folk hero.
Hal Cannon
0:08:40
It seems folk heroes are getting pretty scarce these days. People like Michael Jordan, Bill Gaites, and Oprah are bigger than life, but will their stories make for songs in a hundred years?
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0:08:52
music plays
Hal Cannon
0:08:56
For NPR news I'm Hal Cannon.
