cat992, Trains Mag. seems to be responsive to readers comments, I wrote to them praising that music story and got a nice answer from the author. Perhaps you could put together a play list of all the railroad/train songs you can come up with and send it to them for possible publication as a follow-up? Maybe even links to where readers can actually listen to them, which would be much appreciated.
cat992c Some very famous music was missed out.Make that totally ignored.That was songs about trains.2 songs that were totally included the greatest song ever written on trains called Chattanooga Choo Choo by Glenn Miller.When it hit #1 in December 1941 it was the first record to sell over 1 million copies in 15 years.This is from the movie Sun Valley Serenade where Tex Beneke & THe Modernaires do it right in the movie.More importantly it was the #1 song across America on December 7,1941.Another song that totally ignored in this issue is The Atcheson,Topeka & Santa Fe by the great Johnny Mercer.Why were these 2 wonderful songs totally ignored????????????
Some very famous music was missed out.Make that totally ignored.That was songs about trains.2 songs that were totally included the greatest song ever written on trains called Chattanooga Choo Choo by Glenn Miller.When it hit #1 in December 1941 it was the first record to sell over 1 million copies in 15 years.This is from the movie Sun Valley Serenade where Tex Beneke & THe Modernaires do it right in the movie.More importantly it was the #1 song across America on December 7,1941.Another song that totally ignored in this issue is The Atcheson,Topeka & Santa Fe by the great Johnny Mercer.Why were these 2 wonderful songs totally ignored????????????
To cover everything everyone thinks should be in such an issue would have required a pretty substantal tome...
Previous discussion: http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/264744.aspx
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
I would suspect it was excluded in the interests of political correctness. Can't publish anything that might offend someone in this day and age.
Norm
As a fan of this genre of music I agree with you. Unfortunately, we're dealing with a couple of generations now, that doesn't know this music exist. It seems music history either begins with Elvis or The Beatles, and everything that went before that is irrelevant. I don't think it's by design, it's just that the general population hasn't been exposed to this music, and they have no motivation to seek it out.
It's interesting that with classical music we go back centuries, but with American popular music, anything more than a few decades old is considered obsolete. Especially when many music historians consider the 1930's and 40's the golden age of songwriting in American popular music.
In addition to the AT&SF, Johnny Mercer wrought several songs where trains were present in the lyrics, even if the title or subject matter didn't pertain directly to trains. Two that come to mind are "Laura" and "I Thought About You".
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