MYSTERY TRAIN

Created on 02/02/2002
Latest update on 02/07/2022

Artist: Little Junior's Blue Flames
Author: Herman Parker/Sam Phillips
Label: Sun
Year: 1953

Lured Elvis to Sun. There's a Greil Marcus book with that title, a Jim Jarmusch film and - why not? - life itself. More than Elvis', this was Sam Phillips' song, who cowrote it and cut an earlier version on Little Junior Parker, Al Green's cousin. It's a small world there in Memphis.

Covers:

1955:

Elvis Presley [his fifth and final Sun single; according to Sam the greatest thing he did on Elvis; played as the last song on Sam's funeral]

1965:

Paul Butterfield

1967:

Doors [in Black Train Song, including a piece of People Get Ready]

1967:

Rick Nelson

1968:

Junior Wells

1969:

Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash

1970:

Grateful Dead

1972:

Chet Atkins

1973:

Flying Burrito Brothers

1973:

Band [first on Moondog Matinee, later in film The Last Waltz]

1974:

Alvin Lee

1978:

Staple Singers

1980:

UFO

1981:

Nighthawks

1983:

Neil Young

1985:

Link Wray

1987:

Emmylou Harris

1990:

Tommy Conwell & The Young Rumblers [as Guitar Trouble]

1990:

Neville Brothers

1992:

Pat Travers

1992:

P.P. Michiels [as Trein]

1992:

Stray Cats

1992:

Willie & The Poor Boys

1993:

Danny Gatton [in medley with My Baby Left Me and That's All Right]

1993:

Johnny Hallyday [as Train sans espoir, recorded in '75]

1995:

Steve Phillips

2001:

Jeff Beck & Chrissie Hynde

2007:

Shawn Camp & Billy Burnette [The Bluegrass Elvises]

2008:

Bobby James

2011:

T-Model Ford & GravelRoad [as Same Old Train]

2014:

Ronnie Earl [as I Met Her On That Train]

2022:

Anthony 'Big A' Sherrod & The Cornlickers [as Train]

See also: Love My Baby, Mystery Train's second original. Make that four: lyric lines come literally from Blind Lemon Jefferson's Right Of Way Blues and Worried Man by The Carter Family, a blues song and a country song. No wonder Elvis cut it. In both Blind Lemon's as the Carters the train was 18 coaches long.

Contact


If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:

Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)

info@originals.be

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