Annotation:Morgan on the Railroad (2)

Back to Morgan on the Railroad (2)

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MORGAN ON THE RAILROAD [2]. Old-Time, Breakdown. USA, Kentucky. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. A functionally different tune than "Morgan on the Railroad (1)," played by Jessamine County, central Kentucky, fiddler Jim Woodward (1909-1987), although it derives from the same ultimate source as "Morgan... [1]," namely African-American fiddler Jim Booker. Woodward's "Morgan on the Railroad [2]" features bluesy phrasing.

Conjectures about the tune title are speculative, with some associating it (without evidence) to the Civil War general and cavalry raider John Hunt Morgan. There was also at one time a stop called Morgan on the Illinois Central line, at which the H & E Railroad train (i.e. Hodgenville and Elizabethtown brand of the I.C. Railroad) made daily stops, except Sunday. The location of the stop was 9.6 miles from Cecilia, Kentucky, and 3 miles from Elizabethtown. A 1924 map shows the railroad station, one-room schools, roads and creeks in the area, but the railroad line has since been abandoned and surrounding buildings have disappeared. Morgan was named for local landowner Isaac Calvert Morgan (1847-1907).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources:

Recorded sources: Rounder Records, Roger Cooper - "Essence of Old Kentucky" (2006).

See also listing at:
Hear Jim Woodward's version, recorded by John Harrod in 1979, at the Digital Library of Appalachia [1], Slippery Hill [2], and at Berea Digital Content [3]

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