(The following story by Karen Freeman appeared on the Enterprise-Journal website on April 12, 2010.)
McCOMB, Miss. — McComb will be the first stop in Amtrak’s upcoming Blues Connection, which will commemorate the link between blues music and America’s railroads.
Amtrak will host “Big Bill” and “Mud” Morganfield, sons of the late Mississippi-born blues icon Muddy Waters, in the three-day tour aboard the legendary City of New Orleans, beginning in New Orleans May 6 and ending May 8 in Chicago on National Train Day.
According to history, W.C. Handy, known as the Father of the Blues, was inspired to create his music while at a train station in the Mississippi Delta.
The train is expected in McComb at 3:32 p.m. on May 6, and will make a brief stop at the Bo Diddly Mississippi Blues Trail marker at the McComb depot on Railroad Boulevard.
As part of National Train Day, Amtrak will explore the connection between Delta-born blues music and the nation’s railroads. The train will leave New Orleans at 1:45 p.m.
The stop in McComb is not planned to be an extended one. The train is expected in Hazlehurst at 4:17 p.m. for a quick stop at the Robert Johnson Blues Trail marker. At 5:44 p.m. the train is expected in Jackson, where media interviews will be conducted. A reception will be held in the newly renovated King Edward Hotel near the train station in downtown Jackson.
Then at 8 p.m., there will be a “Blues Train Throw Down” at Clarksdale’s Ground Zero blues club, which is owned by Mississippi native Morgan Freeman.
On Friday, May 7, the Morganfield brothers and others on the Blues Train will tour the Mississippi Delta Blues Museum and other Clarksdale sites from 9:30 to 11 a.m.
The train heads next to Indianola, where it will stop from 1 to 2 p.m. for a tour of the B.B. King Museum.
A Mississippi send-off is planned from 5 to 7 p.m. at Greenwood’s Amtrak station, where another reception will be held.
Next stop: Memphis, Tenn., at 10 p.m., where blues singer Bobby Rush will board the train as it heads to Chicago.
The train is expected to arrive at Chicago’s Union Station at 9 a.m. Saturday, May 8.
A live blues program will be held at the train station from noon to 1 p.m. National Train Day festivities will be held there from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
In addition, the Chicago Blues Musuem will install a special exhibit for National Train Day at Union Station. During the blues segment of the day’s program, museum founder Gregg Parker will share more insights about the movement of the blues from the South to the North.
The public is invited to attend the event for National Train Day. In addition to blues performances and exhibits, visitors will have a chance to tour Amtrak and other trains, see model railroads and visit the AmtraKids Depot, all free of charge.Amtrak wants the public to know some facts about blues music and its link to trains:
• Blues players often hitched free rides on trains by playing for brakemen and conductors.
• Blues and spirituals were sung in the fields during the period of slavery as trains bound north passed by. The secret movement of slaves from South to freedom in the North was through the Underground Railroad.
• The song “Midnight Special,” made famous by Creedence Clearwater Revival,” was at first a blues song penned in a Texas prison.
• Blues songs often used trains as metaphors for everyday life.
Songs with a train theme include 1932’s “Mr. Conductor Blues” by Big Bill Broonzy,” 1942’s “Depot Blues” by Mississippi’s Son House, 1935’s “Dixie Flyer Blues” sung by Bessie Smith, 1940’s “Panama Limited” by Georgia White; Leadbelly’s “Midnight Special” from 1941; and “1927’s “Railroadin’ Some” by Henry Thomas.
For more information about National Train Day festivities, visit online at www.nationaltrainday.com.