Lost Highway Records: Night Train to Nashville

COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME^® AND MUSEUM AND LOST HIGHWAY READY FOLLOW UP TO GRAMMY-WINNING NIGHT TRAIN TO NASHVILLE: MUSIC CITY RHYTHM & BLUES, 1945-1970

Two-CD Compilation of Hits and Rarities to Arrive in Stores September 20, 2005

All R& B heaven is about to break loose when the Country Music Hall of Fame^® and Museum and Lost Highway Records release Night Train to Nashville: Music City Rhythm & Blues, 1945-l970, Volume Two on September 20, 2005. The first volume garnered a Grammy Award as the best historical recording of 2004.

Both volumes accompany the Museum’s same-titled multi-media exhibition, which opened in March 2004 and closes in December this year. The exhibition and its accompanying recordings, publications and continuing series of public programs revisit an almost forgotten time when Middle Tennessee was a major center for R&B musicians and their followers. “The Night Train story resurrects and celebrates an important era in the evolution of Nashville as Music City,” said Museum Director Kyle Young. “The avalanche of local and national critical acclaim it has already received has helped not only to validate the work of important artists, but also to create new opportunities for them.

“The Night Train exhibition includes a good helping of audio and video from the period,” he said. “However, this is a story that cannot be fully appreciated without access to more of the music than can be made available in the gallery. These recordings also make this important music available to non-visiting audiences. We are grateful for the partnership with Lost Highway that makes this possible.”

The two-CD second volume further illustrates the sterling quality and diverse sounds of the Nashville rhythm & blues that exploded across national radio and television airwaves (even though it was not considered suitable for family audiences) in this period. Again, there are numerous interesting examples of collaborations between R&B and country music artists, of country songs that became R&B hits and R&B songs that became country hits. The major focus is on Nashville-based artists, but the collection also includes selected recordings by renowned out-of-towners such as Ivory Joe Hunter, Clyde McPhatter, Esther Phillips and John Coltrane (as a member of Gay Crosse’s band). A number of the Nashville artists, including the Spidells, Jimmy Church and Sandra King, appeared in the 1960s on the all-black, Nashville-produced, groundbreaking television program Night Train. First imagined by show host Noble Blackwell, Night Train was followed in later years by the more well-known, Chicago-based Soul Train.

“I think Volume Two strikes a balance between well-known hits and seductive rarities,” said Museum Associate Editor Michael Gray, who co-produced both volumes with Dan Cooper. “Among the treasures is a bonus track that, despite flaws in audio quality, is a sonic boon to the documentation of Nashville’s R&B history,” he said. Previously unreleased and recorded live in the New Era Club circa 1962, the Imperials’ “Lucky Lou” provides an audio snapshot of a typical night at one of the South’s leading black nightclubs. The Imperials starred at the New Era Club throughout most of the 1960s, but never released a studio recording. Jimi Hendrix’s early guitar mentors George Yates and Johnny Jones are among the Imperials flashing their R&B dash on “Lucky Lou,” the group's most requested number.

Also included is Isaac “Little Ike” Hamilton’s 1959 Champion release “She Can Rock,” co-written by Hamilton and prolific songwriter Ted Jarrett. The extremely rare “She Can Rock” and its flipside, both produced by Jarrett, are Little Ike’s only known recordings and are prized by collectors of black rock & roll.

As a songwriter, producer and label executive, Ted Jarrett was a central force on the Music City R&B scene, but he rarely recorded as an artist himself. Night Train Volume Two showcases him in fine voice on his 1955 Excello release, “Love, Love, Love.” Written by Jarrett and recorded by him for the R&B market, the song was also a 1955 No. l hit for country music icon Webb Pierce.

When Nashville radio station WLAC began using its 50,000-watt signal to broadcast black music in 1946, the station soon became the most powerful force in R&B broadcasting in America. Night Train Volume Two provides a pair of tributes to seminal WLAC disc jockey Gene Nobles, including Jimmy Sweeney’s 1950 release “Boogie Woogie Jockey” on the Tennessee label and Richard Armstrong’s 1949 Cheker side “Gene Nobles Boogie.” Nobles and legendary late-night DJs Bill “Hoss” Allen and John “John R” Richbourg played a major role in breaking the careers of James Brown, B. B. King, Little Richard and many others. Perhaps driven by the impact on their personal wallets of what was known as “per inquiry” sales, the jocks were masters of hip and hilarious product pitches that Richbourg refers to as “flapping my lips” on the 1967 “Swinging Soul Medallion” commercial included on the Night Train set.

Listeners will also find the original R&B versions of songs they may know only from the pop charts, such as Bernard Hardison’s 1955 Republic single “Too Much,” which was later a pop chart topper for Elvis the Pelvis. Christine Kittrell’s 1962 “I’m a Woman”on Vee-Jay was covered by pop singer Peggy Lee. Teen vocal group the Gladiolas’ 1957 “Little Darlin’” on Excello was an R&B and pop hit for them, then immediately covered by Canadian pop group the Diamonds, whose version soon sold an estimated four million copies and was included on the soundtrack of the feature film American Graffiti. The Beatles, Marshall Crenshaw, Pearl Jam and others later covered Arthur Alexander’s 1962 “Soldier of Love.”

Songs such as Esther Phillips’ 1962 “Release Me” had previously been country chart hits. In 1954, Jimmy Heap, Kitty Wells and Ray Price each had a Top Ten hit with “Release Me.” Sacroiliac-snapping great dance music on Night Train includes the 1968 “Soul-Poppin,” recorded by Johnny Jones & the King Casuals for Peachtree; the Fabulettes’ 1966 Sound Stage 7 side, “Screamin’ and Shoutin’;” and Hal and Jean Gilbert’s 1963 “You Better Change,” a Ray Charles take-off, on Miki Records.

A booklet accompanying the collection includes extensive song notes and rare photos. An essay contributed by Fisk University historian Reavis L. Mitchell Jr., details the origins and evolution of the wagon road that became Nashville’s Jefferson Street, where many of the venues of the Night Train story were located. Jefferson Street is now recognized with a Tennessee State Historical Commission marker as “one of America’s best-known districts of jazz, blues, and rhythm and blues.”