Advertisement
I'm not sure if this can really be classed as blues, but I hope Eric will let me get away with the question anyway.
At the moment there's a commercial for Vauxhall cars running on British TV which uses Lonnie Donegan's version of "Rock Island Line".
www.visit4info.com/details.cfm
I've always thought that this song was written by Leadbelly, but I've just heard someone claim that it was actually written by Woody Guthrie. I suspect that the answer is that it's a traditional song that was adapted by both of them (and probably others as well), but can anyone conform this?
I doubt if anyone can explain why a car company is using a song about a train in its commercials.
At the moment there's a commercial for Vauxhall cars running on British TV which uses Lonnie Donegan's version of "Rock Island Line".
www.visit4info.com/details.cfm
I've always thought that this song was written by Leadbelly, but I've just heard someone claim that it was actually written by Woody Guthrie. I suspect that the answer is that it's a traditional song that was adapted by both of them (and probably others as well), but can anyone conform this?
I doubt if anyone can explain why a car company is using a song about a train in its commercials.
posted by:
|
United Kingdom
|
Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: Who Wrote "Rock Island Line"?
Thu, June 15, 2006 - 10:13 AM -
-
Re: Who Wrote "Rock Island Line"?
Thu, June 15, 2006 - 2:16 PMYeah, my guess was Leadbelly too.
I'm familiar with Lonnie's version too, but I've never heard Woody's.
-Eric -
-
Re: Who Wrote "Rock Island Line"?
Thu, June 29, 2006 - 6:24 AMI'm voting for Leadbelly out of sheer ignorance, and based (ahem) on the textual clues in this verse:
"'The engineer said, 'Before I die, there's two more things that I would like to ride';
"The conductor said, 'What can they be?'
"'The Southern Pacific, and a gal named Ida Lee.'"
Doesn't sound like Woody. Think I heard Hoyt Axton sing that version. Let them put THAT in a car commercial. -
-
Re: Who Wrote "Rock Island Line"?
Fri, June 30, 2006 - 10:05 AMI've just got hold of a copy of the Lonnie Donegan version which credits it to Ledbetter/Lomax/Lomax. I guess that's Alan and John Lomax who recorded Leadbelly for the Library of Congress.
I haven't heard the version Michael mentions, but Leadbelly seems to have recorded a number of different versions of many of his songs, so maybe that's not surprising.
-
-
-
