![]() ![]() The Johnny Rivers version was used as the theme for the NBC music program The Midnight Special. Five years later, Johnny Rivers' version reached number 20 in 1965. Paul Evans recorded the highest-charting version of "Midnight Special," reaching number 16 in the winter of 1960. Only two versions of the song have reached the US Billboard Hot 100. Other versions "Midnight Special"ġ969, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley, CaliforniaĬreedence Clearwater Revival, whose version of the song appeared on their album Willy and the Poor Boys (1969).Ĭountry musicians Wilma Lee and Stoney Cooper had a top 5 country hit with their reworking of the song in 1959 as "Big Midnight Special". Only one recording, collected by the Lomaxes at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, actually identifies the railroad operating the Midnight Special - the Illinois Central which had a route through Mississippi. Most of the early versions, however, have no particular location. Īlthough later versions place the locale of the song near Houston, early versions such as "Walk Right In Belmont" ( Wilmer Watts Frank Wilson, 1927) and "North Carolina Blues" (Roy Martin, 1930) - both essentially the same song as "Midnight Special" - place it in North Carolina. He believed the subject of the song would rather be run over by a train than spend more time in jail. It is highly reminiscent of the imagery of such gospel songs as " Let the Light from Your Lighthouse Shine on Me". Like so many American folk songs, its hero is not a man but a train." The light of the train is seen as the light of salvation, the train which could take them away from the prison walls. They also describe Ledbetter's version as "the Negro jailbird's ballad to match Hard Times Poor Boy. ![]() John and Alan Lomax, in their book, Best Loved American Folk Songs, told a credible story identifying the Midnight Special as a train from Houston shining its light into a cell in the Sugar Land Prison. ![]() Ledbetter recorded at least three versions of the song, one with the Golden Gate Quartet, a gospel group (recorded for RCA at Victor Studio #2, New York City, June 15, 1940). However, Ledbetter, for his Angola session, appears to have inserted several stanzas relating to a 1923 Houston jailbreak into the traditional song. In 1934, Huddie William "Lead Belly" Ledbetter recorded a version of the song at Angola Prison for John and Alan Lomax, who mistakenly attributed it to him as the author. I know by the apron and the dress she wears ![]()
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