The
title song from Country Tales and Hobo Trails was actually the last song I
wrote for the album. I’d had the title
for a couple of years and knew that the song would come along when it was ready
– and it did, thankfully.
The
first inspiration for me I guess was a book I bought in a library, Kenneth
Allsop’s, Hard Travellin’, The Hobo and his history. Shortly after that I saw John T Davis’
documentary, Hobo, on television.
I
was, and am, fascinated by the life of the hobo. There was a photograph from Life magazine
from the 1930’s I believe that is so poignant to me, a man walking along
railway tracks, everything he owns on his back.
I
had also visited an old trail just outside Hartsville in Tennessee, Holston
Trail, complete with a small cemetery with its graves and headstones of
pioneers from a time long gone. This
trail was also the inspiration for the song Ghosts of Tennessee that’s on the
album.
One
night I was playing around with tuning on the guitar. We were sitting outside our home in Mount
Juliet as we usually do most summer evenings and the song just came within a
few minutes. The back cover of the Songs
From a Trailer Park shows me recording it outside on my iPad. I wrote the lyrics properly the next day.
Johnny
Cash once said that his favourite sound was the horn from a freight train. When Bob Harris was staying in Nashville a
few years back he said that he too loved the sound of a train’s horn. The train Bob could hear was the Music City
Star, the passenger train that runs from Lebanon right into Nashville, and we’re
woken every morning by the sound of its horn as it approaches the small station
at Mount Juliet.
It
seemed fitting to start the track, and indeed the album, with the sound of its
horn. I hope Johnny Cash would approve.
Country
Tales and Hobo Trails album is available now from iTunes, Amazon and all good
websites, or you can order a CD direct from jonjohanson.com.
Country
Tales and Hobo Trails single is released on July 4.
