John Henry - a good place to start

You must know where you have been, to know where you are going. So, I must explain... I got a job in 2001 at the Railroad. When I was hired on, things pretty much had been the same for a while, but something was getting ready to happen on the railroad. Something that would change the way railroading had been done for decades. The Locomotive Engineer, the person in the Engine, the hogger, was getting ready to be "cut out" and "set out" of working in the yards. The RCO box, switchman, AKA Groundhogger was getting ready to take over. 

The craft of Locomotive Engineer was being threatened by computerization! The person who blows that lonesome whistle, just might not be a person in the near future. As a folk musician, this opens up a serious invite for romanticism. Our most celebrated musician... the player of the lonesome whistle...

 is getting kicked out of the band!

I made a CD in 2008 called Music For Modern Railroaders. It started in 2006 as one song that made fun of our new union contract. Hub Engineer.. I'll tell that one, when we get there.. So. Here we go.. I'm gonna get you lined out.. and cut in.. and start with the first song from my first CD. John Henry 2007. I took me a little while to figure out that I was a folk singer but there was plenty of examples of what to do and how to do it. I grew up in a very folk oriented German Catholic family and also grew up around John Gage a local folk singer.. So Naturally, I put 2 and 2 together and started down a track I knew pretty much nothing about.

I had never heard of Utah Phillips and had no knowledge of a great folk music tradition. I knew who Pete Seeger was and knew about Woody Guthrie, but Joe Hill and a massive union tradition of songwriting... I knew very little of, but something was going on at the Railroad and I knew it needed to be told. The first shots had been fired! Extra! Extra! Read all about it!!

Trains are being run by computers! The Locomotive Engineer craft is in danger of extinction!

I was an RCO Operator, and carrying around that box, sucked. Engineers would look at you like you were some sort of scab. 

That box represented to them something vile. Something of a Civil War had broke out in the rail yards. Brother against brother. It was intense.

Looking back on the situation now, I can understand why the Engineers were so upset. I also understand why the railroad Barron's of the day decided to take advantage of a perfect storm. Railroad Retirement reform had just been passed and there was getting ready to be a serious turnover. The work force was much younger and had not experienced the agreements that got rid of the caboose, not to mention we RCO folks really had no clue what to do. We had no say in the matter. We were just pawns in a game of chess being played by the Railroads and foot soldiers in a long standing historical war between the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and The United Transportation Union.

There really was a John Henry in Osborn Yard working down in the bowl. I remember nights working the original 3 man crews hearing about a war on the horizon called RCO. John Henry, who was getting ready to retire would say " Aww, I don't care, I won't see heads or tails of it, i'll be gone, boys!"

There is a lot of Slang in this song and the boy's loved it. It was a story about them. It made fun of a situation that we all pretty much hated to be in.

Bowl - the receiving part of a hump yard where railroad cars are classified for destination.

Switchman - A yard craft that was getting ready to be eliminated.

RCO - Remote Control Operator - AKA Ground Hogger

Hogger - Locomotive Engineer AKA Big E

Shanty - Yard Office where crews gather for paper work and to eat. Aka Break room.

6022 - Was CSXT engine 6022,  one of the first class of EMD GP40 to be retrofitted with RCO

Poll offline and Boxes linking up - The Remote had to connect to the RCL aka Remote Control Locomotive. This process sometimes got a bit wonky. 

The East - A track used to pull out long cuts of cars that had been put together

Convert one today - When the RCO boxes would't work. The Engineer was called in and the job converted back to conventional. engineer and two switchmen. 

Next up.. will be Nashville Bound. A tune about long hours and what it's like to work a road job. If you are interested in this music, please download a few tunes. Thanks! Railroad Music is the thread in the quilt called Americana! Get some thread here... CD Baby... clickity clack. 

John Henry 2006 jp rufus porter to all my brothers and sisters in

The BLE&T and The UTU!

Well John Henry he was a locomotive engineer

Workin' down in the Osborn bowl.

And he looked at his switchman said you

Better git to work.

We’re gonna beat that RCO.

Gonna beat that RCO!

Yankin’ and a Pullin’ on them cars with his

Switchman working as fast as he can.

Ol’ John is a thinkin  the whole time,

A Machine aint gonna beat a man.

A machine aint gonna beat a man.

Well the groundhoggers came out of the shanty

And they looked at the 6022.

Said to each other as they switched on their boxes,

Ya know we got a lotta work to do

Ya know we got a lotta work to do.

The groundhoggers were havin a little problem

They couldn’t get their boxes to link up.

Between a poll off-line and a comm loss,

They wer’nt having a very good time.

Seems like it happens everytime.

Well the groundhoggers hollerd at the bowl.

BOWL TOWR

We’re havin a problem linkin up.

We’ve tried everything we know how to do.

I guess we’re shit outta luck

I guess we’re shit outta luck.

The tower hollers to John Henry.

Come and get this engine outta the way

It’s blockin the East and we gotta pull some cars,

I guess we’ll convert one today,

It seems like it’s better that way.

The groundhoggers sat in the shanty,

Waitin for a Big E to come and git er done.

John Henry and his switchman all ready pulled 300 cars

That RCO job pulled none.

But it’s safer when you sit on your bum.

There is a reason for this story,

Corporate greed is killin this land.

If we don’t do something and ORGANIZE.

Say hello to the ONE MAN PLAN.

That’s talkin Union!

They wanna run trains with one man.

Roll the Union on!!

Precious Memories - Sarah Ogan Gunning

The Kentucky Industrial Workers of the World Presents!

Precious Memories

a new play by

Si Kahn

Starring

Sue Massek

Thursday November 20th

7:30 pm 

Chapel of St. Phillip Divine. 

230 Woodbine St.

Louisville, KY 40208

$15.00

contact

JP for more info

502-553-0495

Click here for the Facebook event. 

SUE MASSEK STARS IN SI KAHN’S NEW MUSICAL PRECIOUS MEMORIES

To hear Sue Massek’s high lonesome voice and frailed open back banjo is to travel 80 years back in time.

When Sue takes the stage in Si Kahn’s new play with music Precious Memories, she time travels all of us back to 1932, to the Bell County, Kentucky coal camp in which she was born and raised.

But she doesn’t just transport us, she mesmerizes us.  Long time folk and bluegrass DJ Jim Rogers, who was in the audience when Sue performed Precious Memories to open the first ever Northern Appalachian Folk Festival in Indiana, Pennsylvania in September, 2013, wrote to Si Kahn the morning after:

“When one woman on a stage can hold the attention of an audience for nearly 90 minutes, you know something special is taking place.  I believe you've created a masterpiece, and you've found the perfect person to deliver it.  It was truly a privilege to be there.”

It’s no surprise that Sue Massek can generate that kind of musical and artistic power. She’s a founding member of Kentucky’s award-winning Reel World String Band, which celebrates its 35^th anniversary this year.  No less an authority that Lily May Ledford of the original Coon Creek Girls wrote:

“You don’t see many people up on stage who’ve got fire.  But you girls have got it.  Lord, you girls are good!”

A master artist for the Kentucky Arts Council's Master/Apprentice program, Sue Massek has taken her music as close to home as the Eastern Kentucky coalfields and as far away as Italy.  Most recently, she performed Precious Memories for a reunion of women coal miners.  Marat Moore, author of the book Women in the Mines: Stories of Life and Work and a former miner herself, wrote afterwards:

“Sue Massek blew us away in her portrayal as Sarah Ogan Gunning.  Our audience of women miners wept, laughed, sang along, and rose to cheer Sue at the final curtain. We left inspired and newly aware of the history of struggle and the power of ordinary people.”

Sarah Ogan Gunning certainly fits that description of “the power of ordinary people.”  A self-described “miner’s wife” from Bell County, Kentucky, she watched one of her children starve to death and another die of tuberculosis; she herself lost a lung to the disease.  One brother was killed in the mines and another disabled; her first husband died of black lung when he was 32.

It was the old time music of the mountains that helped keep her going.  She shared with her brother Jim Garland and her half-sister Aunt Molly Jackson a great oral family collection of traditional songs, many of which were recorded for the Archive of Folk Music at the Library of Congress.

It was the music, too, that took Sarah, Jim and Aunt Molly to New York City’s Lower East Side in the early 1930s, where for the first time in her life Sarah found recognition, singing with Woody Guthrie, Huddie (“Lead Belly”) and Martha Ledbetter, the 15 year old Pete Seeger, becoming friends with some of the great writers and actors of that time, from John Dos Passos and Theodore Dreiser to Sherwood Anderson and Will Geer, later to become even more famous as Grandpa on The Waltons.

Precious Memories takes place in real time on September 4^th, 1960, the day on which Sarah’s half-sister Aunt Molly Jackson was buried.  By that time, Sarah was all but forgotten, living in a basement apartment in a run-down section of Detroit, only singing in church and to the four walls.

Three years later, on October 8^th, 1963, legendary folklorist and labor historian Archie Green, who had been searching for Sarah, knocked on the door of her basement apartment in Detroit. 

For the next 20 years, Sarah Ogan Gunning brought and taught her songs, both old and new, to people all over North America.  She appeared at the Newport Folk Festival, singing from the same stage as Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and her old friend Pete Seeger.  She sang at the Smithsonian Festival of American Folklife on the mall in Washington DC, she sang at Carnegie Hall, and she served as an inspiration and mentor to many young women musicians, including Sue Massek.

On November 14^th, 1983, during an evening spent singing with family and friends, Sarah Ogan Gunning quietly and peacefully slipped away. 

With over a half century of performing experience, Sue Massek’s journey has taken her throughout the United States, Canada, Italy, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. She has performed as a solo artist and as banjo player for The Reel World String Band since it beginning in 1977.  For over 37 years Reel World has used its music as a tool for social justice in venues as diverse as community centers in the coal fields of Appalachia to the Lincoln Center in New York City.  They were the Kentucky Conference for Community and Justice 2011 Lauren K. Weinberg Humanitarian Award Honorees.

Sue has worked as an artist in residence in schools throughout the United States for over 3 decades including dozens of residencies in Kentucky through the Kentucky Arts Council’s Artist in Residence Program and Very Special Arts Kentucky.

Sue has completed several folklife resource surveys as Kentucky’s very first Community Scholar and she is now a Master Artist for their Master/Apprentice Grant Program.  She also has apprenticed under several legendary Kentucky artists including Lily May Ledford, Clyde Davenport and Blanche Coldiron, as well as working with nationally recognized traditional artists, Oscar Wright, Jimmy Driftwood, and Guy and Candie Carawan.

"Here's to Sue Massek, consummate musician and social activist. Sue brings together a light touch on the banjo, a fine representation of traditional mountain music, a polished skill at songwriting and a genuine dedication to social justice. She is a delight to hear and a pleasure to work with."

Guy & Candie Carawan

Sue has recorded three albums as a solo artist, Precious Memories: The Songs of Sarah Ogan Gunning, Brave is the Heart of a Singing Bird and Searching for Shady Grove.  Reel World has recorded seven albums over the years and appeared on several other compilation projects.  As a songwriter, Sue’s songs have been played in over 21 countries around the world. Her song Brennen’s Ballad was the inspiration for award winning writer, Silas House’s book, Recruiters.

Sue has worked as a cultural organizer for Kentucky Foundation for Women, Appalachian Women’s Alliance and for the Kentucky Arts Council as a Circuit Rider.

Sue has recently expanded her horizons, taking on the role of actor in a one woman play about the life of Kentucky born and raised Sarah Ogan Gunning.  The play, written by noted songwriter, Si Kahn, is a 90 minute peek into life in the coal fields of Kentucky during the depression.  It brings back to life the important music and work of Sarah and her siblings Aunt Molly Jackson and Jim Garland.  Their music, over looked by most historical media for too long, was part of the repertoire of folk musicians Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger during the early folkmusic movement.

“When one woman on a stage can hold the attention of an audience for nearly 90 minutes, you know something special is taking place.  I believe you've created a masterpiece, and you've found the perfect person to deliver it.  It was truly a privilege to be there.” Long time folk and bluegrass DJ Jim Rogers

“Sue Massek blew us away in her portrayal as Sarah Ogan Gunning.  Our audience of women miners wept, laughed, sang along, and rose to cheer Sue at the final curtain. We left inspired and newly aware of the history of struggle and the power of ordinary people.” Marat Moore, author of the book Women in the Mines:

Sue grew up in the flatlands of Kansas where she began performing with her mother singing old time gospel and songs handed down from her grandmother.  Her mother’s father called square dances and her father’s father played fiddle for county dances.  She continues to perform for local churches with her 87 year old mother, who is an accomplished musical instrument maker and carpenter.

Sue has called Kentucky home for nearly 40 years and is deeply devoted to Appalachia and the people who live there.  She is a flatlander by birth and a hillbilly at heart.

Elements of the Progressive Era! The New Folk Revival!

In, Kentucky...

Highlander school in Tennessee? What could be done and why does this all look familiar? Local folk musician John Gage is taking his Homefront performances over to Bellermine College to a celebration of Pete Seeger's life work. For Pete's Sake... All the Louisville activist groups in one tent!! There will be Greens, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, The Kentucky Industrial Workers of the World, The Anne Braden Kentucky Alliance, the Louisville Socialists, ect.ect... Kentucky Jobs with Justice is working on  a minimum wage increase!!! WE GOT OUR EYES ON YOU!!!

Nathan Salsburg celebrates the Kentucky recordings of Alan Lomax. The KY IWW is bringing activist/labor folk musicians to town, their next project is the Sarah Ogan Gunning story. WTF! are you seeing RED... well Let's focus.... people! FOLKS!

The new folk revival should come from us.. Kentuckians! 

.. is it happening now? I think it might be, but we should all work together!!!

My questions if  Pete was here... How did y'all do it? How did it just seem to happen. Did you have an organized plan. For Pete's Sake let's do it again...

Education and training for the masses

We must undo what a few decades of no Child Left Behind has done to our recent generations! I have some idea's.. other people are doing and have done what we need to do.. let's do this some more.. the Folk Revival is happening again.. Why? Because we in Kentucky already know what we do best.. Sing! Dance! and have fun! We gotta fight for our right to party! wink.. wink.. a people's party! so...

"Yes, the long memory is the most radical idea in this country. It is the loss of that long memory which deprives our people of that connective flow of thoughts and events that clarifies our vision, not of where we're going, but where we want to go." Bruce "Utah" Phillips 1935 - 2008

So.. for Pete's sake.. lets push on.. lead on... in a massive attempt at taking back what is ours.. public ownership of public goods and services. Through serious community building and education!! Pete did it! The people.. We the People.. We must build our Sound Community! 

Why I am RWU....

In this video, I am telling a story about why I am so passionate about Railroad Workers United. Well, I am developing my story telling skills on stage, so let me explain the story I was telling better here on the Railroad Music blog... see.. Ron Kaminkow had been working on me to come to the RWU convention for several months. I joined RWU in 2009 and called him a couple of times and he knew as he said.in our RWU video. "he had a hot one." All his working on me worked... 

So, I get to the 2010 convention after driving straight for 7 hours and immediately meet Jen Wallis who is hanging out with Heather Boehlke. The hotel is starting to fill up with Labor Notes convention folks and RWU is trying to get us RWU all together so we can get some dinner, Jen, Heather and I went and sat down in the bar while we waited for the merry band to assemble. 

Heather's husband Jared was crushed to death in CSX Selkirk yard. RWU member Jon Flanders worked in the Selkirk yard and if I remember correctly was there the night he died. Jon brought Heather to the convention to talk about RWU's campaign to ban one person train operation. 

I remember almost every thing about this meeting in the bar. I can still see it in my mind like it was some kind of critical incident. I remember asking Heather questions about how this... and what that. She talked about the night her husband was killed and how the radio transmissions showed that Jared was asking for help changing a knuckle and how the yardmaster was kind-of bullying him. 

Then the tears started to fall. 

We sat on the couches in the corner as she told us that a CSX claims agent had called her the day of the funeral telling her lies about her husband, and that she needed to settle. This was my introduction to RWU and my first meeting with my RWU Co-Chair sister Jen. It was also my first "Union Convention" While she talked I was thinking about the night my boss, gave us our briefing about the fatality in Selkirk. I was an RCO operator at the time but this story was real, not like it was in the locker room a couple of months before hearing it first hand. 

After this very intense conversation we got our dinner party together and went out to eat. 

The next day started the convention. That night RWU hosted a party room where I was going to play my railroad music. I was also going to play one of the, if not THE most intense show that I have ever played. 

I started my set and as the music went.. people really got into the railroad stories and songs. I played my John Henry song about the Locomotive Engineer that beat down the Remote Job and a couple more tunes. Then Heather got up and told the story about her husband. I remember looking out at the folks sitting on the floor thinking that we were really blowing these folks minds. Ron Kaminkow, our RWU secretary spoke and them I played a couple more tunes. I played my song Nashville Bound about missing your kids and working long hours. Heather loved that tune and I remember looking at her while playing it. She was crying. I was touched and chocked up. Right in the middle of another tune.. one of our RWU members gets a phone call...

Matt Weaver a track worker from Toledo walks up to the mic to make an announcement. There has been another RCO fatality right here in Chicago at CSX Barr yard. A Remote operator has been thrown from her RCO locomotive and crushed. The room was silent. I played a few more tunes and then the night rolled on... 

I will never forget this night...

 and the words cannot be found for the chills that i feel in my body as I relive this through my keyboard. From that night on.. I have been a very proud RWU  leader, student and member.. Solidarity Forever.. and there is a war on the workers and it's time we started calling the shots. 

Rail Yard Ghosts - RYG - Railroad Music..

A couple of years ago i met some folks at Heine Brothers in Louisville. They were just passing through. I could tell by the looks of them, that something was going on.. these were not your regular far out punk, rebellious youth.. I met the Rail Yard Fucking Ghosts. 

Being A railroader and a Folk musician.. I am not afraid of ghosts.. especially these ones.. We are of the same vibration... rebellious.. Anarchistic.. Mad.. Pissed off.. Wanting something more.. looking everywhere.. in the dark. in the shadows.. A sub-Culture of a Sub-Culture..real. raw and right in your face.. or sometimes... hidden and full of a mysterious beauty...

Riding the rails. 

Those steel rails that act like a magnetic ribbon waving for all that is lonesome, 

"Don't call me a bum"... I knew they would say that.. when I yelled that at them the night I met them.. 

These folks are doing what they said they would do, and that is more than I can say for some...They said that they would resonate with the wild frontier that is Americana.. don't be afraid of that word.. because us railroaders, hobo's whatever you want to call us.. Railroad Music is the thread buddy and that folk music quilt.. is being held together and built by us... railroaders, workers, musicians,.. so enjoy the Rail Yard Ghosts.. Download their record.. look for them.. and if you see them out and about.... don't worry.. they don' bite..in my humble opinion...

They fuckin' kick ass....

Sun RA Arkestra. Welcome to Louisville

Why Sun Ra? 

Sun Ra was a leader. These days people have been taught, sometimes out of example.. or out of suspect that leaders are to be feared... but RA. A sun... you see, Sunny Re' sony Ra.. was born in a magic city. A place where dark was viewed as illegal. Against the Laws of Man... you see.. so an escape from this planet was needed... a re-birth into the unknown. To go Somewhere there. Now Ra... you see was a member of an angel race.. his home was out there.. in a place called space with the stars. The vibrations of the planets were his language... you see.. the Vedics, the Egyptians.. the outer worlds.. you see.. so to me.. disciples of a RA.. a Sun.. has descended upon Louisville. It's time to celebrate and to recognize that my people.. the fearless of the unknown.. are here.. in my City.. 

Marshall Allen was born in Louisville, KY.. so it is even more important.... that a Man.. of Free Jazz.. or ever more free than.. impossible.. you see, because no man is free from Death... So why Sun Ra.. the man.. the leader of a band of followers of a spiritual vibration.. from the stars.. you see.. they call the stars the heavens. Angelic Sound followers of a mythic alter destiny.. you see.. words can not explain. we will face the music.. We must listen to the cosmos song.. you see.. Today is examination day.. RA has arrived! that's WHY!

Folk Reporter and Folk Musician - Labor

Folk Reporter... Mike Elk sits with JP Wright, Locomotive Engineer Folk Labor Musician

We may have coined the term, folk reporter for this episode of Words, Sound and Power, but what we are actually having is an experience. A real human interaction. 

These days, that is a revolutionary action.

I live on the analog side of the digital divide. Pete Seeger was a folk musician, but he was also a reporter. His music was documenting a time of struggle. Woody Guthrie was a reporter, a field reporter. When Pete and Woody met? History was made and continues to be a source of inspiration for a new generation of artists, poets, writers and musicians.

Pete had another friend in the news room. Paul Robeson, and he had a motto. 

"We who labor in the arts, we who are singers, we who are actors, we who are artists. We must remember that we come from the people, our strength comes from the people, and we must serve the people and be a part of them" 

Mike and I wish in this meeting to add writers and reporters to that list. 

In this episode of Words, Sound and Power. I got a chance to sit down to talk with Mike while he was traveling through Kentucky. He was on his way over to report on the USW local 7-669 lockout at the Honeywell.

"The USW local 7-669 has about 150 members at the Honeywell Plant in Metropolis, IL.  Our plant processes uranium and we work around many extremely dangerous and deadly chemicals.  Together, with the support of our community, we have the strength in numbers to stand up against their unconscionable corporate greed.  We have no fear of raising ALL safety issues with Honeywell, OSHA, NRC, and the EPA.  This helps the plant runs as safely as possible while protecting our members from unfair treatment.  We are the guardians of safety."

http://usw7-669.com/

I wanted to talk to Mike about the term Folk Labor Reporter, but this conversation is like chasing a deer through the woods. We end up everywhere.  Many folks are looking to internet crowd sourcing to fund their projects. A group of punk folk railroad friends of mine the RailYARD Ghosts traveled to Europe using this method. Non-profits and Labor groups are also using this new method of fundraising. So there.. Folks.. This is Indi- DIY whatever.. Folks helping out folks and showing support!!

Mike works the labor desk at POLITICO... and I am guessing, sort of like art and music in schools, its the first to get cut. Like the model that Superman was dealing with at the Daily Planet... they gotta sell papers... So how to get to Metropolis. But this time, it's real. In Illinois and he is broke. He has the Labor Reporter Blues.. so he turned to his supporters to fund the trip. His Labor Desk is on the road. Staying with supporters, getting to know the people and what they are dealing with.

Mike and I have a lot in common. His father is a long time United Electrical (UE) organizer, My Father is an IBEW union contractor. We both come from very union labor activist mindset families. My mother was an activist back in the UofL anti Apartheid days and worked closely with Anne Braden. While Mike was reporting on the UAW Volkswagen story in Tennessee, he mentioned that someone had mentioned a term : Braden Southern Organizer.. so... 

When Mike arrived, I was sort of on break from a major national drive that my Railroad Workers United organization had completed. We fought back against a SMART union supported contract on the BNSF railroad that would have allowed for one operator trains in the USA. Kinda historical in nature. I wanted as any good host would, to give him a taste of  Kentucky and my hometown of Louisville. I also wanted to show him directly what a Braden organizer was. Me. I also sat his ass in her chair at the Carl Braden Memorial Center, and in real highlander school fashion ... 

we went to an Alan Lomax presentation of Eastern KY music and culture put on by a local musician who is the digital curator of the Lomax collection. Then we went to a party at an art warehouse where I got a chance to play music around a wonderful fire with some real rail hobo friends of mine who had hopped trains into town for the National Jugband Jubilee festival held yearly on the Ohio river. Mike got a chance to meet a real Anne Braden southern organizer, K.A Owens who is the Director of the KY Alliance, Anne Braden's legacy organization.

 Y'all already know I'm a working Locomotive Engineer and that I am a delegate for my I.W.W Kentucky GMB.....but no!  folks....  

this is not some old history, or something that has happened way in the past. It is a Folk Labor Musician and a Folk Reporter becoming better friends.. Friends in the struggle trying to tell the people's story regardless of how many papers or CD downloads it sells. 

Solidarity 

J.P Wright 

Louisville, KY

www.railroadmusic.org

P.S

Yes we drank Bourbon and went to White Castle.. I tried to warn him.. but that's the rest of the story...