Josh Turner may need solely been in his mid-20s when he wrote “Long Black Train,” however the South Carolina-born nation singer’s breakout single radiated old-time feeling. Launched on Might 19, 2003, “Long Black Train” was a fervent Jeremiad within the guise of a rustic hit, its folk-accented instrumentation and unmistakable sermon-like message sounding like they got here from one other period. On nation radio, “Long Black Train” may need been sandwiched between the popular culture nostalgia of Mark Wills’ “19 Somethin’” and the boozy escapism of Toby Keith’s “I Love This Bar,” nevertheless it felt virtually primal by comparability, extra like one thing from the O Brother The place Are Thou? soundtrack than the polished product of Music Row.
However greater than something, it was Turner’s very voice that sounded so remarkably not like anything on CMT. It’s a voice so deep that, at instances, it virtually sounds overly affected. However the place it comes from is real, rising up from someplace even deeper than the fiery Hell he warns of. Unsurprisingly, he’s acknowledged in interviews that the music’s genesis was in an awesome imaginative and prescient that got here to him one evening, of a locomotive headed nowhere quick.
Hearken to Josh Turner’s “Long Black Train” now.
The pronounced bluegrass sound of “Long Black Train” endowed the music with as a lot enchantment to Americana audiences as a mainstream nation crowd. Turner didn’t simply gesture towards bluegrass, he made it an integral part of his sound, with a session band of Americana veterans. “Long Black Train” featured the banjo choosing of Bryan Sutton, the previous lead guitarist for Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder and a touring musician for everybody from The Chicks to Bela Fleck, with Aubrey Haynie of Sugar Hill Data on fiddle.
After “Long Black Train,” Turner would proceed to position himself within the lineage of sacred mountain music, working with the legendary Ralph Stanley on 2006’s “Me and God.” Although he saved one foot firmly in mainstream nation, it was solely inevitable that Turner would sometime embrace his predestined calling as a gospel singer, and he’d flip extra explicitly to faith-based music with 2018’s I Serve A Savior. However “Long Black Train” stays on the coronary heart of his work, changing into virtually like a normal in a hymnal that lives past its creator, greater than only a mere music.
Hearken to Josh Turner’s “Long Black Train” now.
