Hear the Whistles Blow: Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs Sing Songs of Rivers and Rails cover

Hear the Whistles Blow: Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs Sing Songs of Rivers and Rails

Flatt & Scruggs

Album · 1967 · Columbia CL 2686

Hear the Whistles Blow: Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs Sing Songs of Rivers and Rails was released on Columbia (CL 2686) in July 1967. Most of it was recorded at Columbia Studio in Nashville on 1 February and 6 March 1967, with Flatt on guitar, Scruggs on banjo and a band of Nashville session players: Howard “Johnny” Johnson and Grady Martin on guitars, Roy Huskey Jr. on bass, Charlie McCoy on harmonica and Murrey Harman Jr. on drums. Paul Warren plays fiddle and Buck Graves plays Dobro on some tracks. On the 1967 vocals, Flatt sings lead, with Jake Tullock on tenor and Warren on baritone.

Two of the eleven tracks come from earlier sessions. “Hear the Whistle Blow a Hundred Miles” was cut on 20 February 1962 with Curly Seckler on mandolin and Maybelle Carter on autoharp, and “Starlight on the Rails” on 16 February 1965. The train songs include “Southbound,” “East Bound Train,” “The Atlantic Coastal Line,” “Train No. 1262” and “Bringin’ in the Georgia Mail,” and “Orange Blossom Special” is the fiddle instrumental on the second side. Flatt and Scruggs parted in 1969, and the two went on to lead the Nashville Grass and the Earl Scruggs Revue.

Tracklist

  1. 1 Southbound 2:28
  2. 2 East bound train 2:19
  3. 3 Roust-a-bout alt version 2:30
  4. 4 Bringin’ in the Georgia Mail alt version 2:48
  5. 5 Hear the Whistle Blow a Hundred Miles alt version 2:57
  6. 6 I'm gonna ride that steamboat 2:34
  7. 7 The Atlantic Coastal Line 2:23
  8. 8 Train no. 1262 2:52
  9. 9 Orange Blossom Special alt version 2:56
  10. 10 Starlight on the rails 2:29
  11. 11 Going Across the Sea alt version 2:02

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