“Railroad Bill” grew out of the legend of an outlaw who plagued the Louisville & Nashville Railroad in southern Alabama in 1895 and 1896. Stories began in early 1895, when an armed man riding the L&N boxcars between Flomaton and Mobile earned the nickname from trainmen who had trouble detaining him. He was never conclusively identified. Railroad detectives said he was Morris Slater, a worker who had fled a turpentine camp in Bluff Springs, Florida, while some residents of Brewton believed he was a local man named Bill McCoy. A man was gunned down on 7 March 1896 at a general store in Atmore, Alabama, and accounts of that night differ widely.
The outlaw was feared and admired at once. Most Black Alabamians condemned his crimes, but many also admired his courage and audacity, and tales credited him with the power to turn into an animal to escape his pursuers.
Ballads about him began circulating in the early twentieth century. Riley Puckett and Gid Tanner recorded one in 1924, and Alan Lomax recorded Vera Ward Hall singing a version in 1939. The ballad has been sung ever since by a great many musicians, with lyrics that vary from singer to singer but always keep a bad-man theme. It spread well beyond the South: its popularity exploded during the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s, and Lonnie Donegan’s recording in the 1950s made it popular in Europe and Australia.
