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• Orange Blossom Special...
Orange Blossom Special According to Wikipedia
The fiddle tune "Orange Blossom Special," about the passenger train of the same name, was written by Ervin T. Rouse (1917-1981) in 1938. The original recording was created by Ervin and Gordon Rouse in 1939. It is often called simply The Special. It has been referred to as the fiddle player's national anthem.[citation needed]\
Importance
By the 1950s, it had become a perennial favorite at bluegrass festivals, popular for its rousing energy. For a long time no fiddle player would be hired for a bluegrass band unless he could play it.
For many years, Orange Blossom Special has been not only a train imitation piece, but also a vehicle to exhibit the fiddler's pyrotechnic virtuosity. Performed at breakneck tempos and with imitative embellishments that evoke train wheels and whistles, OBS is guaranteed to bring the blood of all but the most jaded listeners to a quick, rolling boil.
-Norm Cohen, author, Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong
Authorship
Rouse copyrighted the song before the Orange Blossom Special ever came to Jacksonville. Wise did not write it although he claimed for years that he did. Rouse, a mild mannered man who lived deep in the Everglades never contested it as it was not in his character. Years later, Johny Cash learned of Rouse and brought him to Miami to play the song at one of his concerts. Check out the KZfaq video of Gene Christian, a fiddler for Bill Monroe who knew both men and soundly confirms that Rouse wrote and copyrighted the song, not Wise.
Other musicians, including Robert Russell "Chubby" Wise, have claimed authorship of the song. As Chubby tells the story, he and fellow musician Ervin decided to visit the Jacksonville Terminal in Florida to tour the Orange Blossom Special train.
. . even though it was about three in the morning we went right into the Terminal and got on board and toured that train, and it was just about the most luxurious thing I had ever seen. Ervin was impressed, too. And when we got done lookin' er over he said, 'Let's write a song about it.' So we went over to my place . . and that night she was born. Sitting on the side of my bed. We wrote the melody in less than an hour, and called it Orange Blossom Special. Later Ervin and his brother put some words to it.
Rouse copyrighted the song in 1938 and recorded it in 1939. Bill Monroe, regarded by many as "the father of bluegrass music," recorded the song (with Art Wooten on fiddle) and made it a hit. Since then countless versions have been recorded, among them Chubby's own, as an instrumental in a 1969 album, Chubby Wise and His Fiddle. And that version, said Chubby, "is the way it was written and the way it's supposed to be played."[1]
Notable versions
Johnny Cash named his 1965 album after the song. While bluegrass performers tend to play it as strictly an instrumental, Cash sang the lyrics, and replaced the fiddle parts with two harmonicas and a saxophone.
The Moody Brothers' Grammy nominated country instrumental "The Great Train Song Medley" featured their father Dwight Moody playing fiddle on "Orange Blossom Special".[2]
A version by Doug Kershaw peaked at #9 on the RPM Country Tracks chart in Canada in 1970.
Charlie McCoy recorded a harmonica-led cover of the song that peaked at #26 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 1973.
Noted session artist Tim Watson is famous for performing the song with his band, Black Creek, in imitation of a semi-trailer truck rather than a locomotive.
The song was covered by Swedish instrumental rock band The Spotnicks in 1961 and released on their first album, The Spotnicks in London - Out-a-Space!. In 1962 the Spotnicks recording entered the British Top 30.
Charlie Daniels' 1974 Platinum album Fire On The Mountain. contains a live performance recorded at the War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee on October 4, 1974.
E.L.O. also covered the song in their early shows.