**Elendil’s Heir ** has turned in a first rate staff report on Casey Jones.
Nice work!
Nice article! Very well written.
And some ignorance was fought, too. I didn’t know Casey Jones was a real person.:smack:
Very nice. I’m a Dead fan…not quite a “Dead Head”, but that song really isn’t fair to Casey Jones. Good to see it debunked.
This is just toooooooooooooooooooo WEIRD. I am, as the universe knows, a stone cold blues fan & read up on Casey Jones, whenever info strikes (and I was never a Deadhead, contrary to popular opinion) … I did not know Casey Jones wrecked a train in Toone, Tennessee … a ex-Gentleman Friend of mine was from Toone,TN. :eek:
And, in case y’all don’t know, there is in fact a real live blues drummer, CASEY JONES, who worked with Albert Collins, among others. I used to see him play when I was living in ChiTown, '70’s & 80’s. 
Great timing! The Casey Jones Home and Museum reopened today in Jackson, Tennessee with some expansions. Four of his descendents were present. Casey was a local legend when I was a kid, but I had no idea that he was widely known until I was grown.
There is also a Casey Jones museum in Vaughan, MS.
There used to be some old railroad guys who’d sit around the square in Canton and talk about this wreck, having been alive when it happened. It’s just up the road from us, here.
Fabulous! Thanks for the new info on the Casey Jones MUSEUMS. If I ever can back Down South, I’d love to check them both out. Jackson TN was the birthplace of Sonny Boy I, (John Lee Williamson) who certainly deserves a museum of his own.
Here are the lyrics to engine wiper Wallace Saunders’ original song about his friend Casey Jones. The tune would eventually become famous with a modified set of lyrics that were pretty inaccurate long before the Grateful Dead got to them; Casey was said to be headed to “Frisco”, for instance, rather than New Orleans. There was also a bawdy verse featuring Casey’s widow consoling the children that they had “another papa on the Salt Lake Line”, which greatly offended the widowed Janie Jones - she was devoted to her Casey and never even remarried.
Johnny Cash recorded a version that dropped that verse and corrected a few of the other errors, though he still sings about a “six-eight wheeler”, which never existed and would look pretty foolish if it ever did…
Thanks, everybody, and thanks to Gfactor, C K Dexter Haven and Tuba Diva for their able assistance.
That was a great article, Elendil’s Heir. Informative and entertaining…well done! I don’t recall every hearing the Grateful Dead version, but I’ve heard the Cash version.
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Allan Sherman did a marvelous parody of the Casey Jones song called J C Cohen.
There are several versions of Casey Jones (including Kassie Jones, Parts 1 and 2) on thisCD set which I got for my birthday last year.
So was Casey a scab?
No. I found nothing to that effect.
Do you know where that comes from? I remember that song from ages ago but I can’t find any reference as to why it developed.
That’s what I was wondering too. I heard Pete Seeger singing *Casey Jones - the Union Scab *song, and then latterly heard reference to Mr. Jones in Josh Ritter’s *To the Dogs Or Whoever *so was wondering whether he was a real person or not. I’ll never forget the day him and John Henry got in a fight.
Excellent report!
I have vague memories of the Casey Jones television series from 1958-59. I think they reran it on local stations in the 1960s, too. Starred a pre-Gilligan’s Island Alan Hale Jr in the title role.
I knew he was read, and I knew the story of his death, but I had no idea he was so notable before his fatal accident. Great work.
Nope, sorry. I’d never even heard about that song until reading your post.