The Rock Island Line. Donegan

Early Lonnie Donegan 1957.....
The concealed 'pig iron' might be referring to smuggling slaves to freedom.

"Rock Island Line" is an American blues/folk song, which was performed and first recorded by Lead Belly in the 1930s. Versions of the song have been recorded by many other artists. While the song is ostensibly about the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, from the lyrics there is evidence to suggest that the "railroad" referred-to is actually the Underground Railroad, a slave escape route
Wikipedia

Category:

Music

Tags:

• american
• railroad
• trains
• railway
• jazz
• skiffle
• wales
• pembrokeshire
• trad
• traditional
• revival
• america
• donegan
• vipers

[FredCDobbs00]

This is not the original by Lonnie Donegan which came out in 1956. It's a remake.

[maolchalium]

@FredCDobbs00 Yes. Made after he left the Chris Barber band. The Barber version is better.

[maolchalium]

Pig Iron - The traditional shape of the molds used for these ingots was a branching structure formed in sand, with many individual ingots at right angles to a central channel or runner. Such a configuration is similar in appearance to a litter of piglets suckling on a sow. When the metal had cooled and hardened, the smaller ingots (the pigs) were simply broken from the much thinner runner (the sow), hence the name pig iron.

[maolchalium]

Pig iron is the intermediate product of smelting iron ore with a high-carbon fuel such as coke, usually with limestone as a flux. Charcoal and anthracite have also been used as fuel. Pig iron has a very high carbon content, typically 3.5–4.5%,[1] which makes it very brittle and not useful directly as a material except for limited applications. Wiki

[BuzbyWuzby]

I was inspired to look-up this song after playing "Civilization IV" - Lonnie Donegan sings it much better than Leonard Limoy!

;-)

[steved410]

Lonnie Donegan was an inspiration to Paul McCartney

[abramtaylor1]

It probably is not about the underground railroad. The train goes into New Orleans, which would not be the way to freedom for a slave. It seems to literally be about an unscrupulous engineer skipping a tariff. Great song though.

[stuart1648]

nice vibrato sound

[Derby14]

He's got pig iron...he's got pig iron...he's got aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllll­l pig irrrrrrrrrrrrrrrron.....

[mkl62]

This hit by Lonnie Donegan would finish at #50 for the year, 1956. On July 9, 1955, Bill Haley and His Comets hit #1 with Rock Around the Clock, signifying the start of the Rock Era. On April 21, 1956, Elvis Presley hit #1 with Heartbreak Hotel, shooting this new sound into the stratosphere.

[madasylum1]

Pig iron: a railroad term to the solidifyed iron they used. They called it Pig iron because at the time, pig was considered poor man meat,and pig iron was cheap metal