Tiny Bradshaw was born in Youngstown, Ohio in 1905. He went to school at Wilberforce University, in Ohio. It was in college that he really made music his life. In 1932, at around age 27, he went to New York where he joined several bands, had many singing opportunities, formed his own band, and went on tour (Larkin 2009). During the lifespan of Bradshaw’s band, many great musicians such as Sonny Stitt, Roy Brown, and Lonnie Johnson were trained and given opportunities to succeed. (Marion, 2000). Tiny Bradshaw died in 1958 due to two strokes weakening his health. (Marion, 2000; Larkin, 2009)
Tiny Bradshaw lived through the Harlem Renaissance, but rather than trying to focus on “incorporating African-American folk materials into European concert and literary forms,” (which is what the Harlem Renaissance was all about) (Palmer, 2006), he focused on keeping, growing, and expanding blues. Even though it was not his most popular song at the time, The Train Kept A-Rollin became his best known hit because of the bands that turned it into a rock song, including The Rock & Roll Trio “…which defined the rockabilly sound (outside Elvis).” (Marion, 2000). Other popular rock and roll artists to cover the song include the Yardbirds and Aerosmith. In an interview in 1990, Jimmy Page said that Led Zeppelin played the Train Kept A-Rollin during their first rehearsal. “We got together in this small rehearsal room and just played “Train Kept a-Rollin’ ” which was a number I used to do with the Yardbirds, and I think Robert knew it.” (Considine, 1990). The song had a major impact on the genre of rock and roll and put Tiny Bradshaw down in history.
The Train Kept A-Rollin’ by Tiny Bradshaw is a lighthearted song, alive with instruments and a danceable beat, and an easy melody with simple lyrics one can sing to. The genre of the song is jazz, but more specifically, the style is a fusion of many genres including swing, boogie-woogie and blues together forming the style known as jump blues. The song starts out with Tiny Bradshaw and a chorus singing in a call-response style. Right away drums, bass, piano kick in. The bass plays a muted boogie-woogie riff and the piano cuts through energetically in the higher register with many tremolos and quirky riffs. From 0:00 to 0:12, Bradshaw does not sing words, he sings a few lines of scat and after every phrase the chorus responds with “oh, what a girl.” Bradshaw talks about meeting a woman, and uses a metaphor of a train to drive the song. He describes her as a “hipster, and a gone dame… pretty, from NYC.” Being a hipster meant that one kept up with the popular forms of jazz. In a way it meant to be at the forefront of musical/pop culture evolution. “They were the precursors of hippies…” (Staff, 2004) It seems that he knows she is not good for him and wants her to “get along,” but he is also attached to her and says he “couldn’t let her go.” So, as the chorus goes, “The train kept a-rollin’ all night long.” This implies he couldn’t pull himself away from her. He later talks about making stops at a couple of towns (Albuquerque and El Paso), which could be symbolism for stopping the relationship, and breaking up with this lady. However, he again he says he “couldn’t let her go,” and so once again, “the train kept a-rollin’ all night long.” The melody of this song is very simple. The first 11 seconds of the song (which is Bradshaw’s scat singing and the chorus responding) is almost all the same note. The first verse is very similar, with only a couple places where the melody jumps up a third then moves conjunctly back to the original note. On the last line of the verse (0:30) he jumps up fifth and then descends back to the root. The pre-chorus (beginning at 0:33 and continuing until 0:51) also doesn’t have much movement either. The melody is essentially back and forth between two notes: the root and a minor third up from the root. Once again, as at the end of the verse, he jumps up a fifth and descends back to the root conjunctly (0:49-0:52) Once the song reaches the chorus, it begins the pattern of AABAAB, melodically, and the chorus begins the call-response style again. The melody of A continues the monotonous theme for the first two lines. The B section jumps up a fifth and descends. At 1:12 a rowdy invigorating disjunct saxophone solo breaks out and continues until 1:52. The second verse has more variation than the first. The first two lines are almost the same, then on the third line he jumps up a fifth, then speaks the last line of the verse from a higher pitch to a lower pitch. The pre-chorus and chorus are then repeated as before, with the exception of high pitched shouts in the chorus that sound like train whistles. The rhythm of the drums is a swing rhythm, with emphasis on beats two and four. The way the drums are played resembles the chugging of a train, reinforcing the theme of the song. The only harmony in the song is in the chorus when the background singers sing a third apart, “all night long,” in a descending manner. The texture of the song is fairly thick throughout; the piano, drums, guitar, and sax and background singers provide a busy background. In addition, the song stays almost at the same dynamic level the entire time. The tempo of the song is very quick at about 142 bpm, and stays that way for the duration of the song.
The reason I chose this song wasn’t actually clear to me at first. I decided to pick a song from the fifties and listened to a playlist of popular songs from that period. The Train Kept A-Rollin stood out to me the most. I think originally I chose the song because parts of the instrumentation reminded me of Led Zeppelin. Then once I started examining the lyrics (at least, my interpretation of them) I began to relate to them quite a bit. The conflict between being in love with a person but knowing they are not good for you stood out to me the most.