Josh Turner
Long Black Train
Play Long Black Train
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AMG Review of Long Black Train
Steve Leggett
All Music GuideThe centerpiece of this debut album by South Carolina native Josh Turner is its lead track, the raditional-sounding "Long Black Train," which could be a country gospel song out of the 1940s. Penned by Turner, the song rolls death, temptation, and redemption into the metaphor of a funeral train, and sung in Turner's deep voice, it rolls across country radio like nothing else on the scene, the ominous breath of hellfire in the lyrics conjuring up the ghost of Johnny Cash. It is also a hard act to follow, and although there are some strong songs here, nothing else on this record comes up to the level of "Long Black Train." Turner has a deep, commanding voice full of a kind of intimate sadness, and that alone carries songs like "She'll Go on You," setting them apart from what passes for Nashville sincerity these days, but there is simply too much filler here, and with "Long Black Train" as the lead cut, everything else seems like a long breath being exhaled.
Just a thought...
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Has anyone ever given it any thought as to where Josh got the idea for the "long black train"? Certainly it could be a reference to Lincoln's "death train" on which his body rode from Washington DC to Illinois. Or could this be an indirect reference to the train in Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" ("I hear the train a-comin'/It's rollin' 'round the bend")?Just some food for thought.
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 "Long Black Train")
