Shine a light : field recordings from the great American railroad

Description

In March 2016, BILLY BRAGG AND JOE HENRY, guitars in hand, boarded a train connecting Los Angeles to Chicago's Union Station. Winding over nearly 2728 miles of track, the duo recorded songs during train layovers. In waiting rooms and on the side of the track in St Louis, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Alpine TX, El Paso, and Tucson, they set up their recording equipment and performed railroad songs while keeping an eye on the train and its departure for the next destination. After four days of travel, they pulled out of the city of Los Angeles at 4:30 AM, recording their final song at Union Station, accompanied by the first chirps of the dawn chorus. The album Shine A Light: Recordings Champ From The Great American Railroad offers the perfectly matched voices of BRAGG and HENRY and captures the atmospheres of the varied environments in which they recorded, from sleeper cars to the cathedral-like ambiance that reigns in historic train stations.