This fairly dense and scholarly book is on a fascinating topic... and , as with many books like this, you'd probably want to pull out the tracks mentioned and hear them while reading about the artists and their times... An especially fascinating chapter for me was the one on blues musicians' relationships to circuses which travelled on the railroads. My great grandpa (died 1937, I never knew him) owned a traveling circus, and my grandma told stories about performing with the black singers when she was like 3-5 years old. That circus was too small to make a mention in the book, but it was fun looking for it!

Marc Bristol, Blue Suede News (Winter 2006-07)

I promise to make no jokes about blues collectors and train spotters. I really do, because here is a new book that skillfully combines those two obsessions and, in doing so, weaves a fresh and insightful view of their oft-entwined histories. It took the author six years to complete, apparently, and the care and attention is obvious. It has the hand-polished feel of an Arhoolie CD or Jacques Tati movie.

What Max Haymes has attempted to do here – successfully in my view – is explore the relationship between an emerging technology and an emerging music; how the blues was affected by railroad work and travel, how African American lives benefited and sometimes suffered as a result of both; how the blues was, in part, shaped by the opportunities that rail travel – paid or not – offered and how that experience shaped their reflections, caught in the lyrical images preserved on early blues recordings.

I should perhaps point out that the subtitle, "Railroads In The Early Blues" is pretty strict; there is little discussion here of post-1950 experience, but much of developments in both fields during the 18th and 19th centuries. For railroads, available early history is quite detailed, but the mists of time have always shrouded the origins of the blues; we still don’t know for certain where the first blues were sung, by whom, accompanied by what or how they sounded. With railroads, we can discover the dimensions of the last fly-wheel or the first two-tone whistle, so there is some disproportion in the available research, and Haymes has done well in striking a balance.

Of necessity, the great bulk of the blues research here is drawn from recordings, mostly from the 1920’s and 1930’s, accompanied by full-blooded discographical detail and – in my view – extremely accurate lyric transcripts. This allows the author’s conclusions to be offered in some depth – for there are over 300 pages of text sewn together here – and while I might want to take issue with one or two stretched points, the theories expounded are well thought out and backed by the best of circumstantial evidence and insightful readings of the research.

All that said, this is neither a volume for the novice or casual reader, and even committed fans are faced with a serious, in depth narrative. I have no problem with this, for many books about the blues published this last decade or so have been pretty facile and in some cases should have been strangled at birth. This is not one of them. With a good selection of relevant illustrations, very accurate indexing, an accessible and relevant discography, I would recommend this to anyone serious about the subject. Perhaps the best praise I can offer is that it often felt like I was reading a Paul Oliver text.

Paul Vernon, Folk Roots (March 2007)

This most informative book, subtitled Railroads in the Early Blues, is the result of over 30 years' worth of research by the author. It gives us the "lowdown" on references in early blues lyrics and phrases – in fact, most everything to do with railroads in blues music from 1890¬-1943.

You can find out all about the terms "Ballin' the Jack," "Smoke Stack Lightnin'," "The Story of Casey Jones," "The Bottoms," "Hot Shots," "Chain Gangs," "Passenger Train Women," "Gandy Dancers," "Ridin' the Rods," "Ridin' the Blinds," "Hobo Jungles," "Red Light Districts," and "Ridin' on the L&N." By now, I am sure you are getting the picture.

Randomly singling out "I Carried Water for the Elephant," the chapter that deals with the early days of circus, vaudeville-blues singers, minstrel shows, the origin of the term "ballyhoo," and a survey of hokum, gives you an idea of how thoroughly Max Haymes has researched his subject (this book was 30 years in the making) and the high standard of writing and research is maintained in every chapter of this riveting blues railroad journey.

There are ten chapters in this wonderfully written and researched book, dealing with early blues from 1890-1943; all chapters are absolutely enthralling, and reminded me of when I first read the ground-breaking classic by Arnold Shaw, Honkers and Shouters, all those years ago! You will read about the Pullman Red Cap Porters, how they transported new blues releases (78 RPM records) virtually from coast to coast, the introduction of the refrigerator car, hobo-ing with T-Bone Walker. You'll go where the "Southern Crosses the Dog," read about "Railroad Bill." "Catch That Fast Mail Train I See," the immortal Robert Johnson phrase, is discussed. There is so much information in these pages, it is mind bending, but in a good way! A lot of attention is paid to blues singers who have railroad references in their songs: The Texas & Pacific, Rock Island Line, The L&N, The M&O, and so forth. Artists discussed include Blind Willie McTell, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Sleepy John Estes, Honeyboy Edwards. The songs "Brokedown Engine," "Midnight Special," "Casey Jones," and "Passenger Train Women" are all here – and there is so, so much more.

I recommend you get a ticket "Long as Your Right Arm" and go out and get this book: it is a MUST for all blues fans, and a most unique and refreshing way of presenting yet another book on our favourite subject, "The Blues." Hats off to Music Mentor for this one! A+ A+ PLUS. ESSENTIAL reading.

David Booker, Holler (April-May 2007)

Not only is Haymes' book as valuable a document as Paul Oliver's classic The Story of the Blues (1969), Railroadin' Some also raises the stakes by explaining the freight trains' symbolic importance to such familiar but hardly self-explanatory blues-song phrases as "smokestack lightnin'," "where the Southern cross' the Yellow Dog" and "ridin' the blind". The book is nothing less than the definitive survey of the railroads' long-term impact upon American life and musical expression.

Michael H. Price, Fort Worth Business Press (June 2007)

Talk about a labour of love! Sometimes you look at an author's background and think to yourself, "Where did I go wrong," because Max Haymes, who is based in Lancaster, has not only spent 30 years on and off riding the US rails to put this masterpiece together – he's also found time to take a BA in Independent Studies – subject? The Socio-Historical Study Of The Roots Of The Blues. So, don't get into an argument about the inside leg measurements of Boll Weavil Jackson or Sippie Wallace in the pub with this guy, or you'll be snookered. Above all, he's a writer with a fine eye for facts and figures.

This is a marvellous piece of work, because it not only documents hundreds of railroad-influenced Blues recordings, complete with fascinating, illustrative snatches of lyrics; it is also a thorough exploration at the enormous impact the rail¬roads of the 19th and early 20th century had on African American society. I have always maintained that there's only the thickness of a Rizla paper separating early Blues buffs from train spotters, and if you're either – or both – then the photographs alone in this superb tome (lots of locos and wagons) will set your heart beating. Every page is packed with fascinating facts. If you want to know when bananas and oranges first arrived in Memphis – and how they found their way into Blues lyrics, its all here. Did you know that if anyone was referred to as 'drummer' in the South that he wasn't someone sitting behind an array or Pearl or Tama skins and cymbals? He was a salesman who knocked on doors, 'drumming up' business.

If you love Americana, have a passion for detailed history, and above all, relish the early Blues, then this book should have pride of place on your shelves – and check out the rest of Music Mentor's catalogue – it's a revelation.

Roy Bainton, Blues Matters! (January 2008)