I was able to move a couple of lessons around so I could get at least one video workshop up this week. I am still going through the requests for the Folk Song Of The Week and taking the songs in the order they came in. This time around it’s Wabash Cannonball. It’s a fun song and one we do at our monthly jams. Have fun with it and remember that having fun is 99% of learning to play frailing / clawhammer banjo.

Wabash Cannonball MP3

Wabash Cannonball (PDF)

WABASH CANNONBALL

From the [G]great Atlantic ocean to the wide Pacific [C]shore

From the [D7]green New Hampshire mountains to the southland’s cajun [G]lore

She’s mighty tall and handsome and loved by one and [C]all

[D7]She’s the combination called the Wabash Cannon[G]ball

Chorus:

Oh listen to the jingle the rumble and the [C]roar

As she [D7]glides along the woodlands through the hills and by the [G]shore

Hear the mighty rush of the engine, hear that lonesome hobo’s [C]call

We’re [D7]traveling through the jungles on the Wabash Cannon[G]ball

Your eastern states are dandies so the people always say
From New York to St. Louis and Chicago by the way
Through the hills of Minnesota where the rippling waters fall
No changes can be taken on the Wabash Cannonball

Chorus

Here’s to Daddy Klaxton may his name forever stand
And alwyas be remembered through the courts of Alabam’
His earthly race is over, the curtains ’round him fall
We’ll carry him on to Glory on the Wabash Cannonball

Chorus

She pulled in to the station one cold December day
As she rolled up to the platform you could hear all the people say
There’s a gal from Tennessee; she’s long and she’s tall
She came down from Birmingham on the Wabash Cannonball

Chorus