“Midnight Special” (CCR)

We serve up some album tracks over the next few days, starting with CCR’s version of a traditional prison song from the early 20th century. The blues singer Leadbelly had a well-known take on this in the 1930’s; Johnny Rivers had a hit with his in 1965. The term was said to represent many trains that passed near prisons across the South. One popular theory ties the song to a train that carried family members of inmates from Jackson to the Mississippi State Prison in Parchman.