Most young singers dream of playing the Grand Ole Opry. Very few get called back for an encore on their first night. Josh Turner did, and he did it with a song that came to him on a quiet walk home from a college library in Nashville.
A Night With Hank Williams
Josh Turner was a student at Belmont University when Mercury released a complete Hank Williams box set. He did not have the money to buy it, so he went to the school’s music library and tucked himself into a listening cubbyhole to hear it there instead.
Many of the recordings were just Hank and his guitar. For a young singer who had grown up singing gospel in his home church in South Carolina, those bare, lonesome songs hit hard. Turner later remembered how close it felt:
“It really made me feel like I was in the same room with him.”
The Vision on the Way Home
When the library closed, Turner started walking back to his apartment. He later said there was something unusually dark about that night.
About halfway home, a picture filled his mind. He saw a wide-open stretch of plains with a railroad track running straight through the middle. Out of the darkness came a long, shiny black train. People stood on both sides of the track, watching it pass and trying to decide whether to climb aboard.
Turner did not understand it at first. He kept asking himself what the vision meant and why it mattered to him or anyone else. Then the answer came to him. The train, he realized, was a picture of temptation, and the people beside the track were deciding whether to give in to it.
Once he got home, he picked up his guitar. The song came quickly. He called it “Long Black Train.”
A Song Nobody Thought Radio Would Play
Turner himself was not sure the song had a future. Country radio at the time leaned toward a slicker, more pop sound, and “Long Black Train” sounded like it came from another era. It was a straight gospel number, built on a deep baritone and old-fashioned storytelling.
But he played it in one of his classes at Belmont, and a classmate who worked for Nashville publisher Jody Williams brought it to his boss. Williams liked what he heard and signed Turner to a songwriting deal.
“Make That Train a Little Bit Longer”
On December 21, 2001, Josh Turner made his debut on the Grand Ole Opry. He was still unknown, and “Long Black Train” was really the only song he had to offer.
The audience stood up in the middle of it. As Turner headed back toward his dressing room, the segment’s host, Bill Anderson, asked the crowd if they wanted to hear more. Then he called Turner back out:
“Josh, let’s make that train a little bit longer.”
Turner had never done an encore and had no second song prepared. So he counted off “Long Black Train” and sang it again. He later admitted he got choked up when he realized what had just happened. He had earned an encore on the Grand Ole Opry.
From Library Cubbyhole to Platinum
One month after that night, Turner signed with MCA Nashville. Even then, the song nearly did not make his debut album, because label executives worried it was too old-fashioned and too openly spiritual.
They kept it. “Long Black Train” became the title track and lead single of his 2003 debut. It spent more than 40 weeks on the Billboard country chart, climbed to No. 13, and crossed over to No. 48 on the Hot 100. The album went Gold just weeks after release, and the single itself was later certified Platinum.
The song also reached people in ways Turner never planned. After a show in Alabama, a woman told him the song had changed her life. He came to believe that everyone has their own long black train to face.
In 2007, Josh Turner became an official member of the Grand Ole Opry. Years later, when he celebrated his anniversary as a member, Bill Anderson was there again, and “Long Black Train” was part of the show.
It all started with a box set he could not afford, a walk home on a dark night, and a picture he could not shake. Do you remember the first time you heard “Long Black Train”?