Chattanooga Choo Choo

The Forties JewelTones Hat got another airing in a video my singing group The Fabulous JewelTones did. We recorded “Chattanooga Choo Choo” at home individually. After one of the members mixed the sound, we shot video at a few locations. I was only able to go to one location, the South Bay Historical Railroad Society museum, and it was amazing! They not only had a lot of cool railroad artifacts, they had an enormous room full of model railroad displays.
 
Growing up, my older brother had a model train and I loved watching him work on it—painting paper mâché hills and gluing artificial bushes and trees, and even shaving a pink crayon for little flowers. It’s delightful to watch the train chug through the little, perfect world. I did once draw upon the details of model railroads in a flash fiction, “Circle, Circle,” which was published in Monkeybicycle.
 
After The JewelTones shot the video outdoors and in the railroad society’s waiting room mock-up, one of our talented members, Deanne, assembled it.
 
It’s gratifying to see the video, but the best part was seeing in person the friends I had only collaborated with remotely for the last year and a half. Unfortunately, we were unable to sing together (right now most singing groups are only singing with masks and distanced), but it was fun even to lip-sync with my friends.
 
And the costumer, Bonnie, who has given me several hats in the past, gave me another one! So a new hat is coming to the blog soon!

Here's Chattanooga Choo Choo. Enjoy!

 
If you like the video, check out the JewelTones’ YouTube channel for other performances!