This is a real treat for me.  A real blast from my past, as kids from Bellevue, WA.

The origins of RAIL go back to the post-Woodstock year of 1970, a year that saw the debuts of both Black Sabbath AND The Partridge Family. Starting out in Leo Dodd’s music class at Highland Junior High School in Bellevue, Washington is drummer Kelly Nobles, who puts a small ad in the school newspaper asking “anyone who wishes to start a band to meet in Conference Room B.”

Showing up is guitarist/singer Terry James Young, a transplanted San Franciscan who had already played in his first band in the sixth grade. A friend of Terry’s — Andy Baldwin — comes to practice with him one day. Kelly has an extra guitar and offers it to Andy. They formed the original nucleus of what became Rail & Company. Within two years Terry had switched to bass and a guy from Andy’s stage band class named Rick Knotts has stepped in to do a contracted New Year’s Eve show. The final piece had come together.

They really got their start playing in the Lake Hills Roller Rink on Saturday nights — a place where a lot of bands took that step from being a “school dance” band to the level where they were really starting to go places.  Some great acts went through Lake Hills Roller Rink over the years.

Originally, the band was  known as Rail & Company, but later shortened their name to RAIL, since that was what everybody in the area called them anyways.  For years they dominated the local scene, but never really made it nationally, until they won the MTV Basement Tapes contest with the following song:

Hello

Hello all you people
Hope you’re feeling good
We’re gonna give you a show
Like you knew we would, yeah!

With the heat of the lights
and the beat of the drum
Gonna rock you tonight
Glad you all could come yeah!

Saved your money
Stood in line for so long

But now we’re together
Everybody rock along

Hello all you people
Welcome to the show

NOTE:  There was always those two lines  in this song that I could never quite get down.  There are no printed lyrics to this song available anywhere that I know of. (288)

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