Ride the Rails by Ken Woods and The Old Blue Gang: Review

by admin May 7, 2025

May 7, 2025

Ride the Rails by Ken Woods and The Old Blue Gang: Review

“Ride the Rails” by Ken Woods and the Old Blue Gang barrels down the tracks like a runaway locomotive—loud, righteous, and burning with purpose. From the moment that whistle blows and the steam hisses, you’re flung straight into 1893 La Grande, Oregon, where a haunting chapter of American history is brought to life not through textbooks, but through blistering guitar riffs and gut-punch storytelling. This roots rock jam is a historical reckoning.

The train-beat rhythm drives the whole song like it’s got somewhere urgent to be—and it does. It’s on a mission to make sure you don’t forget what happened when an angry mob expelled the town’s Chinese community in a fury of xenophobia. Woods rides each lyric with the urgency of someone trying to wake the past and shake it by the collar. Layered guitars swirl like dust on a dirt road, the solos screech with anguish, and the rhythm section punches forward with wild-eyed momentum. It’s Bakersfield-country-meets-psychobilly, with echoes of Hendrix and Crazy Horse flaring up in the most unexpected and satisfying ways.

Ken and the gang pull no punches. The OBG’s whole aesthetic is built on reclaiming and reinterpreting. Even their name, once belonging to a racist gang of murderers, is now a symbol of cultural reclamation—a bold move that mirrors the music’s rebellious spirit. This song, and the upcoming album Silent Spike educates, mourns, and defies. It invites you into a world of American roots, only to reveal the rot beneath and ask you what you’re going to do with that knowledge.

“Ride the Rails” is a riot on the tracks that rides into the present-day America, making us wonder just how much we have changed since then. Listen to it on Spotify.