All aboard for Confederate Railroad and fireworks

Confederate Railroad will be chugging into Belleville on Jan. 2 to headline a big country music show including four more bands and a huge fireworks display.

The five-member band will be loaded with “Daddy Never Was the Cadillac Kind” and its No. 1 song, “Trashy Women,” tribute tunes, and a few brand new songs.

“We’re gonna have a lot of fun,” said Danny Shirley, band leader, vocalist and guitarist, from his home in Georgia. “Our music is all over the place. The year that we got a Grammy nomination for ‘Trashy Women,’ we got two Christian award nominations for ‘Jesus and Mama.’”

Confederate Railroad rolled onto the national country music in the early ’90s. The former backup band for David Allan Coe and Johnny Paycheck got their big break by signing with Atlantic Records. Their debut album’s first single, “She Took It Like a Man,” rose to No. 26 on the country charts. More hits followed, including “Jesus and Mama,” “Queen of Memphis” and “Trashy Women,” which led to a Grammy nomination and became their signature song. The band won the Academy of Country Music’s Best New Group Award in 1993.

Overall, the band has 18 charted hits and 5 million album sales.

“I’ve been in this business for 40 years,” Danny said. “We do about 100 shows a year. I feel blessed to be playing music for a living and getting to play in places like Belleville.”

Other band members are drummer Mark Dufresne, lead guitarist Rusty Hendrix, Bobby Randall on steel guitar, fiddle and vocals, and Wayne Secrest on bass.

“I grew up in Wood River,” said Wayne, who now lives in Lexington, Ky. “This will be kind of a homecoming for me. My granddaughter and son still live in the Alton/Wood River area. ... Mark and Danny and I have been together 27 years, and we’re having a blast.”

What can their Belleville audience expect?

“We don’t have a playlist. I just get up there and tell the band what song we’ll play first. We’ll play the same show whether there are 10 or 10,000 people,” Danny said, adding that he tries to get a feel for what the audience wants. “We’ll play all our hits, including ‘Trashy Women,’ which always gets people going. It’ll be diverse, from ballads to trashy and fun stuff.

“We’re going to sign an album contract with Sony real soon. I’ve written eight new songs, so we’ll try out a couple new things, too.

What is the band’s typical audience?

“Lots of longtime fans and we get a lot of young kids — but they’ll sing every word, even though they weren’t even born yet” when the songs became hits.

Danny explained how the band got its name.

“I originally signed as a solo artist with Atlantic. But there were a lot of good country groups coming out then. The guys had been playing together so long, we decided to release an album as a group.

“I was living in Kennesaw, Georgia, and if you know history, there was a train called The General, that ran between Kennesaw and Chatanooga, Tennessee.” It was commandeered by Northerners and was chased down by another locomotive, Texas. It’s now in a museum in Kennesaw. “We called ourselves Confederate Railroad after The General.”

There’s just one more thing Danny wants you to know.

“We always like to hang out after the show and visit with the folks. You don’t have to buy anything. We just enjoy meeting people. It’s really neat when somebody tells you how much one of our songs affected his life.”

In addition to Confederate Railroad, four other acts will be featured, said concert promoter Jean Frierdich, owner of Frierdich Fireworks.

“Miranda Hagan is a young singer and guitar player from Marissa,” Jean said. “Boulderdash has been playing a long time in this area and is very popular. Razed on Radio is two guys formerly with Dixie Express and Saloonatics, two bands everyone know.”

Fireworks will last 15 minutes. “I’ve been doing fireworks for 26 years,” Jean said, “They’ll be spectacular.”

Like New Year’s Eve all over again.

This story was originally published December 16, 2015 at 2:25 AM with the headline "All aboard for Confederate Railroad and fireworks."