"Train on the Island" is an old-time/bluegrass banjo and fiddle tune originally found in western North Carolina, southwestern Va. (Galax, Round Peak) and Tenessee. In his book When We Were Good, Robert Cantwell suggests the name of the tune was adapted (by Nestor?) from the Irish reel "Lady on the Island". The rhythms of the first measures bring to mind Winder Slide by Joe LaRose. The structure is unique in that it is a crooked tune with 12 measures and only an A part. The first recording was a field recording made in a make-shift studio in Bristol, Tenessee by Ralph Peer for Victor records during the famous 1927 Bristol Sessions on August 1, 1927 of J.P. Nestor (banjo) and Norman Edmonds (fiddle). They recorded four songs and Nestor never recorded again. In 1927 Crockett Ward and his Boys also made a recording. Ward used the melody of June Apple, which also borrows lyrics from "Train on the Island". Other recordings include: The Iron Mountain String Band, Tommy Jarrell, The Kimble Family, Walt Koken, Velma Nester, The New Ballard's Branch Bogtrotters, The New Lost City Ramblers, Matokie Slaughter, Stephen Wade, The Ward Brothers, The Wildcats, Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard, Todd Phillips, Atwater and Donnelly, The Mother Bay State Entertainers, The Double Decker String Band, Joe Hickerson and Peggy Seeger. It was printed in Burke's Old Time Fiddle Tunes for Banjo (1968), Krassen's Appalachian Fiddle (1973), Hellman's Dulcimer Songbook (1977), Perlman's Fingerpicking Fiddle Tunes for Finger Style Guitar (1978), Brody's Fiddler's Fakebook (1983) and Trischka's Melodic Banjo (1976). The recording of J. P. Nestor was reproduced in the Anthology of American Folk Music.