Night Of The Orphan Train – A Musical Novel is an audiobook by award winning producer and songwriter, Brent Maher, and it’s loaded with a great soundtrack centered around the story of over 250,000 orphans who were swept off the streets of New York City and shipped off on boxcars to every US state during the late 1800’s to early 1920’s. The soundtrack is combed throughout the story, which is narrated by Maher himself, and helps unfold the story with 21 tracks built around the over three-hour narration as we meet with three of the aged eleven fictional children and follow their life’s journey.
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/brentmahermusic/
The story of The Orphan Train Movement is an overlooked chapter in U.S. history, and Maher took interest and drew inspiration from it for his own project after discovering National Orphan Train Complex in Concordia, Kansas. Maher set out to tell the story through original music and narration, and the outcome is a special combination of historical storytelling with Americana, Bluegrass and Classical music with a percentage of proceeds going to the Youth Villages of Middle TN. Timely released during November, which is National Orphan Awareness Month, when various organizations bring awareness to the well-being of orphans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVON8-yw1IA
The audiobook plays seamlessly with the 21 tracks placed in and around the narration of Maher, and three video clips help depict the story with the first being first musical piece “The Haves and Have Nots” featuring The French family Band, co-written by Maher with Joe Robinson and Seth Hopkins, compelled to create after meeting the band and finding out they could connect through Nashville, via Australia, where Robinson is also from, and Maher resides, which provided the perfect scenario for the project. “The Haves and Have Nots” is a brilliant track and accompanying video, and it all goes from there with an adventurous narration.
“Orphan Train” is the overture, featuring Trey Hensley on vocals and guitar, Ickes *Hawaiian guitar and vocals, Tammy Rogers on fiddle and vocals, and Marc Rogers on upright bass, all featured in the video for the song which these three video pieces taken from the soundtrack stand apart but comes from the audiobook to promote the music. This is another strong piece with everyone shining on the Bluegrass ballad with a narrative approach fitting the overall story with a seriously good string bending part of the story that begins in Kansas City and proceeds graphically to play out.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Night-Orphan-Train-Musical-Novel/dp/B0FLRLQVTS
Also released with Night Of The Orphan Train – A Musical Novel, is the third video directed by Roger Pistole, “I Will Hold You In My Heart” by Brook Spencer and Sarah Hollbrook. And this is yet another brilliant musical piece with angelic vocals and a heartfelt part of the story, in which Maher sets up in the narration, as with all 21 audio tracks featured on this epic project which comes highly recommended for all it’s worth, and compositions any real and true music lover can appreciate from the first notes to the last to the outstanding Brent Maher and company’s credit.
Gwen Waggoner