Nothing captures the imagination and ignites the passion of the American mythos quite like the railroad. Doug and Alyssa Graham already had their dream love story, growing from childhood pals to high school sweethearts to award winning Americana duo, the Grahams, so in 2014, husband and wife set out to realize a new dream—they wanted to ride the rails, making music and chasing the ghosts of Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly and Jimmie Rodgers along the way.

They drew up a path across the country that would whisk them aboard the Texas Eagle, the Heartland Flyer, the Sunset Limited and the Adirondack Line, from North to South, East to West and back again. When Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars caught wind of the project, he decided to tag along with his camera, filming the couple as they played in Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana with Luther Dickinson, Duwayne Burnside, Sharde’ Thomas, Alvin Youngblood Hart and dozens of other musicians. They arrived at the famed Sun Studios with both an album and a documentary–Rattle The Hocks.

Though their album was released in May of last year, the mini-doc of the same name is just now seeing the light of day, and today, Elmore is thrilled to be bringing you an exclusive stream. Pairing live performances with intimate moments of trains, travel and the towns along the journey, Rattle The Hocks is a unique film that blends the usual elements of a tour documentary with something deeper—a drive to discover the roots of a genre that dates back over a century. “There’s a special connection between American folk music and the railroad,” Alyssa intones in the film’s introduction. “As writers of Americana music, our goal is to draw on the deep recurring sources of American folk culture. Our methodology is to follow the paths and revisit the places that inspired our predecessors… we’re looking for the modern echo of older sounds”

Rattle The Hocks is available today, July 8^th, in all digital formats for stream and download via iTunes, Amazon, Google, etc. For those of you near Cleveland, the documentary will premiere tomorrow, July 9^th at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of their Summer Concert Series. It will play all day long in the Forest City Theater, and the Grahams will play two live sets starting at 5pm.

Watch Rattle The Hocks below.

Rattle the Hocks Screener 1 from Piano Man Pictures on Vimeo.