Kris Rutherford

The country music industry is filled with musicians and performers who are critically acclaimed yet have limited commercial success. No. 1 hits are rare for these artists, and you’re more likely to find their names among those nominated for Grammys as opposed to Country Music Association (CMA) awards. Many of these lesser-known performers are actually driving forces behind the songs of commercial artists. These songwriters and studio musicians are well known throughout the business. One such musician — Marty Stuart, an ambassador for the genre — likely falls into this category for many country fans. Along Stuart’s musical journey, he’s even turned out a trucking song or two. But before focusing on his songs, let’s explore the evolution Stuart’s style. After all, it’s one that encompasses nearly 100 years of country music history. While you may associate Marty Stuart with bluegrass, don’t let his instrument of choice — the mandolin — fool you. His style spans the farthest reaches of country music. Stuart was born in the deep south — Philadelphia, Mississippi — in 1958. He shared a passion for music with his father and grew up watching what he refers to as “Hillbilly Hollywood” on television, syndicated shows that featured 1960s artists like Porter Wagoner and the Wilburn Brothers. The visual appeal of country music struck Stuart, and the rhinestone suits and other characteristics of country performers fascinated the youngster. As he grew older, Stuart could be found hanging around Philadelphia’s Busy Bee Café Juke Joint, where he was introduced to the acoustics of bluegrass music. At age 11, Stuart attended his first Johnny Cash concert in nearby Jackson, Mississippi. Standing against the stage before being pulled away by security, the youngster was mesmerized by Cash’s performance. At that moment, he recalled, he wanted to BE Johnny Cash. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. While still a pre-teen, Stuart started his first band. In 1970 he attended a concert in Philadelphia featuring Connie Smith, his mother’s favorite singer. He met Smith and took photographs of her, later telling his mother that he would someday marry the singer, despite the fact she was 29 years old — 17 years older than young Stuart. But marriage would have to wait. First, Stuart had to find his start in the music through which he’d eventually make his career. A mandolin he purchased before he turned 14 became his ticket to success. As a teenager, Stuart joined his first road band, the Sullivan Family Gospel Singers, touring with them in the summer of 1972. The experience was like a “fantasy camp,” he said. The return to his freshman year in high school didn’t sit well with him. By September, he’d left school and traveled to Nashville at the behest of Roland White, a member of Lester Flatt’s band. In short order, Stuart also joined the band. He’d found his life’s calling. During the 1970s, he continued to grow as a musician, becoming proficient on several stringed instruments. By decade’s end, Stuart had come full circle when Johnny Cash invited him to join his touring band. Over the next five years, Stuart toured with Cash, and he married his boss’ daughter, Cindy (not Connie Smith) in 1983. Although Stuart recorded a couple of independent albums early in his career, commercial success eluded him. But in 1985 he signed with Columbia Records. After nearly 15 years in the music business, he finally set out on his own. By year’s end, Columbia released his self-titled album, and he arrived on the billboard charts with his first single, “Arlene.” Although the song wasn’t a major hit (No. 19 on the charts), it was a Top 40 single, and success appeared on the horizon. But the follow-up singles from the album received less airplay, with only one reaching the Top 40. Through the remainder of the 1980s, Stuart struggled commercially, recording three albums but only achieving one additional Top 40 single. That all changed in late 1989 when Stuart left Columbia for MCA records. His first album for the new label, “Hillbilly Rock,” became his breakout record. The title track from the album shot to No. 8 on the charts, boosted by a music video. The single launched a string of hits for Stuart, and he had five more songs reach the Top 10 through early 1992. In 1991, he wrote “The Whiskey Ain’t Working” for a rising star, Travis Tritt, and was invited to perform on the singer’s second album. The song climbed to No. 2 on the charts. It would be the high-water mark of Stuart’s commercial career. Throughout the 1990s, Stuart continued recording albums, and the critics generally loved his work — but airplay was elusive. Stuart never cracked the Top 40 again. “The Whiskey Ain’t Working” did land Marty Stuart his first award after some CMA and ACM nominations, but it came from the Grammys, not country music’s awarding committees. He was nominated, along with others, for several compilation and concept albums during the 1990s and early 2000s, but the Grammys continued to best recognized Stuart’s contribution to music. Perhaps his most notable award came in 2001 when Stuart brought home a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance for the bluegrass favorite, “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” As his commercial career declined, Stuart started a new band in 2002, “The Fabulous Superlatives.” Much in the way of critically acclaimed performers like BR549 and Junior Brown, the band developed a cult following and offered opportunities to showcase Stuart’s talent. Beginning in 2008, the band backed him up on “The Marty Stuart Show,” an RFD-TV produced television show. For Stuart, the show took him back to his youth and his fascination with the visual aspect of country music. He dressed in faded blue jeans and a rhinestone-studded jacket — and in a nod to the golden era of country music, he wore a tight scarf around his neck. But it was his hair that made Stuart universally recognizable. His long, flowing tresses have been equated to the mane of an elegant horse by some writers. Despite all of Stuart’s accomplishments as a singer, songwriter and instrumentalist, he gained his most significant fame as a country music historian. A traditionalist, Stuart has been a promoter of the genre’s history throughout his career, serving as a six-term president of the Country Music Foundation. The role offered a pulpit to campaign for the preservation of country music’s heritage. It also helped him reach the genre’s highest achievement in 2020 when he was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Until next time, pull up some Marty Stuart on your smartphone and give it a listen. We’ll delve deeper into the performer’s complex style — and his trucking songs — in the next column.

Country music has always been, like the country in which it was born, a “melting pot” of musical genres. Take a fresh dose of gospel, mix in a handful of blues, add a few pinches of soul, a few ounces of bluegrass, a spoonful of rockabilly and a dash of jazz, and the result will usually be something that will fall into the country genre. Then again, when country takes in some of the lost performers who don’t fit perfectly into any other type of music, it sets itself up for hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of the country music melting pot came into full focus in the early 1970s when Charlie Rich took the genre by storm. A self-described jazz musician who was never accepted by the jazz community, Charlie Rich’s run of success began in 1973 when the title track of his album “Behind Closed Doors” topped the Billboard Country charts and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100. His follow-up single, “The Most Beautiful Girl,” was even more successful, reaching No. 1 on all Billboard and Canadian RPM charts. “Behind Closed Doors” pocketed Rich a closet full of awards, including the 1973 Academy of Country Music (ACM) and Country Music Association’s (CMA) Album and Single of the Year, as well as Top Male Vocalist. A year later, “A Very Special Love Song” helped Rich claim Album of the Year honors from the CMA, as well as country music’s top honor, CMA Entertainer of the Year. In 1975, Rich started the year riding a wave of country music success into all musical genres. He released three albums in ’75, two of which topped the country charts, and produced three Top 5 hits. Then it happened. In less than two minutes, in the autumn of 1975, Rich — the sly, smooth crooner known as “The Silver Fox” — watched his career go up in flames at the hand of his own Bic lighter. You see, Rich’s success as a multi-genre musician who had been adopted into the country music scene led others whose style searched for a home to take a similar path. In the mid-1970s, the most successful of these was John Denver, whose megahits “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and “Thank God I’m a Country Boy,” endeared him to country fans if only for their titles. After all, the idea of “country roads” had inspired countless road songs, and even a few trucking songs, in the years leading up to Denver’s classic single. For Rich, however, neither Denver nor his music were country enough to suit him. The CMA nominated Denver for Entertainer of the Year in 1975, and as customary, the previous year’s winner — in this case Rich — presented the award. Denver wasn’t present for the nationally broadcast awards ceremony, having been on tour in Australia. But thanks to satellite technology, the audience and the rest of America could see and hear him from an Australian studio. Denver could hear the audio, but he had no video feed. Rich, who’d been waiting back stage for over three hours, was finally introduced. From the moment Rich emerged on to the stage, something appeared “off.” He limped toward the microphone, and quickly it became obvious he had been sampling the post-award party’s beverages since the show began. The next few moments are fairly indescribable, so a “screenplay” of Rich’s own slurred words and actions after he reached the podium best tell the story: Rich first looked down at the award trophy, cradling and staring at it with what can only be described as a “lustful” look in his eyes. “This is the most beautiful thing in the world, right here…. Most beautiful thing. Thank you very much.” The fact that Rich was making a play off the title of his most successful single seemed lost on the audience, which was looking on in bewilderment. Rich then paused for a long, awkward moment. “I know the people who are up for [this award] are suffering right now, the way I did last year,” he said. “I mean, suffering, you know, like … gut,” he added, punching himself in the stomach. Then he broke into his prepared speech. “The nominees for the country music Entertainer of the Year are: John Denver, Waylon Jennings …” Rich again paused, then noted, “The reason I’m talking so correct is ’cause I just got back from London. I’d rather be in Nashville.” He then continued with his presentation. “… Loretta Lynn. Loretta, would you like to go out tonight? “Ronnie Milsap. First time I saw Ronnie, our bandstand broke. 18-foot bandstand. Bam,” Rich explained in another tangent. “And my friend from Arkansas … Mississippi … wherever he wanna be, Mr. Conway Twitty.” (Conway Twitty’s wife looks on in obvious disgust.) Rich then opened the envelope containing the winner’s name, ruffled the paper for a moment, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a cigarette lighter. As he said the long-awaited words, “The winner is…,” he lit the corner of the slip of paper on fire and again paused as he watched the flame grow. Finally, he announced, “… my friend, Mr. John Denver!” From his satellite feed in Australia, Denver looked somewhat shocked that he had won, but considering what the people watching on television had seen, his smile and round-lens glasses made him appear to be a combination of naïve and ignorant. The country music community was shocked at what it had watched transpire. The CMA blackballed Charlie Rich from all future events, and the blackball carried over to his acceptance as a country musician. Rich had a couple of hits later in the decade, the 1977 single, “Rollin’ with the Flow” the most successful, but his career took a nose-dive from which it never recovered. Rich’s true intent during his speech that 1975 evening has been debated. Some believe he thumbed his nose at a country music establishment that had turned to crossover artists — but then again, Rich was the primary beneficiary of the movement. Others, including his son, say he was a victim of circumstance. According to Charlie Rich Jr., a few days before the CMA awards show, his dad had broken his foot, and just making it to the show required a heavy dose of pain medication for the performer. The elder Rich had devised the plan to burn the award slip, expecting to get a lot of laughs. But then, for three hours, Rich sat backstage priming the wet bar. The combination of pain pills, alcohol and an ill-devised plan for a bad joke backfired, his son says. As it turned out, no one thought Rich was funny; rather, they thought he was a surly drunk, insulting another musician. Of course, a planned insult would require knowing that Denver had won before Rich opened the envelope. If Twitty had won, would Rich have lit the flame that sparked his downfall? You decide. Until next time, during your travels, take it easy on those country roads. Their ease of navigation can be deceiving.

I recently discovered a satellite radio station, and it brought back a lot of memories. It’s not just the songs the station plays (it specializes in moderate country hits that haven’t received commercial radio airplay in decades). It also reminds me of personal experiences when country music was becoming an obsession for me. The late 1970s and early ’80s turned me into the narrow-minded fellow I am today. It’s when I gave up all other forms of music for country. Many of those songs eventually became “classic country.” I don’t expect I’ll ever turn back. Where I grew up, country artists didn’t appear at the local fair — or much of anywhere, for that matter. The largest arena in the area, seating all of 6,000, might book one, sometimes two country acts a year. In 1980, Charley Pride traveled to the area for a show, and as usual, I bought some of the first tickets sold. It wasn’t just Pride who intrigued me, however. Razzy Bailey, although over 40 years old, served as the opening act. Bailey had just started stringing a few hits together, and I liked his sound. A few months after the concert, he made music history before coming out with a trucking song that turned into a No. 1 hit. But Razzy Bailey’s story began long before he arrived on stage that evening in 1980. Rasie Michael Bailey, who later adopted the name “Razzy,” sprang from country in the truest sense of the word. Born in Five Points, Alabama, a town with a population of less than 800 at upon his arrival in 1939, Bailey was raised on a farm in nearby LaFayette. The town where he grew up was just as country as his birthplace, although the population was twice as large. But in true-life country fashion, Bailey got his start in music as a member of the LaFayette High School’s Future Farmers of America string band. In short order, he could be found on stages in nearby venues, where he gained regional popularity. In 1966, Razzy Bailey wrote and recorded his first song, a single titled “9,999,999 Tears.” The tune received little attention at the time, but when Dickey Lee recorded it a decade later, Bailey’s songwriting gave him a name in Nashville. The single rose to No. 3 on the country charts and crossed over as a pop hit. Lee charted another Bailey-written song a year later with “Peanut Butter.” By this time, RCA Records recognized Bailey’s talent and hired him as a songwriter — and soon gave him a shot as a performer with a recording contract. Bailey’s first album, “If Love Had a Face,” hit No. 33 on the charts and produced four Top 10 singles. Still, country fans didn’t widely recognize Bailey’s work. All that changed in 1980 with the release of his self-titled album, “Razzy.” “Razzy” produced three Top 10 hits, including two No. 1s — “Loving Up a Storm” and “True Life Country Music.” The pair of songs marked a rare feat in country music; they formed Side A and B of the same 45 rpm single. “True Life Country Music,” might be considered Bailey’s response to David Allan Coe’s hit, “You Never Even Called Me by My Name.” Bailey packed as much country music history into a two-and-a-half-minute record than anyone ever had. In early 1981, Razzy Bailey released his third album, “Makin’ Friends.” It was even more popular than “Razzy” and included another three Top 10 hits, including two more No. 1s. In fact, the two No. 1 songs on the album again achieved double-sided hit status. “Friends” and “Anywhere There’s Jukebox” marked Bailey’s third and fourth No. 1 hits in a row, and the four occupied just two 45 rpms. Consecutive double-sided No. 1s had never been produced in Nashville before Bailey arrived. Very quietly, Bailey went on to a career in which he recorded 15 Top 10 hits, seven of them rising to No. 1. And it was all achieved over a four-year period after Bailey released his first album. In 1981, Bailey’s song “Midnight Hauler” marked his sixth consecutive No. 1 hit. The tune’s Side B companion failed to reach No. 1 however, topping out at No. 8 on the charts. The double-sided Top 10 hits meant Bailey barely missed a third consecutive history-making effort, one that would have been astonishing. Still, when it comes to staying power, “Midnight Hauler” is arguably Bailey’s most memorable song. Like “True Life Country Music,” which is packed with “country gold” song references, “Midnight Hauler” included most everything its writers knew about trucking. In “Midnight Hauler,” Bailey is both the singer of and subject of the song — that is, assuming his reference to “old R.B.” is self-directed. “R.B.” is making a nighttime crossing of the desert Southwest with a heavy, strapped-down load in an 18-wheeler. In a time before ELDs, the driver mentions that he’s been driving all day but has no intention of bedding down for the night. After all, he “just pulled out of Santa Fe,” and if he’s going to make it to his hometown of Kansas City by “the break of day,” there’s little time to waste. Like many good trucking songs, there’s a woman waiting for the driver in Kansas City, and he’s ready for the trip in his Peterbilt. Like Dave Dudley in “Six Days on the Road,” R.B. has two full fuel tanks and a “belly full of coffee and whites.” He’s using his C.B. to keep track of law enforcement and notes that he’s “cannonballing her home.” It’s a good night to make time, he claims. It’s a Saturday night, and he’s the only one on the highway, after all. That makes his Peterbilt a streak across the desert. The song doesn’t really come to an end, unless you count a rockabilly closing instrumental segment. But lyric-wise, the story, we can assume, continues on through the Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma, all the way to Kansas City where he’s reunited with his “little woman.” After all, isn’t that the ending so many trucking songs lead us toward? Following “Midnight Hauler,” Bailey only had one more Top 10 hit before he spent the rest of his recording career in the bottom half of the Top 100. But he’ll be best remembered for his 14 consecutive Top 10 hits during the ’70s and ’80s, as well as his consecutive double-sided No. 1s, something that has never been repeated by another country artist. Bailey died Aug. 4, 2021. The obituary notes that Bailey served as a deacon in the Cowboy Church of Nashville and as a mentor to a generation of singers who came to Nashville searching for stardom. Until next time, remember that the desert night may make for a great driving atmosphere, but a truck or two has been known to fall off the shoulder of even the flattest straight roads around. Plus, you never know when a roadrunner might appear like a flash on the highway.

Thanks to television, a couple of movies and a whole lot of trucking songs in the 1970s, truck drivers became cultural icons. Listeners still look at C.W. McCall and “The Bandit” as heroes of a sort, but the ’70s was a rocky decade of the trucking industry that didn’t necessarily produce trucker heroes, at least not by many listeners’ definition of the word. If you consider “outlaw” drivers to be heroic, that is your prerogative; after all, “heroic” is a relative word. However, some of the most popular trucking tunes of the ’70s do cross over into the next genre of trucking music to be considered “heroes of the highways.” Music immortalized trucking heroes, both fictional and those based in fact, long before Will and Sonny spent an hour a week on CBS doing anything BUT delivering their load of asparagus. Whether saving lives, making a tough delivery on time, surviving the trucking lifestyle, or taking care of friends along the road and family at home, the history of trucking music offers a host of heroes to choose from. In terms of saving lives (sometimes their own), it’s hard to find a better example of a heroic trucker than “Big Joe” of Red Sovine’s 1967 hit “Phantom 309.” Reportedly based on some semblance of fact, Big Joe gave his life to avoid an accident; for added impact, it was a busload of kids that Big Joe would have “slaughtered” had he not turned the wheel. Speaking of Joe, Red Sovine left us with another tear-jerker of a hero song — only this time it wasn’t a driver claiming heroic status. In “Little Joe,” a stray puppy a trucker takes into his cab winds up saving the driver, pulling him free of his burning rig. There’s nothing better than “man’s best friend” to pull at the heartstrings of a truck driver, and Sovine mastered his sentimental gift for delivering a somewhat sad but always uplifting trucking song. Then there are the songs of trucker’s avoiding the “could have been” accidents. Red Simpson’s “Runaway Truck,” C.W. McCall’s “Wolf Creek Pass” and Jerry Reed’s “Legend of the Bandit” are just a few. Simpson offered another heroic song in “Rules of the Road,” where he warns drivers to put safety first. With the COVID-19 pandemic, all Americans had to take another look at truck drivers as heroes. Making deliveries on time keeps the country going, especially when supplies are short — and delivering on time is theme of many a truck driving song. Whether it was David Allen Coe trying to make it San Antonio in “Truck Drivin’ Man” or Stompin’ Tom Connor’s “Bud the Spud” tooling his way across the Canadian Maritimes, simply performing the job of a truck driver is heroic in itself. Perhaps no song better catches a trucker trying to make a delivery as hero better than Dick Curless in “Tombstone Every Mile.” Sure, the truckers who lost their lives along that “stretch of road way up north in Maine” didn’t do so willingly, but somebody had to see that those potatoes made it to Boston on time. I wonder if “Bud the Spud” ever crossed the border. Of course, there are several songs about the truck drivers who do favors along their way, playing the hero to whoever might need help. “Teddy Bear,” Red Sovine’s most popular sentimental hit, probably tops the list. The driver in the song touches Teddy Bear’s life in a way the youngster never thought he’d see after his dad died behind the wheel of a big rig. Likewise, truckers sometimes touch lives they don’t even know. Take, for instance, Dan Seals’ “Big Wheels in the Moonlight.” Here’s a youngster who sees no escape from his dead-end town, but the sounds of the trucks on the nearby highway offer hope. A trucker who manages to survive a career on the road is heroic in his or her own right, and country music has published its share of material that tips its hat to drivers. Red Sovine offered another tear-jerker in “Giddy-Up-Go,” a song about a driver’s regret at having lost track of his son until a chance reunion suddenly makes him a dad again. Countless road songs — those that often cross into trucking music — also pay homage to travelers, whether it’s “I’ve Been Everywhere,” “Me and Bobby McGee” or “Wichita Lineman.” Another Glen Campbell classic, “Gentle on My Mind” could just as well be about a truck driver as a wanderer. Then we have one of the few female artists to record a trucking song in Kathy Mattea. Her “18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses” is the story of a career driver, Charlie, who’s about to give up the lifestyle at the end of his run. Charlie also tops the list of truck drivers who are heroes to their families. His future plans are to simply live out his life with the wife who’s been waiting for him some 30 years There are plenty of other “Charlies” out there. Dave Dudley wanted to be nowhere but home in “Six Days on the Road.” Red Simpson had to make his way home in “My Baby’s Waitin’,” and no one was more eager to get home than Johnny Horton in “I’m Comin’ Home.” But it was the 1980s, after trucking songs had largely faded in popularity, when Alabama scored its hit with “Roll on Highway (18-Wheeler).” Not only did the “daddy” immortalized in the song prepare his family for the day they wouldn’t hear from him; but, when the time came, he came through like he promised, escaping from some snowbank in Illinois. Until next time, truckers, where do you fit in this list? No doubt you’re each a hero of some sort, and if you don’t fit into one of the categories listed, you may have your own hit song just waiting to be written. Give me a call — I’m no songwriter, but I can make the words rhyme.

In 1980, when the Motor Carrier Act deregulated the trucking industry, competition among carriers became fierce. But in spite of this “deregulation,” the federal government squeezed independent drivers with layer upon layer of regulations. Perhaps not coincidentally, deregulation arrived at a time when truck driving and truck drivers had reached the height of their status as American cultural icons. It’s almost as if the “outlaw” trucking songs of the previous decade — songs that helped drive public interest in trucking — fueled the government’s interest in making the industry less attractive, at least to entrepreneurial, independent-minded drivers. So, what defines “outlaw” truck driving music? The answer probably lies with the drivers themselves. Dave Dudley recorded “Six Days on the Road” in 1963, and the song set the stage for the outlaw subgenre of trucking music. Dudley’s lyrics reference speeding helped along by a “Georgia overdrive,” using “little white pills” to stay awake, dodging scales and being somewhat lax with the log book. Even before environmentalism became a movement, “Six Days on the Road” took a slap at the future with its lyric, “There’s a flame from her stack, and that smoke’s been a blowing black as coal.” But the theme of Dudley’s song justified its means — it was the story of a truck driver rushing back home to his wife. While “Six Days on the Road” offered references that could have turned the public against truck drivers, the song did just the opposite. In fact, it helped establish truck driving as a decidedly American profession. Future trucking songs drew on rural values of country, freedom, self-responsibility, prosperity and maybe a little nonconformity. Truckers’ values closely related to the values held by many country music performers. And the country music establishment generally welcomed performers of truck-driving music — even the outlaw style — to its airwaves. By the early 1970s, America took pride in the grit of its millions of truck drivers. But the decade held much more in store. The turbulence and violent protests of the ’60s had marked a change in America. While the truck-driving community took a far different approach to making its voice heard, drivers knew that nonconformity had a place in society. Independent drivers went on strike twice during the decade, once in 1973 and again in 1979. In both cases, a major point was American’s energy policy and the high fuel prices that washed away drivers’ profits. And while it played only a small role in the shutdowns, the perceived overreaching of government at all levels further incensed those who drove trucks for a living. Trucking music helped turn state and local police into villains — unrestrained lawmen who were hell-bent on making truckers’ lives difficult. It was a view of law enforcement that hit on all cylinders with almost anyone who ever received an unwarranted parking ticket. Trucking music capitalized on society’s sentiments. Perhaps the most widely recognized outlaw trucking song came in the voice Rubber Duck, the fictional character immortalized in C.W. McCall’s novelty song “Convoy.” Not only did “Convoy” claim a spot among the top hits of 1976; but it also had something many novelty songs lack — staying power. McCall referred to pretty much every inconvenience independent truck drivers despised. He vilified the national 55 mph speed limit, log books (or “swindle” sheets), weigh stations, overbearing authorities such as the Illinois National Guard, tolling stations and law enforcement in general. “Rubber Duck,” “Pig-Pen,” “Sodbuster,” and “11 long-haired friends of Jesus” served as outlaws in the heroic sense of America. Likewise, they represented voices of unity among drivers. The legacy of “Convoy” included a sequel, a few more hits for C.W. McCall, a motion picture, unnecessary covers by other artists, enough CB radio sales to earn several startup tech companies millions, and relatively frequent airplay over four decades later. “Convoy” may have set the standard for outlaw trucking music, but it was far from the only song of the ’70s that arose from a cultural phenom. “Smokey and the Bandit,” the 1977 film starring Burt Reynolds and guitar picker Jerry Reed, not only focused on hauling illegal beer from Texarkana to Atlanta; it also highlighted efforts truck drivers’ efforts to speed the trip. The movie made the CB radio craze even more popular as the truck driving Reed and interference-running Reynolds, along with a host of other supporting truckers, used the gadgets to dodge the law. The most exciting scenes included hard-driving country music like “East Bound and Down,” a song that became the most notable from the movie’s soundtrack. Other songs and musical interludes, including “The Legend,” “West Bound and Down,” “March of the Rednecks” and “And the Fight Played On,” offered plenty of other outlaw-themed content to the truck driving genre. Burt Reynolds’ CB handle was “Bandit,” after all. A discography of 1970s outlaw trucking music hardly stops with songs that became or emerged from movies. One-hit wonder Cledus Maggard and the Citizen’s Band recorded an album filled with outlaw trucking songs, the only notable one being “White Knight.” Although the song could fit into a couple of different trucking music subgenres, the title character is every bit an outlaw — albeit a bit of a bungling annoyance compared to the sophisticated C.W. McCall. Some may argue that “White Knight” portrays the much despised “Smokey” as the intelligent character, and thus prevents the song from taking a spot in the outlaw category. What other songs might be classified as “outlaw” when it comes to truck driving music? Merle Haggard’s “Movin’ On,” the theme of the briefly popular television show of the same name, focuses on the adventures of a pair of team drivers. While S.S. Pruitt is an independent driver, the lyrics refer to him and his sidekick as “gypsies,” a derogatory name for people thought to be hustlers and criminals for centuries. Then again, considering the plot of the television show, the characters spend a lot more time dealing with side-story issues than they do keeping their eyes on the highway. Finally, before closing the door on just a few of the great outlaw trucking songs that have been recorded, let’s turn back to the 1960s and another of Dave Dudley’s trucking hits — “Truck Drivin’ Son of a Gun.” The narrator, on a run from New England to St. Louis, may not be in a hurry or dodging the weigh stations and the law. But he’s keeping busy engaging in behavior the average married woman would consider “outlaw.” Dudley takes a tour of the eastern U.S. and tells us about cheating on every girlfriend he ever knew. “I like my women everywhere I go,” he sings. Then he tells of no less than 11 stops he plans to make on his way to his “steady little baby waitin’ back home.” Dudley’s exploits with women make George Strait look like a choir boy when he sings of all the “Exes” he left in Texas. Until next time, keep your outlaw attitudes; it helps keep the 1970s legacy alive. But try not to get too carried away. “Safety first” is the lyric all drivers should have on constant replay in their brains.

Years ago, I recall a local country radio poll asking listeners to pick from one of two newly released songs. Which would be the bigger hit? I don’t recall either of the songs (something that probably tells you about the fate of both), but I do remember listening to one and thinking, “Just because the lyrics include ‘NASCAR,’ it doesn’t mean you have a country song.” The same can be said of trucking songs. Just because a song mentions a truck, it’s not necessarily a trucking song. And by no means does that mention make it a good trucking song — or a good song at all. It’s a rare feat for an artist to take a songwriter’s lyrics that allude to trucking and turn them into a good hit song. But in 1985, John Conlee pulled off the feat with his single, “Old School.” Born in Kentucky to tobacco farmers in 1946, Conlee is an unlikely performer. He did take up the guitar early in life, but following high school, he worked as a mortician. Now, a lot of country songs talk about death and dying, and no doubt somewhere there’s a lyric or two about “preparing the dead.” But Conlee didn’t try to parlay his experiences into a singing career. After landing a job as a disc jockey, on the other hand, his aspirations changed. Conlee became one of many disc jockeys who attempted to parlay their contacts in the music world into successful singing careers. In 1971, the music bug bit John Conlee enough to send him on a one-way trip to Nashville. He hoped to land something — anything — that he could make into a career of in the music business. It took time, but in 1976, he signed a contract with ABC Records. Two years later, he charted his first single, “Rose Colored Glasses.” Although the song fell short of No. 1, topping out at No. 5 on the Billboard Country Charts, the notoriety it brought Conlee turned it into his signature song and provided a gimmick for his act that he continues today — he always wears a pair of rose-colored sunglasses when on stage. While those rose-colored glasses may have become a stage gimmick, the same cannot be said of Conlee’s voice. Few have ever sung with a voice as unique as Conlee’s baritone, one that could just as easily be featured in a bluegrass tune as it could the “Nashville Sound” of the early 1980s. In fact, Conlee recently performed a bluegrass version of “Common Man” with Lorraine Jordan and Carolina Road. While the lyrics to “Common Man” are a bit more modern than those typically associated with bluegrass music, it easily blends with the instrumentation. Throughout his career, Conlee, like Merle Haggard before him, focused on songs about the working man. Conlee’s “Back Side of Thirty,” “Friday Night Blues,” “I Don’t Remember Loving You” and “Domestic Life” all reached Top 5 status on the charts, while 1983’s “Common Man” became the first in a string of four consecutive chart toppers. Like “Rose-Colored Glasses,” “Old School” didn’t reach No. 1, but it was a solid Top 5 single for Conlee. “Old School” followed Conlee’s pure trucking song, “Blue Highway.” But “Blue Highway” only managed to reach No. 15 on the charts — one of Conlee’s lowest-charting records while at the height of his career. Still, the theme of “Blue Highway” — a hard-working truck driver who yearns for the wife he left behind for another cross-country trip — serves as an excellent segue into the “Old School.” In fact, “Old School” could easily be considered a continuation of “Blue Highway,” telling the story of what happened when that lonely driver came home. As its name suggests, “Old School” is the story of a man with deep family values. He works hard for his family “driving 18 wheels,” and the choice of career became one that cost him his high school love. The love remains in his memory while he is on the road over the years, but he realizes he and his former girlfriend “came from different sides of the track.” Regardless the two swore that they’d be together forever; after all, that’s the way it worked for couples from (or who were) “old school.” Later in the song, Conlee recalls the day he read about his former love getting married to a guy who “was a big deal.” And despite the very public wedding that was flaunted in the singer’s face, he took it all in stride and simply “went for a ride down by the old school.” While the newlyweds lived the high life and his ex-girlfriend’s husband made it big (interpreted to mean in the business world) Conlee married a “sweet young girl and kept driving for the line.” And while he lived the domestic life, he watched from afar as his old girlfriend’s husband left her with the kids. But seemingly she had all she ever wanted in a “big house with a swimming pool.” In the closing stanzas of “Old School,” Conlee takes his wife to his high school reunion where he is reunited with his love long past. He agrees to a dance, and while on the old gym floor, she makes a pass at him. The singer is taken aback. After being told that “everyone” has affairs, Conlee responds with a bit of a surprise ending, yet one that any John Conlee fan knew was coming: I don’t care if they do. I’m from the old school, Where hearts stay true. I’m from the old school, I thought you were too. With “Old School,” Conlee didn’t take the path of a stereotypical truck driver, landing in a different place with a different fling every night. Instead, he took the route that’s true to most people in the truck driving profession — the route of the old school, where truckers miss those they leave behind on their long runs and can’t wait to reunite with them. Until next time, remember what you have at home. Chances are, she (or he) will be with you for the long haul.

Dave Dudley released seven singles for country radio between 1955 and 1962, but as he told Vic Willis of The Willis Brothers on television one night in 1963, “None of them were very good.” Dudley made up for any early career failures that evening when he debuted his signature song “Six Days on the Road,” a cut from his first album, “Dave Dudley Sings ‘Six Days on the Road.’” The song not only started Dudley on a career focused on the working man and truck-driving songs, but it also landed him the No. 2 position on the Billboard Country Charts and No. 32 on the Billboard US Chart. Likewise, Dudley offered inspiration to performers like Merle Haggard, who later made a career of singing tales of the all-American, masculine, working man — a man proud of his country and not fearful of expressing his love for America, family and God. David Darwin Pedruska, alias “Dave Dudley,” was born in Spencer, Washington, in 1928. His grandparents, immigrants from Germany, gave him a guitar when he was 11, and Dudley taught himself to play. After an unsuccessful career as a baseball player, Dudley chose his second favorite subject — country music — as a profession. He released several singles during the first seven years of his career, two of which charted. “Under the Cover of the Night” was his biggest early hit, rising to No. 18 on the charts. The song also showed enough promise to land Dudley a recording contract with Golden Vee Records. Dudley’s new label wasted little time producing “Six Days on the Road” as a single. That No. 2 hit gave way to a slew of remakes over the next six decades; in fact, covers of “Six Days” continue to be made today. But Dudley wasn’t a one-hit wonder. Over the course of his career, he had 33 Top 40 Country hits, including trucker anthems like “Trucker’s Prayer,” “Truck Drivin’ Son of a Gun” and “There Ain’t No Easy Run.” Among the most popular and well-known trucking songs in history (in fact, several online ratings sites list it as the best-ever trucking song), “Six Days on the Road” uses Dudley’s barreled vocals to make listeners feel like they’re riding shotgun to Dudley himself. It wasn’t that the song had any unique quality; it just helps set another two decades of trucking songs that have accompanied drivers along the road. Still, “Six Days” does its best to summarize a truck driver’s life, if only during the era it debuted. Dudley uses the lyrics of “Six Days” to immediately set the stage for the remainder of the song. When he sings, “I pulled out of Pittsburgh rollin’ down that Eastern Seaboard,” the listener knows the driver is headed south, and he’s doing so with a vengeance. His diesel is “wound up” and is running “like never before,” and the driver isn’t going to let any speed traps stop him on his way home. Adding realism to the song and showing that he knew about the topic he was describing, Dudley throws in words about his “10 forward gears,” “a Georgia overdrive” and the names of other trucks — “Jimmy” (GMC) and White. And he again reminds everyone that he not slowing down as he passes “everything in sight.” The driver notes that there’s only one woman in is life, and he’s planning to see her by nightfall:           Well it seems like a month since I kissed my baby goodbye           I could have a lot of women but I’m not alike some other guys           I could find one to hold me tight           But I could never make believe it’s all right           Six days on the road and I’m gonna make it home tonight. Reality comes back into the picture when Dudley lets the listener know that the Interstate Commerce Commission (“ICC”) is conducting inspections down the road. Despite his load being over the weight limit and his log book overdue for an entry — issues that have been automated today — Dudley avoids the problem by dodging the weigh stations that once dotted the interstate landscape. Of course, modern automation wouldn’t allow him to “dodge” much of anything in the 21st century. But “Six Days” is a song of the 1960s, and it addresses issues of the era. Once Dudley establishes that he’s rolling home with no plans to get delayed, he lets the listener know that his truck may not be all he claimed when he left Pittsburgh. It’s “a little old but that don’t mean she’s slow,” he informs listeners, adding “there’s a flame from her stack and that smokes been a blowing black as coal” (remember, the environmental movement was still nearly a decade away). Regardless, the truck has served the driver well, and by song’s end, he is heading into his hometown, one happy driver — and ready to see his “baby.” In general, “Six Days” is an upbeat and positive tune, but if one reads between the lyrics, the problems that plague truck drivers and the profession ring true. The driver is a lonely man far from home and for too long. He gets his share of ladies making passes at him at truck stops along his route, and he consistently gives them the cold shoulder because the person he loves is at the end of the rainbow — his latest week-long route. Keeping to a schedule and staying legal would be concerns if he weren’t so obsessed with getting home. And to throw in another statement of the era, the song addresses one issue of the truck driving profession that resonates today. In just the second verse of the song, the driver admits to taking “little white pills” that keep him awake. (Of course, we are all well aware some 60 years later that “awake,” “attentive” and “safe” are not necessarily comparable terms.) Those “uppers” aren’t the norm among drivers today — after all, random drug screening makes those white pills more difficult to get away with. In later years, Dudley’s reference came under the scrutiny of people with agendas other than making music. Perhaps the combination of caffeine and energy supplements could serve as a substitute and make the lyrics more accurately apply to the industry today. Actually, in recent covers of “Six Days on the Road,” the little white pills are gone. Instead, the driver sings of passing “little white lines.” To the discerning listener, the change in lyrics to fit the times should not go unnoticed. Johnny Cash’s famous refusal to change one word in Kris Kristofferson’s line, “Lord, I wish I was stoned” in his live national television performance of “Sunday Morning Coming Down” in the late ’60s set a high bar against bending to executives’ opinions of society’s wants. In the case of “Six Days,” the change in lyrics reflects a loss of continuity and meaning in Dave Dudley’s wildly popular song. It’s unlikely he would approve of the change in his signature song today. Until next time, keep your eyes on those little white lines and don’t swerve too far off your trail. After all, whether it’s today or next week, chances are that, like Dave Dudley, you’ll soon to be planning to “make it home tonight.”

Back in a day many of you probably don’t remember, the U.S. had a national speed limit. No vehicle of any type on any road could lawfully drive over 55 mph — or as CB lingo put it “double-nickels.” Brought on by the Arab oil embargo of 1973, the national 55 mph speed limit was designed to save fuel as much as anything, although some safety experts also claimed it saved lives. On the other hand, just as many safety officials thought that the limit — imposed on interstate highways originally designed for vehicles traveling 70 to 75 mph — took as many lives as it saved. Fifty-five mph is a slow pace when traveling some remote stretch of interstate in Kansas or Nebraska. And when drivers headed through the urban Northeast, the 55 mph limit hardly kept up with the reality of traffic flow. As a result, tailgating, cutting off other drivers and a general disrespect for the rules of the road increased among most everyone. As far as truck drivers were concerned, whether they were following the national speed limit or not, it made for hazardous driving conditions. As Randy Travis famously sang in “Three Wooden Crosses,” one of his later hit songs, “18-wheelers can’t stop on a dime.” Travis was just one of many artists who recorded songs about truck drivers who couldn’t stop in time to avoid collisions. Truck-driving music could have its own subgenre when it comes to dealing with tragedy on the highway. Some songs tell of near misses that ended in the deaths of drivers and incidents that ended in collisions. Many of these songs are haunting, but others are matter-of-fact — a simple telling of the perils of the highway. Among the songs classified as “haunting,” it’s hard to recall one that has a greater emotional impact on listeners than Red Sovine’s “Phantom 309.” Even the title clues the listener in to the story Sovine told — in his trademarked recitation method — of “Big Joe” swerving his truck to miss a bus load of kids. “Big Joe” didn’t survive what ended as a single-vehicle accident, but he haunted the highway, handing out dimes for cups of coffee to those who needed a pick-me-up. While “Big Joe” was a fictional character, the incident that inspired the lyrics actually happened. Several accidents are credited as the basis for Sovine’s tale, but the fatality of a truck driver in Vermont seems to be the one most associated with the song. Coincidentally, another of trucking music’s most haunting songs also happened in the Northeast. “Tombstone Every Mile,” sung by the Baron of Country Music, Dick Curless, tells the history of a “stretch of road, way up north in Maine,” where many truckers lost their lives. The number of drivers who died in the Haynesville Woods is certainly exaggerated for effect — the highway is not a long one, but it does become treacherous during the winter months. However, some researchers believe the inspiration for Curless’ song was two young girls who were killed on the road by out-of-control trucks in separate incidents — on the same day. Fortunately, the stretch of road is no longer a “must-pass” route for truckers hauling potatoes to Boston. Merle Haggard’s “White Line Fever” doesn’t tell of a trucking accident per se; instead, Haggard sings of an eternal life on the road. The song is about a man who wants to change his lifestyle, but trucking is such an addiction it’s become part of his soul. The lyrics tell of a driver who sees his approaching death but is incapable of taking the steps needed to protect himself. In the category of near misses and miracles, country music’s Alabama recorded the No. 1 song “Roll On (Eighteen Wheeler).” More inspirational than tragic, the lyrics tell of a driver who has prepared his family for the moment he knows will eventually arrive — a time his wife and kids are unsure of his fate. Lost in a blizzard, the driver knows his family will find courage in the words he told them to sing when that time came, and the story has a happy ending. On the comedy side of trucking music, Red Simpson’s “I’m a Truck” offers a semi’s view of riding the highways with what the truck considers a relatively incompetent driver at the wheel. The truck recalls the many moments the driver brags of how his skillful driving techniques helped avoid accidents. All the while, the truck knows the truth: The truck, not the driver, always saved the day. The “double-nickels” speed limit is a theme of the novelty trucking song “White Knight,” recorded by Cledus Maggard and the Citizen’s Band. The hero of the song has a hard time paying attention to the national speed limit. In fact, he spends more time on his CB radio than he does watching the road, always on the lookout for “Smokeys” and speed traps. Of course, his reliance on the CB turns sour when one of his informants turns out to be a “White Knight,” CB slang for a traffic cop. The driver, “The Mean Machine,” decides he can’t stop on a dime — or even decelerate in short order — while traveling 92 mph. Aside from the aforementioned songs dealing with the national speed limit, there are songs about drivers who have no intention of slowing down. The movie “Smokey and the Bandit” provided more than one such tune on its soundtrack, most notably “East Bound and Down,” as well as the less popular “West Bound and Down.” Of course, the title track told the story of “The Bandit,” who used the heels of his boots to drag his out-of-control truck to a stop at the bottom of a steep grade in Tennessee. Congress raised the national speed limit to 65 mph in the latter half of the 1980s. And with increasing pressure from the states, whose officials realized better than Congress that traveling a virtually untraveled interstate highway in North Dakota is a lot different than driving up the Jersey Shore, the federal government soon abandoned the national speed limit. Speed limits are now set by each state. Some stretches of highway have no posted speed limit, while the highest enforced limit of 85 mph is on a relatively new bypass east of San Marcos, Austin and San Antonio, Texas. As far as I know, no one has recorded a song about it — at least not yet. Until next time, remember: Speed limits DO exist, and it’s best to avoid fracturing them to any significant extent. Doing otherwise might land you in the same shape as “The Mean Machine” — with your tail in jail and your rig impounded.

If you haven’t read some entries from the “Staying Fit on the Road” section of The Trucker’s site by Bob “The Trucker Trainer” Perry, after reading this edition of “Rhythm of the Road,” please make it your next stop. Only Bob can offer the advice you might need to save yourself from filling the shoes of The Willis Brothers in their 1968 song, “Quittin’ While I’m Still Alive.” It’s been a good while since I’ve written about the Willis Brothers, so let’s review a little of the trio’s background. The Willis Brothers — actually one of the original three was a Caldwell, but who’s counting? — got their start in the music business during the early years of the Great Depression in Shawnee, Oklahoma, a small city east of Oklahoma City. Interstate 40 didn’t exist, and even Route 66 bypassed Shawnee, but the city had long been an oasis along cattle drives northward from Texas, and it goes down in history as a thoroughfare along the West Shawnee Trail. In fact, with three major railroads building lines through the city along with well as depots, Shawnee was a fast-growing place that put up a good fight with Oklahoma City when it came time to choose a state capital. But when a major meatpacking plant chose Oklahoma City as its home over Shawnee, the neighbor to the west won out. Today, Shawnee isn’t a whole lot larger than it was in 1930, while Oklahoma City is home to some 650,000 residents. But Shawnee lives on as a major suburb of the capital. The original Willis Brothers trio were known locally as “The Oklahoma Wranglers,” and for the better part of the 1930s they appeared live as a regular feature on Shawnee radio station KGFF. But at decade’s end, one member left the group. A roller coaster of Willises started coming and going, interrupted only by World War II, when the entire trio served overseas. When the war ended, The Oklahoma Wranglers reunited and caught their first big break — an appearance on the Grand Ole Opry performing as themselves and as backup to Hank Williams. Their popularity quickly grew, and the group became permanent members of the Grand Ole Opry before the 1940s came to an end. The next big step for the group was an eight-year stint touring with Eddy Arnold, who was among the biggest names in country music at the time. When they decided to move on, the Wranglers also changed their name — and The Willis Brothers was officially born. After all, the name fit, since Caldwell had left the group and all three slots were now filled by men from the same family. All this is to let you know that The Willis Brothers probably inhaled a whole lot more than their share of dust in the 1930s, not to mention far too many liters of bovine-produced methane gas. And because they were on the road so many years (much like truck drivers), the fellows no doubt the developed a few other health problems they ignored a little too long. These experiences might have given birth to “Quittin’ While I’m still Alive.” During their career, The Willis Brothers had one big hit — a trucking song — “Give Me Forty Acres (and I’ll Turn this Rig Around),” a subject of one of my first columns for The Trucker. But this was far from the group’s only song about truck drivers. In fact, the genre became the band’s specialty. Using a Telechord electric guitar, The Willis Brothers developed a distinctive “highway beat” to their music, all the while keeping to a bluegrass style, particularly in their vocals. The combination made for some masterful trucking songs. Sticking with two-minute-long songs, the band recorded more than were found on other country albums. While few of those songs charted, The Willis Brothers discography was impressive In 1968, recording for Stardust Records, “from Nashville, Tennessee — the Musical Heart of America,” the group released “Hey, Mr. Trucker Driver,” an album bulging with 12 of the group’s short looks at life through a windshield. A long overlooked “Quitting While I’m Still Alive” is one tune every prospective truck driver needs to give a listen before deciding on a career in the industry. In “Quittin’ While I’m Still Alive,” The Willis Brothers play the role of a still-young 42-year-old man who has been driving a big rig more than half his lifetime. But the diesel has taken its toll. This isn’t a case of being lonesome; rather, it’s a matter of being “plum beat down,” as some might say. The singer realizes, after 22 years behind the wheel without a scratch or a dent, he’s pushing his luck. Chances are that time will catch up with him. After all, he sings, he’s seen too many rigs on the road go up in flames with the driver still inside. He’s also run across too many crazy driving “punks” and more than his share of drunks that leave him wondering how much longer he’ll remain unscathed. Aside from the fear of continuing to drive, The Willis Brothers tell us of the various maladies the trucker has come down with over the years. Thanks to the diesel, he claims he can see, he can’t smell and he can’t hear. (I guess if enough diesel residue builds up in one’s system, at least three of the five senses can be permanently damaged.) The only sense the driver claims to have left is being used up trying to keep his rig on the road. And how about those kidneys? I suppose 22 years of chain coffee-drinking does a number on those as well. With that, two minutes and 19 seconds later, we are left assume the trucker arrives in Memphis, where he turns in his papers and puts his truck up for sale. Until next time, scoot on over to Bob Perry’s column. Bob offers up some good advice to help you stay healthy out there on the road.

I’ve never been a big fan of music videos, at least not the type that dramatizes the lyrics. And I don’t take a liking to many songs written with the sole purpose of being made into a video — to me, that’s screenwriting, not songwriting. After all, instrumentals alone can create a vision in a listener’s mind. I’ve mentioned the “clickity-clack” beat of Merle Haggard’s “Movin’ On” as an example of how the tempo gives rise to thoughts of the highway before the lyrics even begin. But every once in a while, especially in the 1980s, when country music was trying to capitalize on the MTV craze, country musicians offered a couple of videos that were funny enough to make me laugh at least twice before I started losing interest. When it came to country comedy videos, few were as successful as those of Moe Bandy and Joe Stampley. A lot of people remember “Moe and Joe,” as they were commonly known, for their videos. But both had successful solo careers before joining to record seven albums, and they continued with their solo efforts during and after the collaborations. As a duo, the two singers built an image based on their first single release, the No. 1 hit, “Just Good Ol’ Boys.” It seemed the image struck a chord with country music fans who have always so closely identified with the artists and songs they sing. Moe Bandy was born in Meridian, Mississippi, but was transplanted to San Antonio at age 6. The move fueled Moe’s interest in honky-tonk music, as well as a calling to rodeo for both Moe and his brother, Mike. As teens, both competed in rodeos across Texas, but their careers eventually diverged. Mike went on to be the professional rodeo star, while Moe pursued his musical career. Contrary to popular belief inspired by Moe Bandy’s signature song, “Bandy the Rodeo Clown,” he never performed as a clown (or bullfighter, as they are now known). After taking his first shot at a music career in 1962, it would be 12 years before Bandy’s efforts paid off. His first charting single, “I Just Started Hating Cheating Songs Today,” became the prototype for Bandy’s early career. He became the stereotypical country musician whose discography consisted almost exclusively of “cheatin’ and drinkin’” songs. He topped off the first phase of his career in 1979 when he and Janie Fricke teamed up for the No. 2 hit, “It’s a Cheatin’ Situation,” a duet that took home Song of the Year honors from the Academy of Country Music. Throughout his career, Bandy has recorded 40 solo albums and released 14 Top 10 singles. Joe Stampley, also a native of the Deep South, was raised in Northwest Louisiana. Born just a year before his future singing partner, Stampley began his musical career much differently than Bandy. He started with a rock band, The Uniques. The band recorded just four albums and released two moderately successful singles between 1965 and 1970. When his rock career fizzled, Stampley followed the path of many other southern rock musicians: He went country. Beginning in 1971, Stampley began a country career during which he quietly turned out 22 albums and 14 Top 10 solo hits, perhaps the most popular being the trucking song, “Roll On, Big Mama.” But when the ’80s arrived, Stampley’s solo career took a back seat to the success of the Moe Bandy and Joe Stampley duo. The “good ol’ boys’” reputation came to a head in 1984 when the duo recorded — and, more notably, made a video — of a parody song, “Where’s the Dress.” In early 1984, the most popular song in the world was “Karma Chameleon,” performed by the British band Culture Club and its prominent leader Boy George. The song appeared, most often in the No. 1 spot, on charts worldwide. Whether it was the flamboyant Boy George, the catchy tune or the music video accompanying the song, “Karma Chameleon” appealed to music fans of all sorts. The music video accompanying “Karma Chameleon,” ironically set in Moe Bandy’s native Mississippi, colorfully depicted everything that Moe, Joe and most “good ol’ boys” were not. So, inspired by a song written by Stampley’s son, Moe and Joe decided to parody the worldwide hit (and hoped to make a heap of money in the process). “Where’s the Dress” became Moe and Joe’s answer to Boy George. Before examining “Where’s the Dress,” it should be noted that 1984 was much different than 2021. Frankly, it’s doubtful the song would be written today, much less released in video form. In today’s world, one of Joe Stampley’s early lines wouldn’t even pass the smell test: “It was a man dressed like a woman, and he had a boy’s name.” If one applies 2021 standards to 1984, the entire “Where’s the Dress” episode ranks high on the list of offensive moments in country music history. In any event, before passing judgment, I suggest you first watch the “Karma Chameleon” video; then follow up with “Where’s the Dress.” This is a case where the visuals provided by the videos are needed to grasp the point Moe and Joe tried to make. Moe and Joe pose as truck drivers in the video, roles they take in several of the duo’s songs. The two lament the fame and riches of Boy George and their belief that he’s making it big by, essentially, “cross-dressing.” But the gist of “Where’s the Dress” is likely best described by music journalist Nick Murray in the Feb. 1, 2018, issue of Rolling Stone Magazine: “Stranger … even, was the duo’s song “Where’s the Dress,” a Boy George-inspired novelty hit in which Moe and Joe decide to dress in drag — become “country queens” — in a bid to revitalize their careers. The plan goes awry when they enjoy gender-bending so much that it instead puts their careers in jeopardy, and the music video ends with the conservative Roy Acuff using the bow of his fiddle to beat the mascara-wearing singers off the Opry stage. (In ‘Lucky Me,’ [Moe Bandy’s autobiography], Moe credits this episode mostly to Joe.)” It’s hard to say if “Where’s the Dress” hurt Moe and Joe as a duo. They did release three more songs from the same album, but none became hits. “Where’s the Dress” would be their last hit together before the duo stopped recording, noting their solo careers suffered. But in a 1984 interview, Joe Stampley was defensive in saying, “(‘Where’s the Dress’) wasn’t done as a put-down to Boy George. It’s a novelty song that wonders whether two country bumpkins could (dress that way) in a honky-tonk.” He added that Boy George “is a talent … genius … and sharp.” So, the entire “Where’s the Dress” episode was short-lived and didn’t cause a rift in music like it might today. At least not a major rift. Boy George and his manager did file suit against Bandy and Stampley for copyright infringement. The suit didn’t seek damages for using the likeness of Boy George or Culture Club, but for using the same guitar rift and harmonica lick written into “Karma Chameleon.” Bandy later said, “That little mess-up cost us $50,000.” Until next time, let me remind you: When you listen to classic country music, you need to go back in time and apply the standards of the day to your criticism, not today’s standards. After all, what could anyone expect from Moe and Joe? Neither of the two was a copyright lawyer. Moe and Joe were “just good ol’ boys.”

Randy Travis’ dream of becoming a country music star didn’t come easy. The young man who, in 1980, sent demo tapes to every record label in Nashville met rejection at every turn. On Music Row, where the dreams of so many performers — those falling into the “classic country” genre today — came true, producers deemed Randy Travis as “too country” for audiences’ tastes. The orchestrated “Nashville Sound” experiment promoted songs featuring strings, background singers, glitter and outright abandonment of country music’s famed Nudie Suits. A country boy from North Carolina didn’t stand a chance in a genre built by other country boys and girls armed with only their voices and a guitar. Travis was a troubled youngster who had several run-ins with the law. His infractions — while minor — painted the portrait of a habitual offender. Between his appearances in court, Travis worked as a cook in a Charlotte, North Carolina, nightclub. Its owner, Elizabeth Hatcher, placed the young singer on stage as a teenager. Eventually, a judge released Travis from yet another criminal charge but placed him under the guardianship of Hatcher. It was a match made in heaven. With a woman with funding to back up the effort, Travis moved to Nashville. With Hatcher’s promotional work, he recorded a few songs beginning in 1978, but none met with even moderate success. Five years later, Hatcher secured a record deal for Travis with Warner Brothers. While his first single, “On the Other Hand,” barely charted, his follow-up release, “1982,” reached the Top 10 on country charts. With some name recognition and a bona fide hit under his belt, Warner Brothers took a chance and re-released “On the Other Hand” a year later. The song shot to No. 1 and became one of several signature songs Randy Travis released during his career. Over the next 15 years, Travis released 20 albums and 50 singles, 16 of which rose to No. 1 on the country charts. His list of awards is impressive. At the height of his career, Travis won Grammys and country music awards in most categories. Eventually, he was enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame. For a performer like Randy Travis — one who seemed to appear out of nowhere and then remained atop the charts for 15 years — country music historians have difficulty agreeing on a signature song. “On the Other Hand” ranks high on the list, as do chart-toppers like “Diggin’ Up Bones,” “Deeper than the Holler” and perhaps his most recognized hit, 1987’s “Forever and Ever, Amen.” Travis even dropped a couple of trucking songs into his discography, with little fanfare. None became singles, nor are they recognized by many who aren’t hard-core Randy Travis fans, or at least fans who scour the backs of CDs looking for trucking music. One such song, “Highway Junkie” found a spot on Travis’ 1996 album — his last album for Warner Brothers — fittingly titled “Full Circle.” A listen to “Highway Junkie” reveals it to be THE trucker’s trucking song. Topics covered include everything from vices, the pressures of landing on schedule, the lonesome road, lost love and even “Smokies,” referred to as “State Boys” by Travis. He wastes no time getting to the heart of the matter as he describes his run as bolstered by “100 cups of coffee, 500 hundred cigarettes, 1,000 miles of highway, and I ain’t forgot her yet.” It’s “forgetting her” that, like so many trucking songs, becomes the focus of “Highway Junkie,” a theme Travis emphasizes as universal to the truck-driving profession with the short line, “A trucker’s heart gets broke.” Even his run-in with the “State Boy” near Nashville is met without a concern for driving over 100 mph. Travis’ response to the trooper’s question, “Where’s the fire son?” does nothing but bring up more thoughts of lost love: I said, “Man there ain’t no fire I’m just runnin’ from a flame So go on and write your ticket, man But I ain’t the one to blame.” A couple hundred miles west of Nashville, Travis inserts two of stanzas paying homage to his musical influences, both kings of country and rockabilly music who will always hold a special place in most truck drivers’ hearts. So, I rolled on down to Memphis, I had nothin’ left to lose, Wanted to hear some rock ’n’ roll, But all they played was blues, I didn’t wanna hear no blues.   So, I went to call up Elvis, But Roger Miller grabbed the phone, He said drive that 18-wheeler boy, You’re the king of the road, Said I was the king of the road. Nothing in “Highway Junkie” is original; in fact, most of the lyrics are little more than a rehash of other songs with similar themes, with minor twists on phrases describing Travis’ journey across Tennessee. What sets “Highway Junkie” apart from other heartbroken trucker songs is the chorus. Travis introduces a unique metaphor — to my knowledge an original — when he sings two lines, followed by a closing line that’s a takeoff from many trucking and road songs, and even a rodeo song or two: But, them big wheels of rubber, Gonna rub her off my mind, Well, I’m a highway junkie And I need that old white line. After recording “Full Circle,” in the twilight of his country music career, Randy Travis released two more albums, but for a new label. The pair offered just three combined Top 10 singles. The results were a far cry from Travis’ heyday when 25 of 31 singles reached the top 10, with 22 peaking at No. 3 or higher on the country charts. The remainder of Randy Travis’ career is well documented, filled with legal troubles, a divorce, a crossover to Christian music and a debilitating stroke. It was almost as if Travis’ youthful transgressions had returned to mar his successful career. Travis was never a force in the country subgenre of trucking music, but he did leave a couple of songs as a legacy. After all, with a career filled with songs that appealed to most listeners, it only fits that Travis offered truck drivers a little something to remember him. But history will remember Randy Travis as one of a handful of traditional singers who saved country music from the “Nashville Sound.” Until next time, remember when you’re driving a back road somewhere in America, “Deeper than the Holler” is a winding strip of highway — a steep grade down and another steep grade out.

If you’ve ever sat behind a steering wheel, you have one — that one particular vehicle from your past that you wish you could drive once again. If you’re a trucker, it might be your first truck, some cabover from the ’70s, or one that had a little quirk or rap in the engine that drove everyone except you crazy. If you’re like me (not a trucker), there’s some vehicle you’ve owned, driven and finally retired after it left you stranded one too many times. On the other hand, it might have been one you sold too soon, leaving you with only dreams of the memories that might have been made. Years, or even decades, have passed. You now know how much you miss that old drive that cost far too much money, time and frustration to keep on the road. If you’re lucky, something reminds you of it on occasion. If you’re really lucky, your old ride became a hit country song. That’s where I sit. I once had a car, and I swear a country songwriter wrote about that car in lyrics directed at me. To admit it is kind of embarrassing. The year? 1984. The car? A 1976 bright yellow Ford Pinto wagon. It was the first car I ever bought entirely with my own money — $500 earned the previous summer by performing maintenance for a Little League ballfield. I didn’t own the car long, but to say the least, the old girl was memorable. Anyone with a little bit of insight into the automobiles of the ’70s knows the story of the Ford Pinto. The car sold dirt cheap when brand new, made possible by the fact Ford only invested about 2% of the selling price in the parts that held it together. As far as engineering went, there was none. The Pinto had a knack for exploding when hit from behind. Fortunately, the ’76 Pinto wagon was not a model with a disposition to explode — or maybe I just never got hit from behind. But I take solace in the fact I didn’t drive an orange AMC Gremlin like a friend did. No one had a hit song about an orange Gremlin. “My Old Yellow Car” was a No. 9 country song for the former soft rock turned country artist Dan Seals. The song debuted in February 1985, just about the time I parted ways with my “yellow submarine,” as it became known around town. As far as the song goes, change the color to fit your own vehicle, and the lyrics are universally appreciated. Of course, I was special. Dan Seals, after all, sang specifically about my yellow car. She weren’t much to look at. She weren’t much to ride. She was missing a window on her passenger side. Her floorboard was patched up with paper and tar, But I really was something in my old yellow car. Well, my old yellow car wasn’t missing a window; in fact, the passenger window wouldn’t move up or down. Its floor was patched up with paper and tar — to the point it failed inspection, and my dad had to get a sticker from a friend who owned a garage. That sticker, obtained illegally (the statute of limitations has long passed, I assume), somehow allowed me to drive a deadly hunk of steel unfit for the road. Dad must have recalled his own rides from the ’50s and figured the Pinto couldn’t be any more dangerous than his jalopies. Of course, most of those didn’t have a reputation for exploding. In his song, Seals goes on to chronicle his experiences in his old yellow car — the type of experiences any young guy who’s somehow become old remembers well. Perhaps the lyric giving the song universal appeal is when Seals fondly recalls, “There was no road too winding and nowhere too far, with two bucks of gas and my old yellow car.” My personal old yellow car had its set of issues, and they were probably a bit more serious than the one Seals drove. The Pinto held no fluids other than gasoline. Ford’s engineers designed the vehicle so all of the liquids needed to make it run smoothly traveled through a bundle of cardboard tubes in front of the fire wall. As miles passed, the tubes rubbed holes in each other. A lack of brake fluid left me skillfully using the parking brake to stop. When it was time to get moving, the car did so without the aid of transmission fluid. I just put the pedal to the metal and waited. Gears eventually caught, and off I went. When I managed to get up to speed, I always wondered why everyone passed me so quickly. I finally realized the speedometer registered 12 miles higher than my actual speed. I didn’t move on to another car in just a year later, in 1985, because the Pinto had trouble stopping and going. Rather, I took note that the yellow submarine left an oil slick that rivaled the one the Exxon Valdez would create a few years later. To be precise, both the front and rear engine seals of the car had disintegrated. The poor car wasn’t holding a drop of oil. On last check, it leaked a quart a day. Those ballfield maintenance dollars allowing me to buy the car weren’t enough for the “fill up the oil and check the gas” approach the Pinto demanded. Some poor soul took the Pinto off my hands for the same thing I paid for it — $500. Last I knew, it sat in his front yard sporting a flowerpot for a hood ornament. But, hey, I broke even. Or maybe I lost more than I expected. After “My Old Yellow Car” fell from the charts, I didn’t hear the song on the radio for years. Then, in 2003, I bought a shiny new Nissan Frontier pickup truck I’d been eyeing — yellow in color. And I swear on Dad’s grave that on the drive home, “My Old Yellow Car” came across the airwaves! You can bet that Nissan went down many winding roads far from home. Until next time, when you think about a car — or that pretty Mack, Kenworth or Peterbilt — you drove into the ground in your distant past, consider the chorus of “My Old Yellow Car.” I bet you’ll shed a tear: Somewhere in a pile of rubber and steel, There’s a rusty old shell of an automobile, And if engines could run on desire alone… That old yellow car would be driving me home.

Pardon me for this column, in which I connect recent events and personal experience that have combined to turn a six-decade-old rockabilly/blues hit into — temporarily at least — a trucking song. A couple of weeks back, the Rutherford side of my family gathered in Roxton, Texas (yes, it is on the map). It was the first time my mom, my wife Karen and I, and all of the offspring with their spouses — and, course, our two young grandchildren — had gathered since the onset of COVID-19. The celebration was joyous, but as is usually the case, I couldn’t escape thoughts of writing — specifically, finding a topic and writing the words you are now reading. To borrow a phrase from the Willie who needs no last name, writing is “Always on My Mind.” As crunch time grew near, I began to ruminate, or brood, on the writing issue. I have always been a ruminator and a brooder, and one who obsesses over insignificant (if not virtually impossible) thoughts that are unwelcome in my mind. As I sat brooding, the topic of the “crack” in the steel of the Hernando de Soto Bridge over the Mississippi River at Memphis, Tennessee, came up in conversation. It just so happens that the Hernando de Soto bridge and I have a long-standing love-hate relationship. The bridge opened along Interstate 40 in 1973, when I was at the impressionable age of seven. My family made an annual trek for the summer from Maine to Texas and back — sometimes twice annually — so I expected to be crossing the nearly 2-mile long engineering masterpiece two to four times a year. Prior to that, of course, we crossed the river using the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge. A couple of miles south of the I-40 bridge, even when the Memphis & Arkansas was less than a quarter-century old, it was already showing too many signs of rust to suit me. Between 1966 and 1973, likely as a result of my older brother’s intentional effort to force a young lad to brood long before his time, I had become quite fearful of bridge crossings — specifically the one over the Mississippi River. The opening of the new bridge in 1973, one would think, should have alleviated my fear. But the trade-off between a 1-mile-long bridge that showed a bit of rust and a 2-mile-long, state-of-the-art bridge, I thought, was pretty much a wash. I continued brooding. Every trip, I made plans to be asleep when it came time to cross from Tennessee into Arkansas or vice versa. Those plans never came to fruition. Instead, I shook with fear and stayed alert in case muddy water suddenly surrounded our station wagon. I am not celebrating the newly discovered defect that shut the Hernando de Soto Bridge down for what, at the time of this writing, could be months. No universal good comes of something that will tie up traffic along what arguably (with the possible exception of the I-70 bridge at St. Louis) is the most important crossing for commercial and noncommercial traffic over the Mississippi River. The traffic jams alone will be disastrous. But I will admit, I used the event as proof to my mother that my childhood fears were not unreasonable. As one whose family’s reaction to a childhood fear was flippant, the danger now created by the crack in the bridge does serve one positive purpose — vindication. My brooding over a “virtually impossible” event wasn’t without merit after all. Unexpectedly, my mother recited a lyric from the old Chuck Barry and Elvis Presley song, “Memphis,” sometimes referred to as “Memphis, Tennessee.” She said, “just a half a mile from the Mississippi bridge.” Suddenly another crack formed — one in the dike that held my case of writer’s block together. While my mom recalls the Elvis Presley version of “Memphis,” I am more familiar with the Top 10 country cover of the song in 1981 by Fred Knobloch. Even among hard-core country music fans, Fred Knobloch is hardly a household name. Better known as a member of a rock band and a songwriter than a country artist, Knobloch released only one country album in his career, “Why Not Me?” (1980). The album itself wasn’t particularly memorable, but it did produce “Memphis” and another Top 10 song, “Killing Time,” a song Knobloch performed with Susan Anton. Regardless, considering that Fred Knobloch has written songs for the likes of George Strait, Sawyer Brown and John Anderson, he has dabbled in classic country — at least enough for this column. “Memphis” is the story of a man begging a telephone operator to put him in contact with a young lady named Marie who he knows lives in Memphis. The operator can’t provide much help even with the singer explaining that Marie lives “on the south side, high upon a ridge, just a half a mile from the Mississippi bridge.” As the song closes, we learn that Marie is not just any young lady; instead, she is the singer’s six-year-old daughter. “Memphis” never had any reason to be considered a trucking song. The only reference to anything related to trucking was the Mississippi bridge. But the song is an example of how circumstances can change the meaning of lyrics, even when those lyrics are over 60 years old. After all, with the traffic east- and westbound truckers will experience at Memphis until the Hernando de Soto Bridge is reopened, many will idle on I-55, just below that very ridge referred to in song by Chuck Barry, Elvis, Fred Knobloch and several others. So, as you sit in traffic, do me a favor and give a nod to the kid who was right some 45 years ago: No bridge is “unsinkable.” Until next time, be pleased when you find yourself “just a half a mile from the Mississippi Bridge.” Chances are, drivers sitting a few miles behind you wish for the moment when they can be where your truck is idling. Oh, and thanks, Mom.

Hardcore George Strait fans should recognize the title of this column, borrowed from a song of the same name from his 1986 studio album, “#7.” “Rhythm of the Road” wasn’t released as a single, instead of becoming the flip-side of the 45-rpm record (yes, those did exist in 1986), “It Ain’t Cool to Be Crazy About You,” which hit #1 on the “Hot Country Billboard” chart. The song is seldom, if ever, played on the radio, but “Rhythm of the Road” has been a concert favorite among George Strait fans.   So, as the column title suggests, my plan is to focus on classic country music, specifically “Truck Driving Songs.” Of course, I realize many of you just asked yourself, why not use Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again”? The question is valid, and the answer will give you some insight into my lifelong hobby of country music, specifically “Classic Country.” I define “Classic Country,” for the most part, as ending around 1992, the reasons for which will start a debate I don’t want to get involved in, so I’ll keep those to myself.  Anyway, amateur critics (those posting “customer reviews” on various websites) sometimes claim “Rhythm of the Road” is George Strait’s sub-par effort to capitalize on the success of Willie Nelson’s “On the Road Again.” “Rhythm of the Road” was written by singer/songwriter Dan McCoy, a frequent performer at Strait’s old haunt, Gruene Hall, an 1878 dance hall in the one-time town of Gruene, now a part of New Braunfels, Texas.  Like Willie Nelson, the Texas Hill Country influences Dan McCoy’s music. And every musician crediting the Texas Hill Country for their material is equally influenced by Willie Nelson. The two go hand in hand. It would be disingenuous to ignore the similarity of the theme “Rhythm of the Road” and “On the Road Again” offer. Released in 1980 from the soundtrack for the movie “Honeysuckle Rose,” “On the Road Again” is Nelson’s signature song, reaching #1 on country charts, winning Nelson a Grammy and holding a spot in the Grammy Hall of Fame.  Rolling Stone even rated the song as #471 on its list of the top 500 songs of all time.   I’ve been a George Strait follower since first spinning his debut album “Strait Country” in 1981. But it’s futile to argue “Rhythm of the Road” holds a candle to Willie Nelson’s instrumental and vocal genius. But that doesn’t change the fact that the lyrics of both songs target a commonality between country artists and truck drivers—time spent on the road.  The connection is a reason most truck-driving songs have been recorded by country artists. In fact, “Rhythm of the Road” and “On the Road Again” are sometimes listed as songs fitting into country music’s “Truck Driving” category.  To be sure, country music performers identify with “the road” more than those in any other type of music. For one thing, country music is uniquely American, its roots dating back before the radio was invented. Through much of country’s history, performers toured the U.S., particularly the South, first by car then by “Silver Eagle” buses. The 1970s rise in country music’s nationwide popularity came at the same time truck drivers and CB radios achieved status as pop-culture icons. It’s no stretch to give truckers significant credit for introducing country music to regions where it had been ignored, the kinship of “the road” fueling its spread.  While country stars don’t personally drive big rigs or even buses between tour stops, you can bet your dollar the drivers of both will be thanked during a concert. And, the musicians do spend long hours, days, and weeks touring without returning home. Truck drivers and country performers and their road crews stop at many of the same travel centers, eat the same food, and marvel at the same sites as they travel. There is certainly a disparity in the amount of money a country performer earns compared to a truck driver, but that wasn’t always the case. When musicians began recording truck driving music in the 1950s, the disparity was much smaller. At the time, country musicians were much like career minor league baseball players—they just wanted to play their music, and if they got paid a few bucks, the money was gravy. Of course, over the past 60 years, the difference in income has grown exponentially, but the values of truckers and country musicians remain similar. The kinship remains.  So, whether you’re a fan of George Strait or Willie Nelson, you can listen to “Rhythm of the Road” and “On the Road Again” and come away with the same story—life on the road is a grind that offers great rewards.  Of course, I didn’t answer the question, why not “On the Road Again”? It’s simple. I’m a bigger fan of George Strait than Willie Nelson.  Until next time, when those towns you drive to, through, or passed all start to look the same, take a line from “Rhythm of the Road”— “…better stop for a minute, be glad I’m in it, and remember just why I came.”  If you’d like to learn more about a Truck Driving Song or the artist behind it, drop me a line. I may feature it in a future column.