Truck Driver's Boogie: Big Rig Hits, 1939-1969

Amazon.com
Trucker anthology albums are a country tradition. Unlike Starday Records' classic 1960s LPs with their wonderfully cheesy covers, this one takes a historical approach, beginning with the original trucker lament, Western swing bandleader Cliff Bruner's "Truck Driver's Blues" from 1939. Other early rarities reflect varied styles and moods. The slick Hollywood Western sound of Dick Reinhart's 1941 "Truck Driver's Coffee Stop" contrasts with duo Karl and Harty's old-timey "Truck Driver's Sweetheart." Likewise, the Milo Twins' dainty "Truck Driver's Boogie" is light years from Doye O'Dell's foreboding "Diesel Smoke (Dangerous Curves)" with its dazzling (and uncredited) instrumental backing from Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West. The set encompasses obvious standards: Johnny Horton's "I'm Coming Home," Del Reeves's "Girl on the Billboard," and Dick Curless's "A Tombstone Every Mile" are joined by Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road," which set the tone for modern trucker tunes. Omissions are inevitable with any anthology, but here they're either welcome (no sign of "Convoy," thankfully) or legitimate (Starday material is difficult to license). In all, this 20-song set is a respectable, intelligent overview. --Rich Kienzle

Truck Driver's Boogie: Big Rig Hits, 1939-1969,Various Artists,Audium Entertainment,Bakersfield Sound,Country,Country & Western,Country Collections,Honky Tonk,Nashville Sound/Countrypolitan,Pop,Traditional Country,Truck Driving Country

Average customer rating:

Fine trip through the history of truckin' tunes

down the highway

Truck Driver's Boogie: Big Rig Hits, 1939-1969
Various Artists
Manufacturer: Audium Entertainment
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Country | Styles | Music
Honky-Tonk | Country | Styles | Music
Nashville Sound | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music
General | Traditional Country | Country | Styles | Music
General | Compilations | Country | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B00005BGLC
Release Date: 2001-06-12

Tracks:

Truck Driver's Blues - Cliff Bruner & His Boys
Truck Driver's Coffee Shop - Dick Reinhart & His Lone Star Boys
Truck Driver's Sweetheart - Harty
I'm A Truck Driving Man - Art Gibson
Truck Driver's Boogie - Milo Twins
Truck Driver's Night Run Blues - Joe 'Cannonball' Lewis
Diesel Smoke (Dangerous Curves) - Doye O'Dell
Truck Driving Man - Terry Fell & The Fellers
I'm Coming Home - Johnny Horton
Six Day On The Road - Dave Dudley
Girl On The Billboard - Del Reeves
Little Pink Mack - Kay Adams
Highway Man - Curtis Leach
A Tombstone Every Mile - Dick Curless
Widow Maker - Jimmy Martin
Diesel On My Tail - Jim
Truck Drivin' Cat With Nine Wives - Jim Nesbitt
Gear Bustin' Sort Of Feller - Bobby Braddock
Big Rig Rollin' Man - Johnny
Roll, Truck, Roll - Red Simpson

Amazon.com

Trucker anthology albums are a country tradition. Unlike Starday Records' classic 1960s LPs with their wonderfully cheesy covers, this one takes a historical approach, beginning with the original trucker lament, Western swing bandleader Cliff Bruner's "Truck Driver's Blues" from 1939. Other early rarities reflect varied styles and moods. The slick Hollywood Western sound of Dick Reinhart's 1941 "Truck Driver's Coffee Stop" contrasts with duo Karl and Harty's old-timey "Truck Driver's Sweetheart." Likewise, the Milo Twins' dainty "Truck Driver's Boogie" is light years from Doye O'Dell's foreboding "Diesel Smoke (Dangerous Curves)" with its dazzling (and uncredited) instrumental backing from Jimmy Bryant and Speedy West. The set encompasses obvious standards: Johnny Horton's "I'm Coming Home," Del Reeves's "Girl on the Billboard," and Dick Curless's "A Tombstone Every Mile" are joined by Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road," which set the tone for modern trucker tunes. Omissions are inevitable with any anthology, but here they're either welcome (no sign of "Convoy," thankfully) or legitimate (Starday material is difficult to license). In all, this 20-song set is a respectable, intelligent overview. --Rich Kienzle

Customer Reviews:

Fine trip through the history of truckin' tunes.......2002-08-07

Country music and truck driving reached an intersection several decades before the crossover popularity of C.W. McCall's "Convoy." The regional itinerancy of country musicians, touring the signal range of radio giants like WSM, WWVA and KWKH, found them pounding the same pavement as America's truckers, subjecting themselves to the same hardships of life on the road and writing about it in their songs.

As early as 1939, "Truck Driver's Blues," featuring vocals and piano from Moon Mullican, provided a lyrical template of the road ahead: weary, lonely days relieved by a cup of coffee, a honky-tonk gal and a couple of drinks before saddling up for the next day's ride. Many of these juke-box hits were aimed at gear-jammers themselves, celebrating the trucker as the last of the American cowboys, navigating the frontier of commerce as they raced home to their loved-ones. Art Gibson's "I'm a Truck Driving Man" recalls the romance of early cross-country travel, and Johnny Horton's "I'm Coming Home" barrels down the road with a rockabilly beat.

By the 1960's Dave Dudley, Dick Curless and Red Simpson were scoring frequent trucking-themed hits. Curless' "A Tombstone Every Mile," written about a tragically dangerous section of Route 2A in Maine, may be the only song ever to help get a U.S. Interstate built. Kay Adams' "Little Pink Mack" provides a proto-feminist view, and Bobby Braddock's "Gear Bustin' Sort of a Feller" takes a run fully fueled on coffee, pills and sheer adrenaline.

These twenty tracks mix classics ("Six Days on the Road" "Roll Truck Roll"), early rarities and original versions made popular as covers. Liner notes from Diesel Only's Jeremy Tepper and vintage publicity shots round out a full load.

4-1/2 stars, if Amazon allowed fractional ratings.

down the highway.......2002-01-23

As I listened to this superb collection, it occurred to me that the truck-drivin' songs that once were a staple of country music amounted to a continuation of the tradition of occupational folk songs. People used to sing about their jobs, whether they were cowboys, farmers, millworkers, chain-gang prisoners, coal miners, railroaders, moonshiners, lumberjacks, buffalo skinners, or sailors. In his otherwise excellent liner notes, compiler Jeremy Tepper doesn't make this connection, and of course it isn't necessary for one to be aware of it to appreciate what a rich genre truck-drivin' songs were in their heyday.

It all started with "Truck Driver's Blues," written by Ted Daffan (who also composed the classic "Born to Lose") and recorded by Cliff Bruner's Western-swing band in 1939. From then on, following this disc's chronologically arranged selections, the attentive listener gets an incidental education in the evolution of country music, from Karl and Harty's sentimental old-timey "Truck Driver's Sweetheart" through tougher honkytonk fare (Doye O'Dell's "Diesel Smoke [Dangerous Curves]") and rockabilly sounds (Johnny Horton's "I'm Coming Home"). There's also Jimmy Martin's immortal bluegrass ballad "Widow Maker" which touches the heart even with its more than faintly ludicrous storyline. Dick Curless's "A Tombstone Every Mile" evokes the spirit of an earlier kind of occupational-hazard song, the train-wreck ballad. Perfectly written and wonderfully performed, Del Reeves's "Girl on the Billboard" -- surely among the most underrated songs in all of country music -- tells the delirious tale of a driver driven to distraction by lust- and amphetamine-fueled fantasies. There's also Terry Feller's original (1954) "Truck Driving Man," perhaps the most covered song in the genre, and the king of them all, Dave Dudley's "Six Days on the Road." The good-humored, feisty "Little Pink Mack," by Kay Adams, is one of the rare period (1965) truck-drivin' songs about a truck-drivin' woman. The set ends on a perfect note, with Red Simpson's melancholy, folkish recitation "Roll, Truck, Roll."

This collection documents the time -- which now seems like history as ancient as the era that produced "I Ride an Old Paint" and "Wreck of the Old 97" -- when country music and truck drivers were rolling down a highway in hillbilly heaven.

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