Come on everyone, lets go a truckin. HAMMER DOWN............... Six Days on the Road is an American song written by Earl Green and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio songwriter Carl Montgomery, made famous originally by country music singer Dave Dudley. First released in 1963, the song became a major hit that year and is often hailed as the definitive celebration of the American truck driver. In 1997, the song was covered by country music band Sawyer Brown, who took the song into the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. According to country music historian Bill Malone, Six Days on the Road was not the first truck driving song; Malone credits Truck Drivers Blues by Cliff Bruner, released in 1940, with that distinction. Nor is it necessarily the best, said Malone, citing songs such as Truck Drivin Man by Terry Fell and White Line Fever by Merle Haggard and the Strangers as songs that would certainly rival it.[3] However, Six Days, Malone continued, set off a vogue for such songs that continued for many years. The trucking songs coincided with country musics growing identification as working mans music in the 1960s, he said.[4] Many country music artists and bands—including Alabama, Dick Curless, Merle Haggard, Kathy Mattea, Ronnie Milsap, Jerry Reed, Del Reeves, Dan Seals, Red Simpson, Red Sovine, Joe Stampley, C.W. McCall, Steve Earle, among many others—recorded successful truck driving songs during the next 25 years. Several of those artists—Dudley included—became almost exclusively associated with songs about truck drivers and life on the road. Dudley strikingly captures the sense of boredom, danger and swaggering masculinity that often accompanies long-distance truck driving. His macho interpretation, with its rock-and-roll overtones, is perfect for the song.[5] Allmusic writer Bill Dahl, called Six Days the ultimate overworked rig drivers lament;[6] indeed, the songs lyrics bemoan highway patrolmen, scale weigh-ins and loneliness for the narrators girlfriend, and speak of using little white pills to keep him awake. Like Malone, Dahl also cited Dudleys voice as perfect for the song, as his bottomless pipes were certainly the ultimate vehicle for its delivery, reeking of too much turgid coffee and too many non-filtered cigarettes.[7] Dudleys version was also played during the STS-3 mission as a wake-up call
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 07:21:41 +0000
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