The Long Lonesome Road of the American Trucker: (1/4): Dave Dudley, Me and Ole CB

White Line Fever: The Long Lonesome Road of the American Trucker: (1/4) Truck driving music is a genre of country music with a fusion of honky-tonk, country-rock and the Bakersfield Sound. It has the tempo of country-rock and the emotion of honky-tonk and its lyrics focus on a truck driver’s lifestyle. Truck driving country songs often deal with trucks and love. Well-known artists who sing truck driving country include Dave Dudley, Red Sovine, Dick Curless, Red Simpson and CW MCCall. The rig traffic was rapidly increasing in America during the 60s – and so were the trucks themselves, getting bigger, heavier, stronger and faster. The highway-net got also wider, which led to longer transportation distances. For the truck-drivers it meant more lonely hours on the road. The only diversion and awake-keeper they had at nights were radio stations playing music, particularly aimed for them; the songs about the life and the hard work of trucking people. In time, all this resulted in the popularization of trucker country music. 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 …