Truck-driving country

Truck-driving country
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins1960s–1980s, United States
Typical instruments
Other topics

Truck-driving country or trucker country is a subgenre of country and western music. It is characterized by lyrical content about trucks (i.e. commercial vehicles, not pick-up trucks), truck drivers or truckers, and the trucking industry experience. This includes, for example, references to truck stops, CB radio, trucker jokes, attractive women, romance, heartbreak, loneliness, stimulants and eugeroics, teamsters, roads and highways, billboards, inclement weather, traffic, ICC, DOT, car accidents, washrooms, etc.[1] In truck-driving country, references to "truck" include the following truck types: 10 wheeler, straight truck, 18 wheeler, tractor (bobtail), semi, tractor-trailer, semi tractor trailer, big rig, and some others. Truck-driving country musicians include Dave Dudley, Red Sovine, Terry Fell, Dick Curless, Red Simpson, Del Reeves, the Willis Brothers, Jerry Reed, Commander Cody,[2] C. W. McCall (1976 big hit "Convoy"), Mac Wiseman,[3] and Cledus Maggard.[4][5] Terry Fell released "Truck Drivin' Man" in 1954.[6]

It shares some overlap with road music (e.g. Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again", Roger Miller's "King of the Road"), which may or may not involve commercial trucks but carries many of the same themes of the traveling worker. It is not to be confused with the frequent use of the personal-use pickup truck in bro-country, where the vehicle is mainly used as a pick-up device.

  1. ^ Stern, Jane Trucker, A Portrait of the Last American Cowboy (1975)
  2. ^ Commander Cody Allmusic Retrieved 23 August 2024
  3. ^ Thanki, Juli. "Country, bluegrass great Wiseman, dead at 93". Vol. 115, no. 56. The Tennessean. p. 1A. Retrieved 25 February 2019.
  4. ^ James Wesley Huguely=Cledus Maggard Retrieved 9 February 2021
  5. ^ "Dave Dudley". Retrieved 2009-02-24.
  6. ^ Terry Fell Allmusic Retrieved 29 August 2024