Diesel Sniffing - Part One: Dave Dudley

The late Dave Dudley is well acknowledged as the king of the trucker song, but he also dabbled in a pair of different (although related) genres. It's often overlooked that Dudley was once a fine rockabilly talent. Bill C. Malone, author of the comprehensive history Country Music USA (2002, University of Texas Press) goes so far as to describe Six Days on the Road, the Dudley trucker ballad that started the whole trucker music craze, as "quasi-rockabilly." Dudley's true rockabilly days are definitely in need of examination.

In the fifties Dudley recorded for the great King Records, known for it's widely varied output and the generally high quality of music they released. They put out rockabilly galore in the fifties, but their diverse roster during the decade included everything from the "adults only" novelty songs of Ruth Wallis to R&B legends Billy Ward and the Dominos. Some of the label's fine rock music was compiled on the aptly named King Rockabilly compilation, including Dudley's Rock and Roll Nursery Rhyme, which you can listen to a sample of here. He recorded three 45s for King, six songs in total.

Dudley's riveting baritone lent itself well to a decade-long career choice as a radio disc jockey, spinning records at WTMT, KBOK, and KCHA throughout the fifties. With so many changes in such a short period of time it seems that even as a radio personality he was already living up to that "on the road - always on the move" persona. In 1953 he formed his first group, The Dave Dudley Trio, which lasted a good seven years until disbanding when Dudley moved to Radio KEVE Minneapolis. Earlier in his life, Dudley had dabbled as a semi-professional baseball player, as had many of his country brethren like Roy Acuff, Charley Pride and Jim Reeves.

In 1960, Dudley's music career was put on hold due to an injury he suffered in a car accident. It was a blessing in disguise when he sued the person responsible and suddenly found himself with enough money to start a small record label. Dudley started Golden Wing in Minneapolis, Minnesota and took to signing local acts over the course of 1960-61. He released a couple minor hits of his own during this period but none so significant as Six Days on the Road. Six Days was brought to Dudley in '63 as sloppy seconds after Grand Ole Opry star Jimmy C. Newman turned the writers of the song down. Of course we all know Dave recorded it and it became a major hit. The hit single was expanded into a full length LP titled Dave Dudley Sings Six Days on the Road. The success of the song brought the small record label attention from one of the industry's major players, Mercury Records. They looked at Dudley in both a positive and negative light. They saw Dudley as a potential hit maker for the company, but they looked down on the fact that his record label, Golden Wing, might easily be confused with the Mercury budget subsidiary known as Wing. Mercury threatened Dudley with legal action unless the name of his label was changed. Dudley altered his label's name to the slightly perverse sounding Golden Ring, but perhaps to show there were no hard feelings, Mercury soon called Dudley to offer him a recording contract. Golden Ring was dissolved shortly thereafter.

The next LP of Dudley material was released by low-budget label Guest Star Records. The 1963 album titled Dave Dudley On the Road was a quick attempt to cash in on Dave's new success, as should be obvious glancing at the title. No trucking songs appear anywhere on the record, just some previously unreleased b-sides. However it is one of the most notable Dudley LPs as it features Link Wray and his Wraymen. Guest Star was in the same league as any number of cheapie labels that would repackage a pair of old songs they retained the rights to, usually recorded prior to the musician in question's fame. They'd then pad the rest of the album with music by studio musicians and assorted hacks. The full name of the album is Dave Dudley: On The Road with Dick Williams featuring Link Wray and his Wraymen. Now who the hell is Dick Williams? Presumably just another schmuck trolling in the budget record label world. He could have just as easily appeared on Crown, ARC, or Design Records under any WASPy name and probably did. Listen to the track Hillbilly Wolf from this album here and two more cuts from the record for your listening pleasure courtesy The Record Robot here.

Although Dudley is associated almost solely with the trucker genre, his first four LPs for Mercury barely touched the subject. Mercury's first Dudley release was the macho, B.O. stinkin' LP Songs About the Working Man that featured tunes about miners, steel workers and cowboy boots, many of which appeared first on Dudley's original Golden Wing label. After belting out songs about hobos, dogs and dirt for two years, Dudley finally returned to the money-maker with 1965's Truck Drivin' Son-of-A-Gun. The album is certainly a perfect introduction to truck driving music with fast moving life-on-the-road songs packaged with some sentimental longing-for-home trucker schmaltz. The album's ridiculous track Operation X tells the sentimental story of a trucker during the Korean war. Its heavy-hearted patriotism was a sign of things to come, a predecessor to Dudley's entry into another country music sub-genre.                         

                          DAVE DUDLEY AND VIETNAM

As the war in Indo-China heated up country music was ready to sing for the cause. The patriotic country ballad was obviously nothing new, but tracks about Vietnam were. Dudley's 1966 There's a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere was an album that had plenty of company as several other jingoistic pieces of cheese were escaping Nashville at a rapid pace. Dudley's Vietnam Blues went to number twelve on the country charts in 1966. The hawkish lyrics were the first to be published by fresh-faced songwriter Kris Kristofferson who would eventually swing to the opposite side, criticizing Reagan's unfortunate attacks on Nicaragua and El Salvador. The song has Dudley driving his rig past a protest on Capitol Hill, and he decides to see what it's all about. A sample:

"I said 'Ho Chi who?' He said, Ho Chi Minh People's Leader, North Vietnam                                 
Well, I wasn't sure I was hearin' him right
But I thought I'd better move before we got in a fight
Cause my eyes were smartin and my pulse started hitting a lick
I thought about another telegram I read
Tellin my buddy's wife that her husband was dead
It wasn't too long til I was feelin downright sick"

There's a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere included many of the Vietnam tracks that became standards of the genre like Tom T. Hall's Hello Vietnam. The album's What We're Fighting For is a song featuring the familiar narrative of a soldier writing to his mother. With lyrics like "Tell them that we're fighting for the old red white and blue - did they forget Pearl Harbor and Korea too?" the song does a good job of using blanket racism to associate the Vietnamese with previous wars involving Asians. Almost forty years later Toby Keith started writing songs that connected Iraq with 9/11. The rest of There's a Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere is filled up with songs having little to do with war, but whoever was in charge of the LP made some ill-founded choices using rather inappropriate filler. Perhaps they had no idea just how racist it was to include the established country tracks Geisha Girl and Filipino Baby. Since the record addresses Vietnam and since all Asians are the same, why not include those two songs? Of course if that's the thinking, then Dudley is actually getting it on with the so-called enemy in the lyrics of those two classic ditties.

The pro-Vietnam war country tune was a big genre with no shortage of stupid sides cut. Rockabilly dabbler turned "risque" comedian turned country music talker (think in the same vain as Red Sovine's Phantom 309) Autry Inman released the hilarious Ballad of Two Brothers. The title track tells the story of two brothers, one fighting in Vietnam and the other an anti-war hippie attending university. When word of the soldier's death is relayed to the longhair, he suddenly turns pro-war(!) under the philosophy that there's no way that his brother could have died for nothing. Must We Fight Two Wars is another winner on Inman's LP:

"This great land of ours is fighting two wars
although it was never intended
were it not for the war we must wage at home
the one in Vietnam would be ended
They say we must lose, we're on the wrong side
Our enemy? No they're some of us ..."

Of course beyond Inman, the list of pro-Vietnam war country tracks is extensive. Marty Robbins, Hank Snow, Harlan Howard and Ernest Tubb were just some of the notable names trudging through the genre. A couple of nice articles dealing with all manner of country and warsten music can be found here and here and WFMU re-visited some similar themes here. Dave Dudley would return to songs of hobos, diners, and truck driving after the release of his war record, but it would remain a cornerstone of a genre that he will always be associated with.

                                                                           DAVE DUDLEY LINKS OF NOTE

Footage of Dave Dudley performing in the sixties is not readily accessible, although it exists. Here's some fine footage of Dudley performing his perennial classic on The Wilburn Brothers Show (1963-74). Doyle and Teddy Wilburn's old country music variety program is currently being re-run on the obscure cable/satellite channel RFDTV every Monday at noon and Friday at five in the morning. The station's schedule looks pretty fucking bizarre featuring reruns of Cajun comedian Justin Wilson's cooking show and classic episodes of The Porter Wagoner Show (1960-79). Pretty damn exciting if you ask me, too bad I have no access to the channel. Here is a highly amusing Aussie (maybe kiwi?) television ad for a Dave Dudley compilation. Dave Dudley also becomes the first truck driving legend with a myspace page. Plus: the complete Dave Dudley discography, a partial Dudley discography but with pictures, some Dudley tracks that may or may not download properly, Dudley's The Pool Shark over at The Record Robot, and the best country and western site on the internet, Red Neckerson's Radio Round Up, features a Dave Dudley song about cockfighting(!) here.

                             NEXT WEEK: DIESEL SNIFFING - PART TWO:  RED SIMPSON

Comments

[fred]

Don't forget, if you need rockabilly label history info, the greatest website you would ever need is here: http://rcs.law.emory.edu/rcs/index.htm

Check out Dudley's entry

[Andy]

Interesting reading. Great idea for a series.

Cheers!

[Vince]

Hey, this was an excellent post, but I'm forced to pick 2 very small nits for which I apologize in advance. Nit #1: way up top in the first paragraph you describe Six Days on The Road as a "trucker ballad." Well, you're half right ("trucker") but that "ballad" part sure seems like a questionable way to describe such an uptempo romper.

A few paragraphs later you make your first reference to LP records when you write, "The next LP of Dudley material was released by low-budget label Guest Star Records." That 1963 release was, I think, his first LP release, as his first Mercury LP doesn't seem to have been released until 1964. If the 1963 Guest Star release was not his first LP, what was?

[Bill]

Overall I greatly enjoyed the post,as well as your other posts on WFMU BotB.
Your gratuitous political references detract from the otherwise great content.
I have no objection to your politics or referencing them where relevant but I must take issue with the identity politics crap in this post.

Racism? The inclusion of songs relating to the Phillipines and Japan in a record containing a patriotic Vietnam War song is not racist but geographically and culturally relevant. Soldiers for the United States fighting in Vietnam likely passed through,or served at, our bases/posts in the Phillipines, Korea and Japan. We occupied these places as we had liberated the Phillipines and conquered Japan just a few decades before and remained to protect the people(and ourselves) from Communist aggression. The same thing we were ostensibly doing in Vietnam, although I will grant you that venture was misguided both for our lack of commitment to winning and our failure to recognise the conflict as one of Vietnamese nationalism more than Communist expansionism.

Although I believe your overall political views to be wrong I am not disputing your right to hold and express them. I disagree that the inclusion of the tracks Geisha Girl and Filipino Baby somehow expressed racism.

Once again thanks for the informative post despite its gratuitous bullshit political componenet.

[Listener Kliph]

Hey Vince,

Dudley's Golden Wing label pressed a full LP titled Dave Dudley Sings Six Days On the Road in 1963. I'm gonna add this info to the piece right now.

[Red Neckerson]

Hey don't forget about Dave's great recording of a pro cockfighting song "Rooster Hill" it is available for download at my sight redneckerson.blogspot.com

[Ed]

Dave is the greatest! Ask guys like Junior Brown, Tom T Hall, or any of the trucker greats. He IS the voice of truckers and so much of 60s and 70s country music!

[Polyphrene]

Hi! A few months ago, I started translating my prefered Country songs in French, and I recently came to Dave Dudley mythic song 'Six days on the road' but was not able to translate some parts since I am not sure I can understand them rightly. Especially, I have a problem with :
'I just passed a Jimmy and a White'.
Could somebody help me finding the actual meaning of this verse?
Many thanks.
Sincerely

Polyphrene

[Hugh Hood]

Polyphrene,

These are references to brand name truck 'tractors'. A 'jimmy' is a GMC (General Motors) tractor, while a White is a White Freightliner.

Enjoy