ODE TO A WINDBREAKER PATCH

A found poem. Recited by Dennis Hopper, kiped here for Dave Dudley. For icing, two of my favorites from Dudley, one of which is like the "Johnny B. Goode" of trucker music. It's Friday.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Dennis Hopper - Heineken? [for Dave Dudley] mp3 at Lynchnet
Dave Dudley - Two Six Packs Away mp3 at Rocky 52
Dave Dudley - Six Days on the Road mp3 at J.Yuenger

YOU ALL DECIDED "BEARDS" AT THE SAME TIME?

Photo: Jim McGuire

It might be because of Dave Dudley's "Two Six Packs Away" that I kind of include country and western beer drinking music as an extension of trucker music. You gotta know it was on the juke boxes at all the truck stops all over the damn place. And Dudley also did "Six Days on the Road", hence a link. But the weird thing is, when I hear beer drinking type country that sounds like trucker music, I always envision the subject of the song at their local bar, just down the road, not a truck stop. That's where you'll find him between hauls. You're not going to get home and then go out to a truck stop. You're going to hook up with your buddies at the bar. And drink. Beer.

Dudley is, to me, the big daddy, the Chuck Berry of this type of music. Check him out in that photo above. The regal regular. Full on "don't fuck with me, kid" face. Think about that badass the next time you encounter some hipster douche thinking he's hot shit with his overpriced PBR.

Here's a mixed bag of drinking songs. The must-listen is "Two Six Packs Away". Dudley sounds drunk.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Dave Dudley - Two Six Packs Away mp3 at Rocky 52
Dave Dudley - Six Days on the Road mp3 at J.Yuenger
Hank Thompson - Six pack to Go (streaming) at YouTube
Ray Sunders - Beer Drinkin' Music mp3 at Internet Archive
Johnny Bond - You Can Tell the Man Who Boozes By the Company He Chooses mp3 at Internet Archive

'MON BACK, YOU'RE IN THE MUD.

Because sometimes you need a little blue collar, gotta get home, the road's a drag, check out that chick, old school, political correctness be damned, give me another beer and a couple of the little white pills type of music, here's some songs that are about as real as they get. Good ol' American trucker music. Fire up a Pall Mall. The road will wait.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Dick Curless - Chick Inspector mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Dave Dudley - Two Six Packs Away mp3 at Rocky 52
Dave Dudley - Six Days on the Road mp3 at J.Yuenger
Red Sovine - I'm A Truck mp3 at Beware of the Blog
Eleven more trucker tunes at Beware of the Blog

SUCK ON THIS HIPSTER

I heard Hank Thompson's "Six Pack to Go" today, early. Before I'd even had a second cup of coffee, in a store that was piping in old school country and western music. It was weird hearing it that early. It's always been a going out or going home sort of song. But, man, what a way to start the day. I had to post it, and good ol' dependable Junk Shop Juke Box had it.

It made me want to post Dave Dudley's "Two Six Packs Away" for the umpteenth time. (That's Dudley above.) Yes, it's another six pack song, but it also gave me an excuse to slap some "Six Days on the Road" on you. And how about that  badass photo above? (By Jim McGuire, the full size can be seen here). Check him out. That right there is the real deal. Dudley at age 48, regular guy, bad habit, cool windbreaker, and irony-free PBR patch in tow.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Hank Thompson - Six Pack to Go mp3 (via DivShare) at Junk Shop Juke Box

Once you get to DivShare, click on the green "Download" button, and scratch your head for fifteen seconds while the timer counts down. When the button reappears, you're good to go.

Dave Dudley - Two Six Packs Away mp3 at Rocky 52
Dave Dudley - Six Days on the Road mp3 at J.Yuenger

TRUCK BERRY

Attention hipsters of all ages. Give up. The regular guy above, one Dave Dudley, has commandeered all the PBR in the house, smokes when or where he wants, and has a customized windbreaker. (Or did. He passed away in 2003.). He just has that look, like he just said "I don't give a shit".

He had his first hit, "Six Days on the Road" at age 35. Yeah. 35. You've heard it a zillion times, but it's like the "Johnny B. Goode" of trucker music; good to revisit every so often to relish the pureness of it. If you haven't heard it, watch the video above. For those of you who are already Six Days saturated, there's one down there, recorded in 1980, at age 57; the truth about a life on the road, "Rolaids, Doans Pills, and Preperation H". To add to its weirdness, it's on Sun. And it has wah-wah on it.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Dave Dudley - Two Six Packs Away mp3 at Rocky52
Dave Dudley - I Got Lost mp3 at Beware of the Blog 
Dave Dudley - Rolaids, Doans Pills, and Preparation H mp3 via DivShare at Frances Favorites 45s
Visit:
Dave Dudley at Wikipedia

HERE'S TO THE REGULAR GUY

Photo: Jim McGuire

Just look at the photo. Cigarette in hand, customized windbreaker with initials and a PBR patch, and a little greasy kids' stuff in the hair. It's a perfect portrait of a regular guy, and that's what makes it a perfect portrait of Dave Dudley (the full size portrait can be seen here). The man who started the whole truck driving music craze. He had it down to a formula, and made good use of the truckers' vernacular. And, on one of his lesser albums, he was backed by Link Wray and the Wraymen. (Without even glancing at a resume, that rates high on the Trastos cool scale.)

As I get older, and I find my breast pockets full of pens and scraps of papers, and my clothes slowly becoming more practical, it makes me feel okay when I see a photo like the one above. There's something to be said about older people who are just...themselves.

Here's a couple tunes by Dudley, a couple videos, a Dudley bio, a truck driving music post, and a link to a great album of Nashville portraits by Jim McGuire.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Dave Dudley - I Got Lost mp3 (right click to save) at Beware of the Blog
Dave Dudley - Two Six Packs Away mp3 (right click to save) at Rocky-52.net
Dave Dudley - Six Days on the Road video at YouTube
Dave Dudley - Truck Drivin' Son of a Gun video at YouTube
Dave Dudley bio at Beware of the Blog
A baker's dozen of trucker songs at Beware of the Blog
Nashville Portraits by Jim McGuire

ENTRY LEVEL COUNTRY

Everyone who's really into music has done it. You find out someone you're not quite familiar with covered a song that you already know like the back of your hand. So, you buy their record, and find yourself liking it. You notice other covers, so you check out the originals, and all of a sudden you find yourself working backwards, getting closer to the source. So it is that the Rolling Stones can lead to Merle Haggard, or Commander Cody can lead to Red Sovine or Bob Wills, and so on. Pretty soon, you're looking for session players like Sneaky Pete, Don Rich and Phil Baugh. To paraphrase the Talking Heads, "You might find yourself saying, 'how did I get here?'" It seems especially true for genres left under explored in your younger years. But that's the cool thing about music.

There's a neat quote that was on some blog somewhere, that was from a sign in a record store. It was directed at music fiends, but, shit, it applies to everything, across the board. It said "You will never know everything. You will never hear everything. You will never own everything. You will never remember everything." I'd like to think that it came from a wise old sage, but more than likely it came from a snotty record store counter guy who was being a little profound completely by accident.

I can think of at least a dozen people in my past who have emphatically pointed me in the direction of a country artist of some sort. All had different starting points, and all were followed up on. But, still, I'm a country neophyte, so a rather obvious starting point was Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers. I got as far as Buck and Merle, realized that I was opening up a can of worms and just cut to the chase, one of the aforementioned session guys, Phil Baugh. As a side note, I've got to add that Dave Dudley's "Two Six Packs Away" is a personal favorite. Not only does he sound drunk, but those perky backing vocals piping in repeatedly with "Two Six Packs Away" always manage to slay me.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
The Flying Burrito Brothers - Christine's Tune (Devil in Disguise) mp3 at Rock-52.net

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Wheels mp3 at Rocky-52.net

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Wild Horses - mp3 at bpfastball.com

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Six Days on the Road mp3 at Leaky Sparrow

Gram Parsons - Drug Store Truck Drivin' Man mp3 at bpfastball.com

Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris - Love Hurts mp3 at Boogie Woogie Flu

Commander Cody & the Lost Planet Airmen - Seeds and Stems mp3 at Cover Lay Down

Dave Dudley - Two Six Packs Away mp3 at Rocky-52 .net

Buck Owens - Close Up the Honky Tonks mp3 at Big Rock Candy Mountain
Buck Owens - Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms mp3 at Rocky-52.net

Buck Owens - I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love me) mp3 at Rocky-52.net

Merle Haggard - Sing Me Back Home mp3 at Rocky-52.net

Phil Baugh (with Vern Stovall) - Country Guitar mp3 at Beware of the Blog

ANDRE GETS SQUAT

I know the Nat King Cole Christmas album by heart. Likewise with the Burl Ive's pre-Rudolph outing. Both were on constant play when I was a kid, So you'll have to excuse my tipping of the hat to a few ne'er do wells. At least they're bold enough to get in the fatman's face. These two songs are for those who find the holidays are often a cone of silence over misdeeds perpetrated during the first eleven months of the year.
.

In "A Christmas Duel," over Spector-esque sleigh bells, Cyndi Lauper fesses up, "I burned the Christmas tree, and I slept with your brother. I wrecked your daddy's car, and went down on your mother," all before admitting to the most grievous offense "I burned your record collection"! Oh, sweet straw covered manger rat! Getting stiffed on the money day is not enough! Cyndi, I always kinda liked your cute offbeat shtick, but that's just fucking unforgivable! And Andre, dude, you're the Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot incarnate, after decades of forgetting. You get nasty, but you do leave my records alone. Still...

On a side note, if you are really into holiday music, but not necessarily the traditional type, you'll do well to stop by Big Rock Candy Mountain. An excellent blog year round, at this time of year they are indeed "serving up heaping platters of trash/soul/country/blues Xmas joy" including everybody from the Sonics to trucking god Dave Dudley. More nog, less egg!

.

EXPLICIT: I would advise previewing these songs before playing them in a public gathering, family, office or otherwise. In other words, they are explicit, but in a strangely amusing way.

The Hives & Cyndi Lauper - A Christmas Duel mp3 at Snuthing Anything
Andre Williams - Poor Mr. Santa (Andre Williams is Naughty mp3 at Big Rock Candy Mountain