6 Days On The Road (6 Trucker Stars)

This is an anthology of trucking songs. Not many of the stars and artists are what you might call household names—as yet. But then, the trucker has always been part of a tightly knit fraternity, and enjoyed the reputation of being something of a loner. It is this exclusive sense of apartness that these songs celebrate. They are a hymn to his unique status in a society that has already begun to regard him as something of a folk hero. Above all, they are meant to reassure him that—freight trucks aside—he really does carry some weight wherever he goes.
As folk hero, the trucker comes across as the modern version of the American cowboy. True, in place of dirt trails and wide open spaces, he rides a ribbon of concrete in an intercity odyssey; and if he ever wheels off into the sunset, it is probably whiskey-brown with smog. Yet something of the flavor of the old covered wagons crawling under the sky is still preserved for today’s breed of trucker—if only because the sheer vastness, majesty, and natural diversity of the American landscape spreading out on either side of that asphalt ribbon is not to be exhausted by the pioneering efforts of any one generation. It continually begs to be rediscovered anew...
And so the trucker, restless as ever, is always to be found on the fringes, the frontiers of society. Outward looks might tell of the electric guitars that lace country western songs, and the garish modernistic neon lights that decorate truck stops with names like “The Friendly Frontier Hotel.” But the old fundamental outlook remains the same as always. Do you really suppose that the down-home, down-to-earth instincts buried beneath that citified exterior must cease to be heard, because our trucker has exchanged a snorting stallion for a rig with a thundering horsepower of 400? Or is not safer to bet, rather, that these rugged, primal instincts will cry out all the louder, in order to be heard above that din?
First take some time out to audition the album. Then decide for yourself.
Neville Raymond