"Six Days on the Road" | ||||
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Single by Dave Dudley | ||||
from the album Songs About the Working Man | ||||
Released | May 1963 (U.S.) | |||
Format | 7" | |||
Recorded | March 1963 Kay Bank Studios, Minneapolis, Minnesota |
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Genre | Country | |||
Length | 2:24 | |||
Label | Golden Wing 3020 | |||
Writer(s) | Earl Green and Carl Montgomery | |||
Dave Dudley singles chronology | ||||
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"Six Days on the Road" | ||||
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Single by Sawyer Brown | ||||
from the album Six Days on the Road | ||||
Released | 1997 | |||
Genre | Country | |||
Length | 2:53 | |||
Label | Curb | |||
Producer(s) | Mark Miller, Mac McAnally | |||
Sawyer Brown singles chronology | ||||
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"Six Days on the Road" is an American song written by Earl Green and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio songwriter Carl Montgomery, made famous originally by country music singer Dave Dudley. First released in 1963, the song became a major hit that year and is often hailed as the definitive celebration of the American truck driver.
In 1997, more than 30 years after Dudley's original version charted, country music band Sawyer Brown took the song into the Top 15 of the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.
According to country music historian Bill Malone, "Six Days on the Road" was not the first truck driving song; Malone credits "Truck Driver's Blues" by Cliff Bruner, released in 1940, with that distinction. "Nor is it necessarily the best," said Malone, citing songs such as "Truck Drivin' Man" by Terry Fell and "White Line Fever" by Merle Haggard and the Strangers as songs that "would certainly rival it".
However, "Six Days," Malone continued, "set off a vogue for such songs" that continued for many years. "The trucking songs coincided with country music's growing identification as working man's music in the 1960s," he said. Many country music artists and bands—including Alabama, Dick Curless, Merle Haggard, Kathy Mattea, Ronnie Milsap, Jerry Reed, Del Reeves, Dan Seals, Red Simpson, Red Sovine, Joe Stampley, C.W. McCall, Steve Earle, among many others—recorded successful truck driving songs during the next 25 years. Several of those artists—Dudley included—became almost exclusively associated with songs about truck drivers and life on the road.