Country songs about trucks aren’t a new phenomenon. In the 1960s, an entire subgenre sprang up around the commercial truck driving industry. One of that movement’s most successful figures was Dick Curless, born on this day (March 17) in 1932. Hailing from Fort Fairfield, Maine—a small town on the U.S.-Canadian border—Curless landed more than 20 hits on the Billboard charts.
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Moving with his family to Massachusetts at age 8, Dick Curless grew to love music from his own father, a bulldozer operator “who could bring family members to tears with his emotive singing.” In 1949, he scored his first paying gig on a Ware, Massachusetts radio station with Yodeling Slim Clark, who named him “The Tumbleweed Kid.”
A year later, Curless would drop out of high school just weeks shy of graduation to tour with Clark and his band, The Trailriders.
Dick Curless Sang About Truck Driving From Experience
He stayed with the Trailriders until 1952, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army and shipped off to Korea. Curless spent his first year overseas as a truck driver before hosting his own radio program on the Armed Forces Korea network as “the Rice Paddy Ranger.”
Following his discharge in 1954, Curless initially struggled to find his footing in the music industry. Eventually, he gave up and returned home to Maine, purchasing a lumber trucking rig to support himself.
[RELATED: 4 Country Songs That Perfected the “Truckin’ Life” Narrative (1975-1996)]
His break finally came in 1965 with his single “A Tombstone Every Mile,” inspired by the treacherous roads that northern Maine truck drivers often traversed while hauling loads to market in Boston. Specifically, Curliss referenced the route that passed through the small village of Haynesville, which included a hairpin turn that claimed many lives.
It’s a stretch of road, up north in Maine / That’s never, ever, ever seen a smile, Curless sang in his distinctive baritone. If they’d buried all the truckers lost in them woods / There’d be a tombstone every mile.
The song spent two weeks at No. 5 on the country singles chart and catapulted Dick Curless to national fame. He would go on to score 11 top 40 hits in the late 1960s, including “Six Times a Day (the Trains Came Down)”, Travelin’ Man, Big Foot,” and others.
Altogether, Curless recorded 22 Billboard Top 40 hits throughout his career. He died of stomach cancer on May 25, 1955, at age 63.
Featured image by the Portland Press Herald via Getty Images
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