Search - Dave Dudley :: Truck Drivin Son of a Gun: The Mercury H

A Truck Drivin' Son of a Gun of a compilation

Bradley Olson | Bemidji, MN United States | 05/09/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This compilation on Westside/Demon Music Group in the UK is by far the best overview of his talent available on CD, even if it doesn't contain "Six Days On The Road." The reason why is that this is a compilation of his top 40 country chart hits on Mercury in which the original hit recording of "Six Days On The Road" was not released on, in fact, it was on Dave's Golden Wing label and when the followup hit, Cowboy Boots came out, he changed the name of his label to Golden Ring because Mercury had a Wing label being used as their budget priced imprint. The version of "Six Days" he recorded for Mercury is a re-recording, available on CD on the Millennium Collection, and not the hit version, which can be found on Time-Life and Rhino country compilations. But the songs on here are the cream of the crop of his Mercury years including the classic title song, "Last Day In The Mines," "Mad," the Kris Kristofferson penned "Vietnam Blues," "Trucker's Prayer," "Keep On Truckin'," and his only #1 country chart hit, the Tom T. Hall penned "The Pool Shark." Purchase this CD for a near definitive overview of Dave Dudley in his truck drivin' prime and enjoy the "Truck Drivin' Son of a Gun" once again."

A decade of Dave Dudley: 1963-1973

Jerry McDaniel | 07/06/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I've always liked the sound of Dave Dudley's voice on whatever he sang. He had a different style of phrasing. On these 24 songs in this collection we hear Dave at his commercial peak on Mercury Records...he continued his popularity, actually, throughout the decade and into the early '80s before he went overseas to tour/promote himself.



One of the things you'll notice if you look at the songwriter credits is Dave co-wrote or wrote several of the songs. A good number of songs were written by Tom T Hall, the songwriter-singer and a Mercury Records label-mate. Although Dave is known for his trucker songs and his up-tempo/rowdy numbers where he can deliver his trademark baritone he also had many love ballad hits. Two of them, "Comin' Down" and "Fly Away Again", were written by Dave. There are a few topical songs, during the Vietnam war era: "What We're Fighting For" and "Vietnam Blues". Of course, Dave could sing just about anything and make it unique with the sort of delivery he had.



"The Pool Shark" is Dave's only #1 single. For those who may wonder where "Six Days on the Road" is, well, it wasn't recorded for Mercury Records and therefore it isn't here. These are the solo hit singles Dave recorded for Mercury. "George and the North Woods" is one of my favorites...there is a lot of material on here...a lot of it on CD for the first time. This is an import CD...for whatever reason there hasn't been many CD retrospectives here in America promoting Dave's extensive catalog of material but thankfully there's this CD.



Among the stand-out tracks: "Mad", "Last Day in the Mines", "One More Mile", "Trucker's Prayer", "Listen Betty I'm Singing Your Song", "Keep On Truckin", "Anything Leaving Town Today", "Truck Drivin' Son-of-a-Gun", "Two Six Packs Away", and on and on. See if you can keep up when Dave sings "There Ain't No Easy Run"!!



All in all, a great CD...great liner notes, too!"