Truck-driving country is a subgenre of country and western music. It is characterised by lyrical content about trucks, truck drivers or truckers, and the trucking industry experience. This would include, for example, references to truck stops, CB radio, geography, drugs, teamsters, roads, weather, fuel, law enforcement, loads, traffic, ICC, contraband, DOT, accidents, etc. In truck-driving country, references to “truck” include the following truck types: 10 wheeler, straight truck, 18 wheeler, tractor, semi, tractor-trailer, semi tractor trailer, big rig, and some others. It is often confused with road music, pick-up truck music, and/or truck driving music. The last category would be the preferred choice of most truck drivers for eclectic listening while driving/operating all types, makes, and styles of trucks.
Influences
It is, at least partly, an oral history of trucking. A range of social and economic factors in the United States have strongly influenced the evolution of truck-driving country as a subgenre of "country" music. These factors include wars, civil rights struggles, the demographic shift from rural to urban areas, the feminist movement, economic recessions, changes in the railroads, and the oil embargo. Their impacts have diversified the folklore of truck songs. Technological developments and changes related to both the music business and the trucking industry, however, have brought about the greatest changes to truck-driving country. Variously, these include the jukebox, 33⅓ rpm vinylrecord albums, 8-track tape, cassette tape, the transistor to digital revolution, the Internet, CB radio, all-night radio broadcasts targeting truckers, Interstate highways, and multiple truck components. Collectively, there are more than 500 truck-driving country songs, all of which more or less originate from the oral tradition of truck folklore. Occupations, of course, have traditionally provided the raw material and inspiration for folk music in the United States, influenced by regional culture as well. Folk songs adopt, adapt, and incorporate colloquialisms, slang, and occupational terms into verbal snapshots. In truck-driving country, such specialized words and terms as truck rodeo, dog house, twin screw, Georgia overdrive, saddle tanks, jake brake, binder and others borrowed from the lingo of truckers are commonly utilized. CB vocabulary - which is different from truck driver lingo - is used by both truckers and the general public. Some of that vocabulary has evolved into popular culture and subsequently incorporated into truck-driving country.
Legacy
There has been a certain mystique attached to truck driving and truck drivers, especially those engaged in long distance driving.
Technological development
Nevertheless, technological development and change continues to influence truck music and keeps it going. Just as truck drivers in the 1970s and 1980s no longer had to rely on AM radio or pre-recorded 8-track tape to listen to the music they wanted to hear by making-up their own playlists on cassette tape, today the portable computer, wireless wi-fi, and the Internet allows singer/songwriters to produce and distribute their own truckmusic.
