Post by erik on Nov 6, 2021 12:51:18 GMT -5
A crippled boy, a truck driver, and a citizen's band radio are what make up the 70's C&W classic in this week's Pop Music Hits Spotlight.
TEDDY BEAR (Red Sovine; Starday; 1976)—One of the great hallmarks of country music is the “taking narrative” song, a format pioneered in the years after World War II by Red Foley and, in his “Luke The Drifter” persona, Hank Williams. Another hallmark of the genre started appearing in the early 1950’s with the age of the interstate highway system, and the truck driver, resulting in an offshoot of the Western-based honky-tonk style. One of the greatest purveyors of both of these styles was one Woodrow Wilson Sovine, though he was known on his records and with audiences as Red Sovine. A West Virginia native who got his nickname because of his reddish-brown hair, Sovine ventured to Shreveport, Louisiana and first garnered attention by appearing on the Louisiana Hayride with no less than Hank himself. Sovine’s recording career began in 1955 with a #1 C&W hit duet with the legendary Webb Pierce, “Why Baby Why”. In 1965, Sovine hit #1 on the country chart a second time with “Giddyup Go”, the first of his truck-driving songs; it managed also to become a minor hit on the overall Hot 100 (peaking at #82). A supernatural variation on the truck driver story format came with the #9 C&W hit “Phantom 309” in 1967. But Sovine’s greatest success came in 1976 with “Teddy Bear”. Not to be confused with Elvis’ big #1 hit from 1957 of the same name, this song was a combination of the classic truck driver narrative with then-big citizens’ band radio craze, and told of a truck driver who is contacted by a little crippled boy, who had lost his father, himself a truck driver, in an accident during a blizzard a year before, and who can no longer even walk. The driver, and his fellow truckers, grant “Teddy Bear” his wish to sit in the cab of an 18-wheeler once again. The sentimentality of the record seemed to strike a chord, since “Teddy Bear” stayed at #1 for the entire month of July 1976, and even ticked up to #40 on the Hot 100 in August. It was, however, Sovine’s last Top 40 country hit. He would pass away on April 4, 1980, at the age of 62.
TEDDY BEAR (Red Sovine; Starday; 1976)—One of the great hallmarks of country music is the “taking narrative” song, a format pioneered in the years after World War II by Red Foley and, in his “Luke The Drifter” persona, Hank Williams. Another hallmark of the genre started appearing in the early 1950’s with the age of the interstate highway system, and the truck driver, resulting in an offshoot of the Western-based honky-tonk style. One of the greatest purveyors of both of these styles was one Woodrow Wilson Sovine, though he was known on his records and with audiences as Red Sovine. A West Virginia native who got his nickname because of his reddish-brown hair, Sovine ventured to Shreveport, Louisiana and first garnered attention by appearing on the Louisiana Hayride with no less than Hank himself. Sovine’s recording career began in 1955 with a #1 C&W hit duet with the legendary Webb Pierce, “Why Baby Why”. In 1965, Sovine hit #1 on the country chart a second time with “Giddyup Go”, the first of his truck-driving songs; it managed also to become a minor hit on the overall Hot 100 (peaking at #82). A supernatural variation on the truck driver story format came with the #9 C&W hit “Phantom 309” in 1967. But Sovine’s greatest success came in 1976 with “Teddy Bear”. Not to be confused with Elvis’ big #1 hit from 1957 of the same name, this song was a combination of the classic truck driver narrative with then-big citizens’ band radio craze, and told of a truck driver who is contacted by a little crippled boy, who had lost his father, himself a truck driver, in an accident during a blizzard a year before, and who can no longer even walk. The driver, and his fellow truckers, grant “Teddy Bear” his wish to sit in the cab of an 18-wheeler once again. The sentimentality of the record seemed to strike a chord, since “Teddy Bear” stayed at #1 for the entire month of July 1976, and even ticked up to #40 on the Hot 100 in August. It was, however, Sovine’s last Top 40 country hit. He would pass away on April 4, 1980, at the age of 62.