Hey truckers! This week, we’re back with another of our recurring series “Truck Driver Songs” and it’s another smash hit from the 80s. It’s by West Virginia’s Country Music Hall of Famer Kathy Mattea.
Active since 1983 as a recording artist, Kathy Mattea has recorded seventeen albums and has charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts. This total includes the number one hits “Goin’ Gone”, “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses”, “Come From the Heart” and “Burnin’ Old Memories”, as well as twelve additional Top Ten singles.
Signing with Mercury Records in 1983, Kathy Mattea released her self-titled debut the following year. Though it generated several Top 40 singles, it was not until her third album, Walk The Way The Wind Blows (1986) that established her as an up and coming star.
In late 1987 she released her first #1 single, “Goin’ Gone,” and the next year saw her issue “Eighteen Wheels And A Dozen Roses,” which won both the Country Music Association’s and Academy of Country Music’s Single Of The Year award.
In the early 1990s, Mattea decided to become heavily involved in HIV/AIDS-related charities and is often credited with being among the first to champion this cause among the country music community. Because of her longstanding charitable work, she is the recipient of the Minnie Pearl Humanitarian Award, and the Harvard AIDS Institute Leadership Award.
Today, Kathy continues to play concerts all over the country and has ventured into creating other styles of music that can blend with traditional country arrangements, such as Celtic and Folk.
Today’s video is of her second #1 hit on the Billboard Country Music Charts, and an old love poem to a truck driver making his last run down the road. It’s called 18 Wheels and a Dozen Roses.