Truck Driver Songs: Steve Earle “White Freightliner Blues”

We’re back with another episode of our long-running series Truck Driver Songs. Here we look for the best musical shout outs to the North American truck driver and all they do for their communities. They may be heroes, they may be anti-heroes, but they roll steady through day and night to bring everyone what they need and desire without fail.

This week, it’s a bluegrass classic from the alt-country phenomenon Steve Earle. Earle began his career as a songwriter in Nashville and released his first EP in 1982. His breakthrough album was the 1986 Guitar Town. Since then Earle has released 13 other studio albums and received three Grammy awards. His songs have been recorded by Travis Tritt, Vince Gill, Shawn Colvin and Emmylou Harris.

As far as the hard-living country outlaw storyline goes, Earle has made his name in many ways. Earle has been married seven times, including twice to the same woman.He married Sandra “Sandy” Henderson in Houston at the age of 18, but left her to move to Nashville a year later where he met and married his second wife, Cynthia Dunn. Earle married his third wife, Carol-Ann Hunter, who gave birth to his son, singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle. Next, he married Lou-Anne Gill (with whom he had a second son) and then his fifth wife, Teresa Ensenat, who was an artist for Geffen Records at the time.Earle then married Lou-Anne Gill a second time, and finally, in 2005, married singer-songwriter Allison Moorer with whom he had a child in April 2010.

This time around, he’s giving a heartfelt shout out to all the men and women who drive the hard roads in the Freightliner brand of semi-trucks. Enjoy, truck drivers!