With one truck, nine guitars and a growing set of industry projects, 2019 Overdrive-Red Eye Radio Trucker Talent Search winner Taylor Barker is finding his place with his music peers and others in trucking.
Barker, 47, lives in Kingsport, Tennessee, with his wife, Cherie. He’s been driving trucks for 22 years, the past five as an owner-operator. Before driving, he owned and operated a bar/restaurant, which gave him an outlet to perform his music. It was there that he gave his first vocal performance. Before, he had focused solely on the guitar, which he picked up at age 15.
Growing up, his best friend’s parents drove a truck. “I thought they were legends,” he says. Barker, who occasionally sat behind the wheel of their parked truck, recalls telling himself, “One day, I’ll drive one of these.”
After driving a fuel tanker in the U.S. Army National Guard, he got his Class B license in 1995, earned his Class A in 1997 and then officially began professional driving.
“I started pulling tankers early in my career and continue to this day,” he says.
Leased to Heniff Transportation Services and hauling hazmat, Barker says he’s grateful for a company that has “stood behind me 100%, not only as a trucker but as a musician as well.”
It hasn’t been tough to find support among the trucker-musician community, either. Barker says he’s fortunate to count as friends Tony Justice, one of the best-known recording artists who still drives full time, and Bill Weaver and Paul Marhoefer, participants in past years’ Trucker Talent Search contests.
