He’s best-known for his trucking hits “Giddyup Go,” “Teddy Bear” and “Phantom 309.” But another single by Red Sovine, a master of the sentimental trucker song, spoke poignantly to the difficult family dynamic of over-the-road haulers and their kin back home.
That’s “Woman Behind the Man Behind the Wheel.” It’s a tribute to truckers’ wives, as the lyrics say, a special breed of woman that has to share a love affair with that long stretch of highway on his mind.
This Red Sovine song celebrated the heroic wives and mothers who shouldered the burdens of maintaining a household while their husbands drove over the road. It also subtly addressed doubts either spouse might have about the other because of their frequent times apart.
Read more in Overdrive's weekly 60th-annversary series of lookbacks on trucking history, and that of the magazine itself, via this link.
Released in 1977, it was one of Sovine’s last singles. It followed some of trucking’s biggest hits, including the three mentioned above. In each of them, Sovine told tear-jerking stories, not so much singing as artfully narrating in his deep baritone. “Giddyup Go” and “Teddy Bear” touched truckers’ soft spot for young children. “Phantom 309” portrayed the trucker as a ghostly hero, having died when he swerved to avoid hitting a busload of children.
For more detail on Sovine and “Woman Behind the Man Behind the Wheel,” listen to the podcast interview with Uhlman here.