Join me at 11 a.m. on Sunday August 3rd for the Sunday Morning Country Classic Spotlight featuring Dave Dudley.  We get going every Sunday morning at 9 a.m.Like so many country artist of his time, Dave Dudley worked a few radio stations.  In 1960 he moved to Minneapolis, where he started a new group, The Country Gentleman.  They did well enough that he managed to get a spot on KEVE AM radio 1440 on the AM dial.  Today its the AM side of KQRS FM and no longer country.  KEVE was his last stop in broadcasting.

He went on to have 40 charting singles across at least 70 albums including Six Days on the Road, a truck driving song written by Earl Green and Carl Montgomery, released in mid May of 1963.  Six Days on the Road became Dave's first major hit, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart during the summer of 1963.  Sawyer Brown covered the song on their 1997 album Six Days on the Road.  Their version peaked at #13 on the country chart that year.,  They changed the line I'm taking little white pills to I'm passing little white lines thus omitting the drug reference.

Throughout the 1960's Dudley had a long string of truck driving singles including, Truck Drivin' Son of a Gun, Truckers Prayer and many more.  The Pool Shark hit #1 in 1970 and in 1966 a song written by Kris Kristofferson Vietnam Blues peaked at # 12.

Hew was born David Pedruska May 3rd, 1928 in Spencer, Wisconsin.  Dave played baseball for a semi pro team in Wausau, Wisconsin and with the Gainesville Texas Owls.

He died December 22, 2003 at age 75 after suffering a heart attack at his home on Staples Lake near Danbury, Wisconsin.

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