Love the deep twang of the Fender Telecaster that opens and closes “At the Truck Stop” — a prime ingredient in achieving that classic truck driving sound:
“At the Truck Stop”
Buddy Allen Rick (1972?)
Music Blogs I’d Like to Read would surely include anything written by Tom Avazian, gifted record collector who slipped me a copy of this 45 on the Princess label. Lo and behold, no entries for Buddy Allen Rick on 45Cat or Discogs — or the internet, for that matter.
Conspiracy-minded individuals might discern a government plot to erase Rick’s existence, but Zero to 180 is having none of it. Billboard‘s May 22, 1971 edition, for instance, contains a small item entitled “Jim Richards to Accents Artists on Princess Label“:
ROANOKE, VA. — Jim Richards Enterprises, a parent firm which includes recording, publishing, booking, and promotion, has announced a concentration on artists on its label, Princess Records.
Richards, presidents of the parent company and its subsidiaries, has just concluded a promotional trip which took him to Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, Houston, Dallas, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Reno, Lake Tahoe, and Seattle, handles his own distribution and has a tape arrangement with GRT for 8-tracks.
On his Princess Records label, he has country artists Buford Kegley, Irma J. Ford, Jesse Hall, The Highlanders, and Bert Barber. The Highlanders are a fiddle group, while Barber is a fiddle instrumentalist.
Another group, Earl Carter and the Fantastic Six, is in the soul category. Richards’ booking firm is Top Ten, Inc., and his publishing company is Misty (BMI). Richards said he would move shortly into a new, massive building here, which will house all his enterprises, and will have office space as well. He records his artists, who he produces, at Major Recording Co., a studio at Waynesboro, Va.
In 2011, 2005 & 2013, the Earl Carter & the Fantastic “6” LP on the Princess label would fetch, respectively, $321, $274 & $188, on Ebay (courtesy of Popsike).
Buddy Allen Rick’s 45 likely released around the same time as the previously-featured track, “Keep Those Big Wheels Hummin‘” — David Allan Coe’s truck driving 45.
