Can you believe it’s been 4 months and 20 days since I last featured a truck driving song? And how perfect is it that Lonnie Mack once wrote and sang a truck driving song for 1971 Elektra album, The Hills Of Indiana?
“Asphalt Outlaw Hero“
Lonnie Mack (1971)
Don Nix – who also wrote “Oh What a Mighty Time” for The New Riders of the Purple Sage, with Sly Stone & Jerry Garcia (previously celebrated here) – co-wrote “Asphalt Outlaw Hero” with Lonnie Mack.
Acoustic & Electric Guitar – Lonnie Mack
Rhythm Guitar – Wayne Perkins*
Steel Guitar – Lloyd Green
Bass – Norbert Putnam, Tim Drummond, Troy Seals & David Hood*
Drums – Kenneth Buttrey & Roger Hawkins*
Fiddle – Buddy Spicher
Baritone Saxophone – Don Nix*
Keyboards – David Briggs & Barry Beckett*
Lead Vocals – Lonnie Mack & Don Nix
Choir – Mt. Zion Singers
Producer – Lonnie Mack & Russ Miller
Arranger – Norbert Putnam
Engineer – Brian Ross-Myring, Gene Eichelberger & Marlin Greene*
* designates personnel on “Asphalt Outlaw Hero”
“Asphalt Outlaw Hero” & “All Good Things Will Come to Pass” recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio — all others at Quadrafonic Sound Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. Elektra would issue a promo 7-inch of “Lay It Down” in 1971 but no actual singles.
Billboard‘s review of The Hills Of Indiana in its September 25, 1971 edition:
Memphis, now Nashville. Lonnie Mack bids for a chart comeback with still another fine LP country-soul and pop-gospel. Mack is dedicated, often moving and brilliant, yet “undiscovered” by a pop public that would tune in fast if they could hear Mack soul away on ‘Rings,’ Dylan’s ‘The Man in Me’ and ‘All Good Things Will Come to Pass.’ Buttrey, Briggs and Putnam back Mack for an honest shot at popular exposure.
Mojo would include The Hills Of Indiana in its list of 60 Greatest Elektra Albums in the magazine’s November, 2010 issue — along with Don Nix’s Living By The Days, also from 1971.
The many moods of Lonnie Mack’s The Hills of Indiana