Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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SIMPSON, Red

(b Joseph Cecil Simpson, 6 March 1934, Higley AZ; d 8 January 2016, Bakersfield CA) Country singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist long associated with truck-driving songs. Raised in Bakersfield, one of 13 children; played with brother and father in a country band '49-51; served in U.S. Navy on a hospital ship, the USS Repose, during the Korean War, and played with the Repose Ramblers. Following demob he worked local California clubs alongside Buck Owens, Tommy Collins, Merle Haggard, etc. Hits co-written with Owens led to a contract with Capitol '65, 'Roll Truck Roll' his first country hit '66; others included 'I'm A Truck', 'Country-Western Truck Drivin' Singer', etc. 'The Highway Patrol' was revived by Junior Brown '95 and threatened to start a revival of the genre; Simpson guested on Brown's Semi-Crazy '96.

Simpson's half a dozen entries in the country chart were all truck songs, but away from trucks he wrote or co-wrote nearly 40 songs recorded by Owens or Haggard, including 'Sam's Place' and 'Close Up The Honky-Tonks' for Owens, the former a no. 1 and the latter covered by Graham Parsons and Dwight Yoakam; and 'You Don't Have Very Far To Go' for Haggard. He was an equal among the architects of the Bakersfield scene.