Tony Justice: No ‘crystal ball’ for hours proposal’s post-Martinez future; Jason Lee Wilson live in a cave

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Updated Apr 20, 2021

There’s a new record forthcoming for 2016 Trucker Talent Search winning singer-songwriter Jason Lee Wilson, due in the new year. It’s dubbed, simply, “Tennessee,” and the title track is an appreciation of home for the East Tennessee resident. Last month, he performed it as part of a three-song set at The Caverns venue in Pelham, Tenn., current home of the Bluegrass Underground television program — you can hear it, and hear more about just where the song and the album are coming from, in today’s edition of the Overdrive Radio podcast.

Also there, a talk with trucker/singer-songwriter Tony Justice about his own recent performance in quite a nontraditional venue for many artists — though not exactly for Justice himself: Bristol Motor Speedway, where he gave a post-race infield show for attendees of the Bandit Series big-rig-racing season finale (congrats once again to Ricky “Rude” Proffitt on the season points championship, and catch video from a live feed the Truck Boss folks managed at the bottom of this post). Justice also speaks to ongoing advocacy efforts of Trucker Nation, an organization he cofounded, and the difficulty he’s had getting his crystal ball to work when it comes to the question of whether FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez’s impending departure as agency head holds any import for the hours of service changes Martinez played a large role in fast-tracking.

Take a listen:

Jason Lee Wilson and James County, pictured during their three-song set at The Caverns. Personnel backing Wilson on guitar, vocals and a mean whistle include: drummer Dave Dowda, Michael Hagaman on bass, Denis Marlowe on dobro, guitarist Marvin Shrum, and fiddle player Bob Townsend.Jason Lee Wilson and James County, pictured during their three-song set at The Caverns. Personnel backing Wilson on guitar, vocals and a mean whistle include: drummer Dave Dowda, Michael Hagaman on bass, Denis Marlowe on dobro, guitarist Marvin Shrum, and fiddle player Bob Townsend.

Wilson’s forthcoming record’s title track springs in a certain way from a conversation he and I had about John Bean, a legendary prank caller of the late 1970s/early 1980s who passed on way too young. Wilson and I both encountered the bootleg-distributed cassette tapes of his calls and characters from a young age, but Wilson, as he explains in the podcast, hadn’t heard many of those that had been released officially on a record in the year 2009. When he heard the single song on that CD, a recording of Bean singing his own “Tennessee” original, while overseas for a time, it started a process toward Wilson recording the version you’ll hear on the album next year. It’s quite a song, and if you haven’t heard of Mr. John Bean, you can run back through my story about truckers’ role in distributing his prank call tapes around the nation through the 1980s and 1990s, and where that all began, via this link:

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And, without further ado, Tony Justice live on-stage from Bristol … Enjoy, courtesy of Truck Boss:

Tony Justice In Concert at Bandit Big Rig Series Finals in Bristol, TN#banditbigrigraceseriesfinal #bandit #tonyjustice #truckbossshow #truckboss #countrymusic

Posted by Truck Boss Show on Saturday, October 12, 2019