Drivin’ My Life Away, the record and song released by Eddie Rabbitt is the subject today. In mid 1980 the record, marketed in the country music realm, was unleashed. I had just started my 3 1/2 year stint in a bar band and was 15 years young. My brother “appointed” the song for me to sing, and I did. I never regretted it. It was a feel good number each time it was performed for the “beer joint” audiences on the dance floor. The song itself was a three-way co-write, certainly commonplace in the Nashville industry from where it sprang. Rabbitt and Even Stevens, along with producer David Malloy, are credited with being authors. The theme: truck driving. That theme was an old one in country music, but, the record had a very new, modern treatment. The beginning has a strongly strummed acoustic guitar that feels like the Sun Records sides of Elvis, Scotty, and Bill. It has that same high-energy vibe that Presley himself was capable of playing. The open E chord is played with a slightly “rock and roll” attitude that often could be too polished when placed on Nashville country records. But, not here. It has the approach that John Lennon puts on “The Ballad of John & Yoko” or “ I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party” from Beatles records. The rhythm section has a very high end, current quality, as opposed to truck driving classics by Dave Dudley and others from the 1960s. But, the real moment of the new age of Nashville kicking in the door has to be the lead guitar. With definite rockabilly references, the guitar has a “crunchy” rock texture. That was very new in country at the time. By ‘83 or ‘84 the rock guitar sounds were becoming commonplace on Nashville country releases. Ronnie Milsaps’ “Stranger In My House” and Earl Thomas Conley’s “Don’t Make It Easy On Me” show this effect. But, in early 1980 the guitar sounds were, typically, clean. The overdriven or distortion guitar tracks had been avoided for so long. You can go back to Grady Martin’s “accident” from a blown speaker on Marty Robbin’s “Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me” hit in the early 60s, of course. That grungy lead guitar solo was a maverick on country radio, actually sounding like a saxophone. But, the trend of a crunchy, rock sound from a guitar on country records would start to creep in in the very early ‘80s. Rabbitt, a New Jersey native, would have a follow up hit that went to number one, ” I Love A Rainy Night”, in early ‘81. It, too, would feature an aggressive rock guitar solo, immersed in that overdriven texture. The formula was changing in “guitar town” (a trucker’s reference on CB radio). Is “Drivin’ My Life Away” country? Is it, actually, a fun-time pop/rock record? If The Eagles had released it, had Felder or Walsh played the same guitar part, would it have been all over FM rock stations? It is more rocking than Pure Prairie League’s “Amie” or C,S,N, & Y’s “Teach Your Children”. Both of those have been beaten to death on rock radio for decades.