Truckin’ Music embodies all the great conflicts of literature, and Man vs. Machine is no exception. While truckers harness the diesel to do their job, Ol’ Smokey wields technology to hamper them as well.

The dreaded Radar was first used against truckers by the late Officer Leonard Baldy of Chicago, who also pioneered the use of puttin’ Bears in the Air. This particular innovation cost Baldy his life in 1960, though it’s clear his memory lives on in the hearts and minds of Chicagoans.

Luckily for Coleman Wilson, not all technology is fatal, sometimes it just puts you to walkin’. There isn’t a lot of biographical details around for Ol’ Coleman, save that he recorded a trio of truckin’ singles for King Records back when the dreaded Radar was young:

1960 – “Radar Blues pt. 1″ b/w “Radar Blues pt. 2″
1961 – “Passing Zone Blues” b/w “Flat Footed Mama”
1962 – “A Green Truck Driver’s First Experience (with Radar)” b/w “Hot Rod Baby”

Obviously, this new device worried the mind of Coleman. His songs aren’t without humor, but they’re not good-time dance numbers; they share that high lonesome airiness with Lonnie Irving’s haunting compositions. “Radar Blues” isn’t even identified as a “song” on the label of the single: it’s called a “Monologue with Guitar”.

Coleman’s brief discography is highly preoccupied with Radar and trucking. Perhaps it’s a pen name for some other musician, or perhaps the perils of Modern Trucking troubled him to an early grave. I prefer to think that the widespread use of CB radio, a phenomenon that began in the 1960s, helped him to overcome his fear of them beartraps, and he lived a long happy life, no longer haunted by the Radar Blues.

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