The Professional Work of Dick Curless
Like Dave Dudley, Dick Curless had a deep, rich voice and a cache of hot-driving and high-way riding songs. Curless, commonly known as the Baron of Country Music, after one of his popular songs, The Baron (1963), was a pioneer of the trucking music genre. Dick was easily distinguished because of the patch he usually wore over his right eye.
Curless was best known for singing truck-driving songs. A tall man with a rich baritone voice, Curless was born on March 17, 1932 in Fort Fairfield, Maine. He started out professionally in 1948 with the Trail Blazers at a radio station in Ware, Massachusetts. He was drafted in 1951 and while stationed in the Far East, he frequently appeared on the Armed Forces Network, as The Rice Paddy Ranger.
Curless returned to Maine three years later and began singing in Bangor clubs. He got his big break when he won the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts contest. Afterward Dick began performing in Las Vegas and Hollywood and inked a recording contract with Tower Records in 1965.
Curless recorded one of the biggest hits of his career, A Tombstone Every Mile (Tower Records, No. 5, 1965), by far his best know recording on the Billboard country charts, which propelled him to national fame. From 1966 to 1968, Dick toured the nation with the Buck Owens All American Show. The pinnacle of his career came in the late 1960s with eleven top-40 hits, including Six Times a Day (No. 12, 1965) and All of Me Belongs to You (No. 28, 1967).
Beginning in 1970, his records were released on Capitol and he had several more hits, including Big Wheel Cannon Ball (No. 27, 1970), which was based on the classic, Wabash Cannonball. Curless was a member of the Wheeling Jamboree, and from 1966-1968. In 1973 Capitol released the album, Live at The Wheeling Truck Drivers Jamboree.Then he left the label after a falling-out. Curless was inducted into the Maine Country Music Hall of Fame 1978. The Baron passed away on May 25, 1995.
