Sawyer Brown’s “Six Days on the Road” – A Great Cover?

It isn’t uncommon for musicians to release covers of popular songs throughout their careers. These “covers” work because of nostalgia and sometimes even introduce newer generations to the great musical pieces of the past. Sawyer Brown’s rendition of the song Six Days on the Road is one such thing. 

The original version was by Earl Green and Carl Montgomery, a Muscle Shoals Sound Studio songwriter. It got released in 1961 on the Bulletin Label and recorded by Paul Lavon Davis. However, it became a massive hit song in 1963 after getting released by Dave Dudley.  

Dave Dudley’s version peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. It then reached number thirty-two on the Hot 100. The song eventually gets hailed as the definitive way to celebrate the American truck driver’s life.

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More than thirty years after Dudley’s version, Sawyer Brown returned “Six Days on the Road” to the Hot Country Songs Chart in 1997. It became the lead-off single of their twelfth studio album that shares the same name and is under Curb Records. Like other Sawyer Brown songs, it quickly gained the public’s attention. Their version of the popular song peaked at the thirteenth spot on the Billboard country charts that year. 

Being a Christian band, Sawyer Brown made some changes to the song, tailoring it to their image. To omit the drug reference in the original song, they changed the line “I’m taking little white pills” to “I’m passing little white lines” instead. 

Despite being overshadowed by Dave Dudley’s version in chart rankings, it doesn’t mean that Sawyer Brown’s cover wasn’t great. Many of the newer generations came to know the song because of them. If you want to hear what Sawyer Brown’s “Six Days on the Road” sound like, then you can check it out here.