Nashville Teens – Tobacco Road

I want to thank purplegoatee2684b071ed for bringing this song up in a comment.

I never knew much about this band. I read about them in a Who book. When the Who were having troubles in the mid-sixties, Keith Moon was thinking seriously about joining this band. I’m glad he didn’t do it, but I can see why he liked them. Very tough-sounding band in league with The Animals and Them, at least with this song. The Nashville Teens would later back Jerry Lee Lewis on his live album recorded at the Star-Club in Hamburg, which makes perfect sense; they were built for that kind of controlled chaos.

I think it would have been more powerful without as much harmonizing during the verses, but it’s good. When people talk about the British Invasion, the usual names jump out: The Beatles, The Stones, The Animals, but in there also were The Nashville Teens, a band whose name sounded American but whose sound was pure British R&B.

The Nashville Teens came out of Surrey, not Tennessee, but you wouldn’t know it from the way they attacked this song. The song itself was already a piece of southern gothic storytelling, written by John D. Loudermilk about a poor boy’s dream to rise above his dirt-poor roots. Loudermilk loved their version. He once said he’d “never imagined the song could rock that hard.” After the Nashville Teens’ success, Tobacco Road became a standard, covered by everyone from Jefferson Airplane and David Lee Roth to Rare Earth and Eric Burdon.

What really makes this jump off the record is its slow, building arrangement. It starts with a moody, almost dirge-like verse before exploding into that chorus. This is the sound of the mid-sixties  British blues scene before it amped up and got stadium-sized with Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

This song peaked at #3 in Canada, #6 in the UK, #9 in New Zealand, and #14 on the Billboard 100 in 1964.

Another version of the song by Rare Earth.

Tobacco Road

I was born in a trunk.Mama died and my daddy got drunk.Left me here to die alonein the middle of Tobacco Road.

Grow up in rusty shackall I had was hangin’ on my back.Only you know how I loathethis place called Tobacco Road.

But it’s home, the only life I ever known.Only you know how I loathe Tobacco Road.

InterludeGonna leave, get a jobwith the help and the grace from above.Save some money, get rich and old

bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane

blow it up, start all over again.Build a town, be proud to show.Gives the name Tobacco Road.But it’s home, the only life I ever knownand it’s lost…But I lost it’s your home

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

49 thoughts on “Nashville Teens – Tobacco Road”

  1. I was watching something on The Who and original fan Irish Jack mentions this as one of the Mods’ essential songs. I was just listening to that Rare Earth 2-CD set yesterday, and this isn’t on it. Steve Young does a version too. Good one.

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  2. Such a great song. I imagine even today you opened up a few eyes. What? Not from Nashville? They had me fooled for awhile as well. Really didn’t know much about them. Interesting Who connection. John D. authored a few good tunes in his day.

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    2. Compare John Ds style on ‘The Great Snowman’ (which for some reason I love!!!??? I know, but the brain likes what the brain likes?! Go figure.) and the lyrics of ‘Tobacco Road,’ it just doesn’t feel like it comes from the same early ’60s slightly pudgy suit-and-tie bespectacled guy.

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  4. Pingback: Nashville Teens – Tobacco Road – MobsterTiger

  7. I don’t know their name but they do sound British despite the name. The song…it has appealing elements like the guitar but to me, there’s too much going on in it while sounding incomplete at the same time. Kind of a weird one!

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    1. I don’t know if you will get what I’m saying…if I can express it right…the only thing that threw me off about the Nashville Teens is the harmonies while singing the verses…it was different but I was expecting one singer tearing it up on the verses…so the harmonies caught me by surprise…i was used to Rare Earth.

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      1. I think I know what you are saying. I didn’t think it interfered with the song. You’re probably just used to the version with a solo voice. Did you know there is a novel called Tobacco Road, but Erskine Caldwell iirc. Read it awhile back and remember it as being titillating.

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  20. I still love the way the guitar just explodes out the theme, then answered by the two note hold. Loved it way back then when it was released (it got air play in Los Angeles) and love it now.

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