Profile:  Leland Martin

Special collaboration

Leland Martin’s new ‘Workin’ Class’ album draws inspiration from trucker friendship

Leland Martin with the truck that inspired his latest album.

Among today’s trucking troubadours, with a new record out in large part inspired by his work with one particular specialized hauler, Leland Martin stands at the top of the mountain looking down, a position well-deserved after a lifetime of guitar picking with no shortage of truck driving to boot. His new “Workin’ Class” record makes good on that history and serves as appropriate showcase for the singer-songwriter’s skill.

Born and raised in Success, Mo., Martin’s music and trucking roots run deep. “My dad drove a truck all his life,” Martin says. “My trucking life got started after I got married and moved to Dodge City, Kan.,” where he took a job with his brothers leased to a United Van Lines outfit. “I got a little practice there, then got into hauling produce. I drove a lot of 10-wheelers.”

If you’ve recently paid a visit to the Iowa 80 Trucking Museum at Iowa 80 in Walcott, you may have noticed a brief documentary about the trucking industry that Leland Martin narrates. If all goes well, Martin says, listeners may be able to purchase a boxed DVD and CD version of his new “Workin’ Class” record that includes the documentary and the title track’s music video, both filmed on location at Iowa 80. Keep your eyes peeled.

As with most of his trucking through the years, the 10-wheeled hauls, which kept him mostly local, were geared toward the advancement of his love for music, where he went after a career by gigging frequently in Southwestern Missouri nightclubs. “I got very popular there,” he says, and soon enough, in 1983, Nashville got wind of the young man. “I got offered a job from a guy I knew” playing lead guitar on tour with then-superstar Freddie Hart.