Many songs of the late singer-songwriter Jim Croce are populated with colorful folks.
Everyone knows Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown was the meanest man in the whole damn town, and that Willie "Slim" McCoy was the man who took down New York City pool hustler "Big" Jim Walker in You Don't Mess Around With Jim.
And, there was Rapid Roy the Stock Car Boy, as well as, of course, the Queen of the Roller Derby, who "was built like a 'fridgerator with a head her fans call her "Tuffy" but all her buddies called her "Spike".
However, one of the lesser known -- but no less delightful -- of Croce's characters was Speedball Tucker, the man behind the wheel of a "broke-down rig on may-pop tires" and known as the "terror of the highway."
The song appeared on 1973's Life and Times album and details the life of a determined renegade trucker "with a cupful of cold, black coffee, and a pocketful of west coast turnarounds."
And, like his truckin' song, Wear Out The Turnpike, actually draws on Croce's own time as a truck driver before he hit it big as a singer-songwriter.
In this video, Croce talks about his time behind the wheel and his admiration for truckers, and performs Speedball Tucker.
