| Roy Acuff – The Wreck on the Highway Lyrics | 12 years ago |
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About 6 years ago, I met a lady from Chicago, who had been reared in a community close to where I live. The name of the community she grew up in, is known as Elkton TN. She told me that she lived with her Grandfather just across the Elk River on Highway 31 South in Elkton, and this song was about a car accident that happened right in front of her Grandfather's house in the mid to late 1940's, on that very highway late at night. She told that it was a 2 car accident, caused by a drunk driver and was a very terrible accident which took the lives of everyone in both cars. As she told it, Roy Acuff's band was coming back towards Nashville from Birmingham Alabama and was held up due to this wreck. Auto wrecks were a very big deal back in those days, and anyone happening upon one was bound to walk up and get the story first hand. She remembered seeing him there, and said that he spoke to her Grandfather ( who was the first on the scene and tried to help the people involved). He had asked her Grandfather if anyone had prayed with any people who were not killed upon impact, and it was her Grandfather who'd told him that he'd been there right after it happened; and though some of the people who'd come upon the scene had indeed talked to the dying, but as far as he knew "he didn't hear nobody pray". Her Grandfather was named Matt Gardner of Elkton TN. I'd never heard this song before (not much of a Country Music fan), but I knew who Roy Acuff was. I just heard this song for the first time, and thought that I'd share her story about this event. The ladies name was Mrs. Dorothy Gardner Henry of Chicago Illinois, and she would have been in her early teens when this event took place. Back at that time Highway 31 served as the main route from Nashville TN, to Mobile Alabama. I believe her story about this accident and the song it inspired to be true. |
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