‘Over the Road’ — Paul Marhoefer back with new track in Muscle Shoals

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Updated Jun 21, 2019

Enjoy the video above, comprised of scenes from another recording session with our own Overdrive Extra contributing writer and Moeller Trucking driver Paul Marhoefer. This particular session took place back at the Music Shoals Music studio of Donnie and Jan Gullett in Tuscumbia, Ala., and was a bit of a special affair in a couple different ways Marhoefer explains in the vid.

Read some of Marhoefer’s work here at Ovedrive via this link to his “Faces of the Road” series of interviews/driver oral histories.Read some of Marhoefer’s work here at Ovedrive via this link to his “Faces of the Road” series of interviews/driver oral histories.

He and I, among others, have embarked since early this year on a special-series podcast for which the song here featured in rough cut will be the theme. The series will be something of an attempt to build a bridge for truckers’ stories and experiences to a wider, general public audience that, as I’ve seen time and again through my years here at Overdrive (13 of them this fall), often just don’t appreciate the nuance and challenges of the work or the people involved, to say nothing of significant economic and regulatory issues.

So … stay tuned.

For Marhoefer, working with the pros at the Gulletts’ studio to lay down tracks for songs he writes nearly exclusively as one-man, one-guitar affairs, feels a little like “sculpting a big ugly lump of coal,” he says, or watching an expert Amish carpenter build a house.

Without further ado, the pros who joined him on Monday:

Legendary songwriter, session player and bandleader Travis Wammack (left) here directed Marhoefer through laying down the scratch track for subsequent layering of final acoustic, slide guitar, vocals and more.Legendary songwriter, session player and bandleader Travis Wammack (left) here directed Marhoefer through laying down the scratch track for subsequent layering of final acoustic, slide guitar, vocals and more. Bassist Terry Richardson played stand-up for this session.Bassist Terry Richardson played stand-up for this session. Percussionist Andrew Marshall of Booneville, Miss., set the groove for the stripped-down affair with just a cajon, which if you’re not familiar with it is played while you sit on top of it — it looks like this:Percussionist Andrew Marshall of Booneville, Miss., set the groove for the stripped-down affair with just a cajon, which if you’re not familiar with it is played while you sit on top of it — it looks like this: Marshall on the cajon.Marshall on the cajon. Donnie Gullett behind the board.Donnie Gullett behind the board.

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