'Truck Driver' Singer Red Simpson Dead at 81

Red Simpson, an architect of the Bakersfield Sound with contemporaries Merle Haggard and Buck Owens and a champion of truck drivers, has died after suffering a heart attack in December. He was 81.Of all the subgenres of country music, the truck-driving songs might be the most unique, as they romanticized a hard life spent on the highway, evading Smokey and his radar and popping pills to stay awake. Along with Dave Dudley, Red Sovine and C.W. McCall, Simpson gave truckers a voice. His biggest hit