Tobacco Road (song)

"Tobacco Road" is a song written and first recorded by John D. Loudermilk in 1960 that was a hit for The Nashville Teens in 1964 and has since become a standard across several musical genres.

Loudermilk original

Originally framed as a folk song, "Tobacco Road" was a semi-autobiographical tale of growing up in Durham, North Carolina. Released on Columbia Records, it was not a hit for Loudermilk, achieving only minor chart success in Australia. Other artists, however, immediately began recording and performing the song.

Nashville Teens hit

The English group The Nashville Teens' garage rock/blues rock rendering was a bold effort featuring prominent piano, electric guitar and bass drum parts and a dual lead vocal. Mickie Most produced it with the same tough-edged-pop feel that he brought to The Animals' hits. "Tobacco Road" was a trans-Atlantic pop hit in 1964, reaching number 6 on the UK singles chart and number 14 on the U.S. singles chart. While the Teens would have some further success in England, in the U.S. "Tobacco Road" became another one-hit wonder of the British Invasion. The Nashville Teens' cover version was featured at the close of episode 1 of season 4, "Public Relations", of the hit television show Mad Men on July 25, 2010.

Tobacco Road

Tobacco Road refers to the tobacco-producing area of North Carolina and is often used when referring to sports (particularly basketball) played among rival ACC North Carolina universities. The phrase actually originated as the title of a novel set in Georgia, but it naturally migrated to North Carolina because of the state's primacy in tobacco production. Three of the schools (Duke, UNC, and NC State) are part of Research Triangle and are separated by no more than 25 miles (40 km) and Wake Forest lies about 100 miles (160 km) west of the other three. It was formerly much closer to the other three, having originally been located in the town of Wake Forest, North Carolina until 1956. All four are no more than 6 miles (9.7 km) from Interstate 40; the road has been called "Tobacco Road" in national sports media. (However, it must be noted that until the late 1980s—after tobacco had started to decline in North Carolina due to US federal anti-tobacco actions—I-40 did not reach Durham, Chapel Hill, or Raleigh. Rather, Tobacco Road would have been US Highway 70.) The proximity of these schools to one another and the membership of each school in the Atlantic Coast Conference have created a natural rivalry among students, fans, & alumni. North Carolina State University's Red and White Song mentions each of the four universities in its lyrics.

Tobacco Road (play)

Tobacco Road is a play by Jack Kirkland first performed in 1933, based on the novel of the same name by Erskine Caldwell. The play ran on Broadway for a total of 3,182 performances, becoming the longest-running play in history at the time. As of 2014, it is still the 18th longest-running Broadway show in history, as well as being the second longest-running non-musical ever on Broadway.

Productions

Tobacco Road opened on Broadway at the Theatre Masque (now the John Golden Theatre) on December 4, 1933, transferred to the 48th Street Theatre (demolished in 1955), where it ran from July 16, 1934 through September 1934, and then moved to the Forrest Theatre (now the Eugene O'Neill Theatre) where it ran until May 31, 1941, for a total of 3,182 performances.

It was revived three times on Broadway:

Tobacco Road (film)

Tobacco Road is a 1941 film directed by John Ford starring Charley Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy Dana Andrews and Ward Bond. It was based on the novel of the same name by Erskine Caldwell, but the plot was rewritten for the film.

Cast

Production

Studios attempting to acquire the screen rights to the novel date back to 1933.RKO Pictures and Warner Bros. considered buying the rights, the first intending to assign Charles Laughton in the lead role, but were discouraged from doing so. In March 1940, Columbia Pictures showed interest, but was informed that Tobacco Road was on the list of banned titles. Eventually, 20th Century Fox won the rights in August 1940, with RKO as its main competitor. It was believed that Fox won due to the success of The Grapes of Wrath (1940). They were the main preference of the copyright holders Erskine Caldwell and Jack Kirkland were reluctant to sell the rights unless the film "would be picturized honestly and fearlessly."