Here’s Country Music’s All Time Great Summer Classic {Listen}
When summer rolls around I'm reminded of one of the all-time great sing-a-long summer country classics.
1974 was a great year in country music. And that was great for me, since I was a fresh faced 18 year old kid in my first year of working in the radio business. And more than four decades later, I still have to crank up and sing along with a great hit whenever I hear it.
The song was 'Rub It In' and the artist was the great Billy 'Crash' Craddock. Billy already was a star, having had over a half dozen Top Ten hits by then, including the 1971 smash 'Knock Three Times'. But it was 'Rub It In' that got me hooked. I can remember sitting in the studio at KWYR in Winner, South Dakota and wailing along (thankfully I was alone) while I watched that 45 go round and round and round. (OK kids, if you don't know what a 45 is, talk to your parents...or maybe grandparents!).
Being the youngest of 13 children, I thought maybe the North Carolina native got his nickname 'Crash' battling his siblings for food at the supper table, but no. It was a name he received on the football field in high school. Now I'm not sure how good Billy was, but I don't think I'd care to run into a player nicknamed 'Crash'!
Billy 'Crash' went on to have a fantastic career and through the years I played every Craddock song that came along. And as it turns out, Billy wasn't just about 'country/rock'. Two of my favorite Billy 'Crash' Craddock classics are beautiful ballads, 'Broken Down In Tiny Pieces', a chart topper in 1976, and 1978's 'If I Could Write A Song As Beautiful As You'.
The North Carolina Hall of Famer is 82 years young.
Since it's summer, let's lay out and see if we can find someone to 'Rub It In'!
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