Then in 1953 or 1955 (there’s some debate over the year), he booked a session at Spokane’s Sound Recording. “Now the fellas thought I’d lost all sense the telephone poles looked like a picket fence.” “The fenders were clickin’ the guard rail posts the guys beside me were white as ghosts.”Īnother line from the song perfectly punctuates the mayhem: Driving his 1941 Lincoln, he chased a buddy’s Caddy up the dangerous Lewiston Grade at speeds maniacal enough for lyrical lore: During one of his nightly commutes back to Spokane, Charlie’s lead foot got the better of him. At age 15, he began writing songs with his guitar and formed his first band: The Montana Range Riders.Įventually, like so many kids from his generation, Charlie’s interests shifted from horses to horsepower.Īnd although “Hot Rod Lincoln’s” twilight race through California was pure fiction, there’s more than a bit of reckless truth behind the famous tune.Ĭharlie told me he was picking and grinning with his band in a Lewiston joint called the Paradise Club. He grew up riding horses in Lewistown, Mont. “My Pappy said, ‘Son, you’re gonna drive me to drinkin’, if you don’t quit drivin’ that Hot Rod Lincoln.’ “Ĭharlie was born Dec. Inspired by a record called “Hot Rod Race,” Charlie came up with an infectious rockabilly guitar riff and a tale about a wild chase between the song’s namesake and a Cadillac. Even MTV’s “Beavis and Butthead” took an animated stab at it.īut this staple of oldies radio began simply in 1950. It was featured in the “Beverly Hillbillies” movie. The song has been a mainstay for the group Asleep at the Wheel. As a BMI official told me at the time, airing it over and over nonstop would take 5.7 years to reach the magical million.Ĭommander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen scored a hit with the tune in 1972. The song passed the 1 million-play mark in the summer of 2000, according to Broadcast Music Inc. That the song will then turn into a pop icon is even more unlikely. Writing a hit song is harder than catching lightning in a jug. He was 92 years old, and I counted him a good friend. The soft-spoken Spokane man who gave the world one of the best car songs ever written – “Hot Rod Lincoln” – passed away peacefully last Saturday after a long struggle with heart problems. That’s the way Charlie would have us remember him, too. He’s got the pedal to the metal, too, burnin’ rubber all the way to those Pearly Gates. There’s a white Stetson covering his head and a grin on his face.

In my mind, he’s sitting behind the wheel of a souped-up, candy-apple red Lincoln-powered Model A. When a cowboy dies (and I’m talking about real-deal cowboys, here) it’s customary to paint a romanticized picture of the deceased cowpoke riding slowly off into the sunset astride a cherished pony.

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