"The White Knight" is a novelty

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, ...

song made famous by

Jay Huguely James Wesley "Jay" Huguely (September 21, 1940 – December 13, 2008) was an American stage actor, singer, advertising executive, and television writer and executive. He enjoyed a brief run of popularity as a novelty recording artist in the 1 ...

, who - recording as Cledus Maggard & The Citizen's Band - enjoyed a brief run of national popularity with the song when it became popular in

1976 Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phila ...

Song story

Huguely was working as an advertising salesman at an agency named Leslie Advertising in

Greenville, South Carolina Greenville (; locally ) is a city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States. With a population of 70,720 at the 2020 census, it is the sixth-largest city in the state. Greenville is located approximately halfway be ...

in the mid-1970s when he was approached to help with an advertising campaign centering on the then fast-growing

citizens' band radio Citizens band radio (also known as CB radio), used in many countries, is a land mobile radio system, a system allowing short-distance person-to-many persons bidirectional voice communication among individuals, using two way radios operating on ...

craze. According to writer Tom Roland, Huguely knew little about the CB radio but agreed to help out. After taking notes and getting help from his co-workers on deciphering the jargon, he went to work on writing a song.

Plot

Huguely's finished product was a story about an over-the-road

truck driver A truck driver (commonly referred to as a trucker, teamster, or driver in the United States and Canada; a truckie in Australia and New Zealand; a HGV driver in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the European Union, a lorry driver, or driver in ...

with the handle "Mean Machine" who receives a CB call from an individual claiming to be a truck driver. Identifying himself as "The White Knight", he broadcasts that there are no "smokeys" (police officers) in sight. Truck drivers regularly relied on one another to watch for such "smokeys" so they could circumvent the still widely unpopular

National Maximum Speed Law The National Maximum Speed Limit (NMSL) was a provision of the federal government of the United States 1974 Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act that effectively prohibited speed limits higher than . It was drafted in response to oil price ...

, which limited all drivers to , so they could cover more distance in a given time than the law allowed. Unfortunately for the song's hero, The White Knight is an

undercover To go "undercover" (that is, to go on an undercover operation) is to avoid detection by the object of one's observation, and especially to disguise one's own identity (or use an assumed identity) for the purposes of gaining the trust of an indi ...

member of the

Georgia State Patrol The Georgia State Patrol (GSP) was established in March 1937 in the U.S. state of Georgia and is a division of the Georgia Department of Public Safety. It is the primary state patrol agency for the U.S. state of Georgia. Troopers operate primar ...

who uses the CB radio to pretend to be a trucker himself to lure rig drivers into a speed trap. After driving for some time at high speed and listening to country music on the radio, he hears a driver going the other way warning him of a patrol car equipped with radar ahead. The Mean Machine dutifully slows down to the speed limit until he is past the patrol car (whom he mocks by calling him "Super Trooper" and noting "there's that crazy Smokey over there with a CB of his very own."). The White Knight then goads the Mean Machine into speeding to catch him by insulting Mean Machine's rig, inferring that he can't keep up. As he goes ever faster, the Mean Machine is soon surprised to see a patrol car's lights in his mirrors, and he is dismayed to learn that the "Super Trooper" patrolman and the White Knight are one and the same. The main hero is left to exclaim " Bubblegum-machine done hit the jackpot" as he is being pulled over for going "40 miles over the

speed limit Speed limits on road traffic, as used in most countries, set the legal maximum speed at which vehicles may travel on a given stretch of road. Speed limits are generally indicated on a traffic sign reflecting the maximum permitted speed - expres ...

," (i.e., although the singer only attests to going ). The Mean Machine is taken to jail to join eleven of the White Knight's other victims, and his truck confiscated. The "White Knight" appears in a cameo in the follow-up single, "Kentucky Moonrunner". While the singer in "The White Knight" attempts to speed only when he believes no cops are present, the titular Kentucky Moonrunner simply outruns them with superior speed, recorded at over 150 miles per hour. The White Knight catches the Kentucky Moonrunner when he crosses into Georgia from Tennessee, with no explanation of how he could do so when the Tennessee cops could not.

Commercial performance

"The White Knight" reached number one on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

Hot Country Singles Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sal ...

chart in February 1976, and was a modest pop hit, peaking at number nineteen on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. The song was Maggard's only nationwide release to reach the Top 40 on either chart. The song was one of three number one country songs during 1976 in which the CB radio is central to the plot. The other two were: * "

Convoy A convoy is a group of vehicles, typically motor vehicles or ships, traveling together for mutual support and protection. Often, a convoy is organized with armed defensive support and can help maintain cohesion within a unit. It may also be used ...

" by

C.W. McCall William Dale Fries Jr. (November 15, 1928 – April 1, 2022) was an American advertising executive and spoken word artist who won several Clio Awards for his advertising campaigns. He is best known for his character C. W. McCall, a truck-drivi ...

: four of its six weeks atop the chart were in January;In the UK

BBC Radio One BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

DJ's

Dave Lee Travis David Patrick Griffin (born 25 May 1945), known professionally as Dave Lee Travis, is an English disc jockey, radio presenter and television presenter. Travis began his broadcasting career on the pirate radio station Radio Caroline in 1965. He ...

and

Paul Burnett Paul Burnett (born 26 November 1943) is an English radio disc jockey. Early career Burnett began his radio career while in the Royal Air Force in the Persian Gulf in 1964. In 1966 he joined offshore radio station, Radio 270, broadcasting off S ...

covered the song with an altered text, under the moniker name Laurie Lingo & the Dipsticks * "

Teddy Bear A teddy bear is a stuffed toy in the form of a bear. Developed apparently simultaneously by toymakers Morris Michtom in the U.S. and Richard Steiff under his aunt Margarete Steiff's company in Germany in the early 20th century, the teddy bear, ...

" by

Red Sovine Woodrow Wilson "Red" Sovine (July 7, 1917 – April 4, 1980) was an American country music singer and songwriter associated with truck driving songs, particularly those recited as narratives but set to music. His most noted examples are "Giddyu ...

: peaked in July. It is also the second top-40 pop hit of the 1970s to mention the Georgia State Patrol;

Vicki Lawrence Vicki Ann Lawrence ( Axelrad; born March 26, 1949), sometimes credited as Vicki Lawrence Schultz, is an American actress, comedian, and singer. She is best known for her character Mama (Thelma Harper). Lawrence originated multitudes of charact ...

mentioned the Patrol in her hit "

The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" is a Southern Gothic murder ballad, written in 1972 by songwriter Bobby Russell and first recorded by his then wife, singer, comedian, and actress Vicki Lawrence. Lawrence's version, from her 1973 alb ...

". In both songs, the patrolman arrests the protagonist of the song.

Chart positions

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:White Knight 1976 songs Cledus Maggard & the Citizen's Band songs 1976 debut singles Mercury Records singles Citizens band radio in popular culture Songs about truck driving