Big Al combines love for trucking,
radio into successful show

By DOROTHY COX
The Trucker Staff

9/27/2007

LEXINGTON, Neb. — Bluegrass fans know him. Farmers and ranchers in Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota and Kansas know him. And truckers who happen to tune into KRVN agri radio know Alfred Ray Weekley, too.

Only they know him as “Big Al Weekley,” a musician who has been in the trucking business for 30 years and a radio disc jockey since 1987.

We caught up with Weekley as he was making a haul for a construction company near his home in Lexington, Neb. He’d had to curtail his long-haul runs because of all the radio programs he does, Weekley explained.

He loves trucking, bluegrass and people: “I love it all, why not mix it up?” he said.

This guitar-strumming, bass-playing, singer/songwriter, trucker and radio personality has been able to do just that for some 20 years and has loved doing it all.

For Weekley, music and trucking are closely intertwined.

Some of his fondest memories are listening to Hank Williams and Bill Monroe and other country and bluegrass greats as a boy of 16, and to radio personalities such as Bill Make, big John Trimble, Charlie Douglas and Dave Nemo. And, he loved listening to trucking songs, having driven a truck since the ripe old age of 14.

“My dad had a construction company and hauled heavy equipment,” he said. “Then he got sick and put me in the driver’s seat. We lived in the West Virginia hills (he hails from Parkersburg, W. Va.) and were isolated from the mainstream” so a 14-year-old boy could get away with driving in those days, he explained.

Right now he hauls dirt and heavy equipment in either a 1997 or a 2000 Kenworth T600. He pulls a belly dump tri-axle or a tri-axle lowboy, depending on the type of equipment being hauled.

Weekley is proud of having logged more than 2.5 million miles with no accidents and only 1 speeding ticket in more than 20 years. He used to own his own truck but sold it last year because it “wasn’t profitable enough.”

Since 1999 he’s had country/bluegrass shows on KRVN from 6 to 9 p.m. and from 9 p.m. to midnight Saturdays, and a gospel/traditional country program on Sunday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon.

He averages about 20 calls an hour with those programs from farmers hauling milk, ranchers hauling grain, and truckers hauling anything and everything.

Weekley had his own bluegrass group as a young man, and wasn’t shy about getting them heard. But his motive wasn’t so much fame and fortune, but rather his enjoyment of introducing people to his beloved bluegrass music.

“I called a radio station at Ohio University; they would have a live show on the first Sunday of every month; I hoped to get on that and sent them a tape and they asked me and my band to be on their live show for two hours.

“After we were on the show I said to the manager of the station there [pointing to the sound booth] ‘that looks like a lot of fun; do you need anybody?’

“He said ‘do you have any experience?’ And I said, “I just sang and talked on the radio for two hours!’

“I heard my first bluegrass song on that station [as a boy] and then became one of their disc jockeys.”

The year was 1987, and Weekley hasn’t looked back, since.

“I stayed in West Virginia until I was about 30 or 31. Then I decided to get out in the world; I’m a hillbilly,” he said, chuckling. He moved to Colorado and then in 1996 moved to Nebraska, and that state hasn’t been the same since.

It seems they weren’t all that familiar with bluegrass, but that was about to change.

Weekley called dozens of radio stations trying to find one that would let him play his bluegrass and “got hung up on and laughed at,” he recalled.

Finally, the 18th station he called, KRVN, was a large, 50,000-watt station owned by farmers and ranchers. They decided to give him a try. Well, they decided to after he called them for six months straight. “I don’t believe in luck,” he said. “I believe in making things happen if they’re meant to happen.”

They caved in and Weekley started his Saturday night show and “it blossomed,” he said.

But he didn’t stop there; Weekley has put on bluegrass festivals around Nebraska and won numerous awards, including the Nebraska Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Highway 83 Award for his support of servicemen and women, and a nomination by the International Bluegrass Association in 2003 for Disc Jockey of the Year (he came in third).

For the past 8.5 years Weekley has worked seven days a week to fit in both his trucking responsibilities and his radio time. “I’ve hauled milk; I’ve pulled almost every kind of trailer made,” Weekley said. He’s played music with Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass, and recorded an album with Leroy Van Dyke. He hauled sound and lighting equipment for Meinheim Steamroller and recorded an album with Dave Dudley.

Plus he’s talked to countless truckers and others who’ve called into his radio shows and spilled their guts or chewed the fat for a while. A common thread he finds running through his conversations with truckers: “they’re lonely [on the road] and want to talk to somebody.

“Many times I have to limit callers to 3 or 4 minutes but if I know somebody really needs to talk I’ll make time and find a song that pertains to their dilemma.”

“I’ve had a great time; so many great things have happened to me, a hillbilly and a truck driver,” said Weekley.

He said he always tries “to keep a positive outlook.

“I think knowledge and experience are what you need to have [out on the road]. Keep positive and respect your truck all the time, whether you’ve been out there six months or 40 years. You’re in a big truck; if there’s a guy out there who’s an idiot, just get away from him. That’s my philosophy.”