Dick Curless

Richard William Curless (March 17, 1932 – May 25, 1995) was an American country-music singer, a pioneer of the trucking music genre, commonly known as the "Baron of Country Music." He was easily distinguished because of the patch he usually wore over his right eye.

Curless was born in Fort Fairfield, Maine, in 1932, and moved with his family to Massachusetts at the age of eight. In 1948, Curless began his music career in Ware, Massachusetts, where he hosted a radio show and toured with a local band called the "Trail Blazers." He married his wife, Pauline, in 1951, and only six months after the wedding, he was drafted into the army. He served in the Korean War from 1952 to 1954 first as a truck driver and later as a radio host with the stage name "Rice Paddy Ranger."