Not since the sixties had the competition seen two such megastars compete for the title of king of the road as World Road Bowling Champion Billy Daly from West Cork took on All Ireland Champion from Armagh Harry Toal. It was billed as one of the most interesting road bowl playing duels witnessed since the titanic struggles of Danny McParland and Mick Barry. The contest takes place in Ballincurrig County Cork as Harry Toal and Bill Daly do battle out for the title of undisputed road bowling champion. Randy Travis' revival was a minor country chart entry in 1997.Two bowling champions go head to head in Cork to decide who is king of the road. even stumbled through a take of it that was released as a B-side and turned up on its Dead Letter Office compilation. Meanwhile, Jody Miller (no relation) scored a Top Ten country and Top 20 pop hit with her "answer" record, "Queen of the House." Over the years, "King of the Road" has remained familiar. (This led some to charge that the Nashville chapter of NARAS was stuffing the ballot box.) Miller's recording may have been definitive, but that didn't keep lots of people from covering it when it became successful. He walked away with six trophies, among them the award for Best Country & Western Song. At Grammy time, Miller earned nine nominations associated with it and the album that contained it, among them Song of the Year. Released as a single in January 1965, Miller's "King of the Road" shot into the pop Top 40 by its second week in the charts, eventually topping the country and easy listening charts, reaching the pop Top Five, and going gold. Miller was a master of economical wordplay, and he deftly sketched the portrait of a footloose man at the bottom of society with short phrases, even including, for instance, quotations from cheap hotel notices: "no phone, no pool, no pets." He set the lyrics to a gently rolling melody, which he sang in an appropriately offhand, if rhythmic, manner.
The easygoing, folkish "King of the Road" was also something of a novelty, but in a warmly engaging, rather than outright humorous, way. Country singer/songwriter Roger Miller had been scoring crossover hits with self-written novelties like "Dang Me" and "Chug-a-Lug" since switching from RCA Victor to Smash Records in 1964. "King of the Road" was an out-of-the-box smash, a surprising fate for a song about the joys of being a bum.
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