Tobacco Road (film) box office, and it had grossed up to $1.9 million by 1973. Tobacco Road (film) Tobacco Road is a 1941 film directed by John Ford and starring Charley Grapewin, Marjorie Rambeau, Gene Tierney, William Tracy Dana Andrews and Ward Bond. It was based on the novel of the same name by Erskine Caldwell, but the plot was rewritten for the film. Studios attempting to acquire the screen rights to the novel date back to 1933. RKO Pictures and Warner Bros. considered buying the rights, the first intending to assign Charles Laughton in the lead role, but were discouraged from doing
Tobacco Road (song) Tobacco Road (song) "Tobacco Road" is a blues song written and first recorded by John D. Loudermilk in 1960 that was a hit for The Nashville Teens in 1964 and has since become a standard across several musical genres. Originally framed as a folk song, "Tobacco Road" was a semi-autobiographical tale of growing up in Durham, North Carolina. Released on Columbia Records, it was not a hit for Loudermilk, achieving only minor chart success in Australia. Other artists, however, immediately began recording and performing the song. The English group The Nashville Teens' garage rock/blues rock rendering was a bold effort