“Driving Wheel” was one of several older blues successfully reworked by Junior Parker with his smooth vocal expertise. Based on Roosevelt Sykes’ “Driving Wheel Blues” from 1936, the title equated the powered wheel of a locomotive that moves the train along with the man who provides his woman with everything she needs. The single, recorded in 1961, reached No. 5 in Billboard and No. 6 in Cash Box in the R&B category and also appeared in the lower regions of the pop charts in both publications that year. Among the subsequent cover versions was one by Al Green, who claimed Parker as a cousin. The first appearance of “Driving Wheel Blues” in discographies was by Pine Top Smith in 1929, but his rendition was never released.