Highway 61: A Father-and-Son Journey through the Middle of America - Softcover

McKeen, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393342042 ISBN 13: 9780393342048

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2003

Synopsis

A father-and-son road trip through some of the most musically fertile and diverse landscapes in America.

Long-distance father William McKeen watched his son grow up during summers, holidays, and long weekends. Now, with Graham in college, the two take a summer road trip down Highway 61, the legendary road of the blues, from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico. In cheap motels and smoky bars, with obscure bluesmen and barnstorming guitar heroes, they discover how the highway links rich and poor, black and white. In Minnesota and Iowa, William shows his son where he spent boyhood summers with his father, who died a decade before Graham was born. In St. Louis, there's another nostalgic return to a former haunt, a slice of rock-and-roll heaven called Blueberry Hill. In Memphis, they find the genuine, uncommercialized side of the city's legendary music world, and deep in the heart of the Mississippi Delta they stand over the grave of legendary bluesman Charley Patton, listen to the murmur of wind over the cotton fields, and offer silent benediction. As they venture together through magnificent country, walking the hometown streets of Bob Dylan and Mark Twain, standing at Robert Johnson's haunted crossroads, journeying from the Delta Blues Museum to Doe's Eat Place to the Alachafaya Café of New Orleans, father and son come to realize that they have a permanent connection that can never be broken by age or distance.

"Rock authority, scholar, and newly minted good ol' boy when he feels like it, William McKeen doesn't even know how to be uninteresting, least of all on Highway 61." ―Tom Wolfe "I read the book with joy and admiration for a writer at the top of his game. The book bursts with inspiration and cunningly chronicles the nuances of father/son relations in the broader context of a rock 'n' roll illusion. McKeen achieves a stunning narrative velocity and scope. A brilliant writer!" ―Nick Fowler, author of A Thing (or Two) About Curtis and Camilla "All the senses are touched in this sassy but poignant road book. William McKeen's stick-to-the-ribs words will make readers hunger for greasy burgers, thirst for icy beer, and listen to a constant serenade of music and poetry from the shoulders of the highway. En route they eavesdrop on a father and son memorizing each other during their free-fall journey without any reservations." ―Michael Wallis, author of Route 66: The Mother Road "From the Iron Range of Minnesota, where they search for the spirit of Bob Dylan, to the Mississippi Delta haunted by the ghost of Robert Johnson, William McKeen and his son take the reader down Highway 61 on a trip as rich as the musical roots they explore en route." ―Curtis Wilkie, author of Dixie

About this title

About the Author:

William McKeen, chair of the journalism department at Boston University, has written or edited thirteen books including Outlaw Journalist, Highway 61, and Everybody Had an Ocean.

From Publishers Weekly:

Deep, abiding love for music and for his son Graham are twin emotions that emerge with touching clarity in McKeen's literary documentary about traveling through middle America. The book's lack of conflict is immediately evident when McKeen says he and Graham never shared a cross moment. Once readers accept this absence of dramatic tension, they'll be able to enjoy the chronicle as an honest, informative journey. The author capably proves his premise: having an open mind about music, whether it's Johnny Cash, Enya, Tony Bennett or Led Zeppelin, is the only way to gain maximum pleasure from it. McKeen reveres Bob Dylan, and when he and Graham hit Hibbing and Duluth, Minn., readers will gain new insight into Dylan's early years as a performer in a St. Paul pizzeria called the Purple Onion and his abandonment of college after one semester. Visiting Hannibal, Mo., leads to a compelling account of Mark Twain's tragic life. McKeen and son encounter Joe Edwards, who runs the bar Blueberry Hill in a St. Louis suburb and received Cashbox magazine's honor of owner of the best jukebox in America. McKeen is at his best portraying Scott Joplin, who died of syphilis in 1917 and was quoted as saying, "Maybe fifty years after I'm dead my music will be appreciated." Highway 61 itself comes across as a complex, colorful character, whether an open, glorious road or a boring, bumper-to-bumper drive. McKeen ends the book stirringly when he notes that he was "completely shocked to see how segregated this country still is."
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0393342042
• ISBN 13: 9780393342048
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 290