Rockin' Down the Highway

Book excerpt: "In this absolutely unprecedented and beautifully produced coffee-table volume, best-selling music writer Paul Grushkin draws on top museum collections and private archives, renowned photographers, lauded poster artists, and record labels to illustrate the remarkable 70-year synergy between music and motoring. The narrative comprises scores of first-person interviews with prominent figures and explores common themes that have been addressed in vehicle-related songs - as symbols of freedom, vehicles as status symbols, as courting tools, as utilitarian work conveyances, as metaphors (when Reverend Horton Heat sings about his "Big Red Rocket of Love," he's not just talking about his shoebox Ford), and vehicles simply as vehicles. Illustrated with images of musicians, bands, vehicles, album and poster art, and collectibles, the book draws direct lineages juxtaposing artists that may have previously seemed disparate. Also included are music's car-related lore and tragedies, like Gene Vincent's motorcycle accident that spurred his spiral into alcoholism; Hank Williams' death in the backseat of his Cadillac; the death of So-Cal punk icon D. Boon in a tour-van accident; and Neil Young connecting with Stephen Stills in L.A. because the latter saw the former's Ontario plates in a traffic jam. In the end, Wheels is the expansive sort of book that everyone from the most casual music fan to the most hardcore musicologist will find difficult to put down."--Provided by the publisher.