I live less than a mile off RT66 in NM. Drive on it every day!
I only hear Depeche Mode.
I’ve been a fan of Route 66 for a long time.
“The Rolling Stones” also did a version of the famous Nat King Cole Song in the 1960’s.
Also, there is a Route 66 restaurant in Bar Harbor, Maine of all places.
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino.
I wondered why Bobby Troup crafted the names of those last three towns in a descending musical scale, and then found out why: each town is (roughly) 1,000 feet lower in elevation in the order named as you travel west.
I was just at the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma the other day, but most of it is closed to the public as they are in the process of expanding the facility.
I was just at the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma the other day, but most of it is closed to the public as they are in the process of expanding the facility.
I was just at the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, Oklahoma the other day, but most of it is closed to the public as they are in the process of expanding the facility.
I used to love driving my Tacoma out on 66 from Barstow to Amboy, Essex, and Goffs. At night the sky is lit up like a Christmas tree and the air is warm enough to put a rollout and a sleeping bag and just sleep somewhere off the road. No cops, no cars, just nothing.
Don’t piss off Roy in Amboy though.
You never really see this incredible country properly from the big interstates. I love the older two lane highways they often follow , Indian trails, wagon trails and old stage lines. Route 66 does all that and you will fall even deeper in love with this country taking it and many other old roads. I still have it etched in my mind having a nice smoke under a full autumn moon outside a really funky diner in the middle of nowhere along Route 66. It is odd how little things stay with you sometimes it’s a diner other times it is coming around a corner and seeing country so pretty you almost have to stop and just stare.
I’ve strode the headwaters of Route 66 many many times: Michigan & Adams in Chicago, about 100 paces from the front door of Orchestra Hall.
Bobby Troup’s song has been done to great effect by many groups. Of the ones I’ve heard, I think I like the 1960 reading by the Four Freshmen best. (That recording is not on YouTube, as far as I can tell.)
Bobby of course was the Doctor on the “Emergency!” TV series, performing with Julie London, his off-screen wife. Julie was formerly married to Jack Webb, who ironically was the producer of “Emergency!”
Having only briefly glimpsed Bobby’s character on that TV series, I didn’t have too clear an idea of his appearance, especially in his heyday as a song writer in the 40’s and 50’s.
Well, about twenty years ago I was watching an old Perry Mason episode, made ca. 1960. Some of the action was set in a ‘beatnik’ nightclub, where Perry had to visit a musician/poet. The guy was dressed a little like a beatnik and I think he was wearing a little goatee. I don’t recall why the thought occurred to me, but I said to myself, “I think that character is being played by Bobby Troup.” I made sure to catch the end credits, and sure enough, it was. He did change a lot in the 20 years or so between that Perry Mason episode and his gig on Emergency!.
Two summers ago the family paacked it all up and drove the RV to Chicago where the official start is right across the street from the Art Institute.
We drove Route 66 all the way to the end at the Pier in Santa Monica.
Loved every minute of it. Nostalgia and nice American people the whole way.
Course today the majority of folks doing the trip are foreigners.