Jean Jennings, one of the most influential members of the automotive journalism community--longtime editor, now President, of AUTOMOBILE Magazine--penned her entire February column on ROCKIN'.
She began by writing, "It's heartening to know that there are others out there in the world with a love of music so completely intertwined with a love of cars that you can't tell where or when one stops and the other begins."
We met over the phone just before Christmas, when she'd received her copy of the book. She talked my ear off about Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen, as they were of course originally from Ann Arbor, MI (where AUTOMOBILE is headquartered).
She and I swapped stories (or, in Jean's words, "free-associated") for the better part of an hour. I told her about my standing a foot away from the stage at back-to-back Cody and Asleep at the Wheel sets at Homer's Warehouse in East Palo Alto, CA in the early '70s. Nothing could be finer. But she also knew George Frayne (Cody) was a fine artist, as was his late brother Chris who did so many of the Cody band posters and album covers (as shown in the book, and recalled in Jean's column).
Jean is a true-blue rocker. You'll have to read the entire piece to see why. But for now, let me say that she totally understood the entire point of the book, which is captured in the immortal psychedelic-era saying (highlighted at the bottom of her column) . . .
IT DOESN'T MATTER WHEN YOU GOT ON THE BUS, IT'S THAT YOU GOT ON THE BUS.
The emphasis points are all mine (Jean Jennings and Dennis Pernu, my editor, both place the accent on THAT). But it's all the same thought . . . to get on that bus, whenever you got on the bus, you gotta be a rocker.
Sista boogie-woman Jean Jennings, thank you for remembering what it was ALWAYS all about.
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