Wednesday, October 08, 2008

a new ROCKIN' blog feature_random best car-and-rock photos

(above) Ricky Nelson's 1958 Cadillac Brougham
(above) possibly the Red Barchetta from Rush's song of the same name,
here the 1958 166MM (Mille Miglia) Touring Barchetta
(above) from the movie 8-MILE (2002); (left to right) Mekhi Phifer,
Eminem, Evan Jones, and De'Angelo Wilson
(above) Janis Joplin and her Porsche
(above) Bruce Springsteen and his Corvette,
Haddonfield, NJ, 1978; photo by Frank Stefanko
c Frank Stefanko, shown by permission
(above) Charlie Ryan, who wrote the original HOT ROD LINCOLN,
with his own--legendary also--cherry-red hot rod
(above) Hank Williams' 1952 Cadillac, the car he died in,
on display at the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery, AL
photo by Dave Martin (AP)
(above) Ken Kesey's second FURTHUR (or FURTHER) Merry Pranksters bus
photo c Richard Blair
(above) Jose Pasillas, drummer from Incubus,
with his 1999 Ford F150
(above) The Kingston Trio, Mill Valley, CA, 1963;
photo by Lisa Law
photo c Lisa Law, shown by permission
(above) Neil Young, rockin' down Skyline Blvd.
photo by Danny Clinch
photo c Danny Clinch, shown by permission
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Since beginning work on ROCKIN' DOWN THE HIGHWAY back in 2004, I've had a keen eye out for really outstanding rock-and-cars photos. I aim here to share some the best I've seen.
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This will be a regular feature on this blog, going forward, so I hope everyone enjoys these as much as I do. Many came into sight after the book was published in 2006; some have been lingering in my archive, unfortunately too low-res to have included in the book, such as Ginny Winn's shot of Gram Parsons, shown at bottom left.
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I've many photographer friends, as you can imagine. My own work as an author has been inspired by the craft, dedication, and inspiration demonstrated by Lisa Law, Richard Aaron, James Haefner, Frank Ockenfels III, Michael Marks, Charles Peterson, Greg Bojorquez, Bruce Steinberg, and particularly (in no particular order) Jim Marshall, Paul Natkin, Robert Alford, Joel Bernstein, Jay Blakesberg, Danny Clinch, Steve Coonan of The Rodder's Journal, Henry Diltz, Glen E. Friedman, Lynn Goldsmith, David Perry, Neal Preston, Ken Regan, and Pamela Springsteen--to name just a handful.
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I hope, going forward, to credit each and every photographer whose work I display here. Sometimes I just don't know who took the photo, so if anybody out there knows, let me know pronto and I'll make the addition / correction.
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P.S. I plan to blog soon about the red Barchetta, and the Cadillac Brougham, so keep comin' back for more.
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Enjoy!

Thursday, October 02, 2008

ROCKIN' with David Coverdale and Whitesnake (oh, and Tawny Kitaen too)

Whitesnake. That's David Coverdale top right.

(above and all below) Tawny Kitaen in a highly memorable role.
Above, the incredible opening moment when she flips left to right.









I've been researching rock-and-cars video singles as we get closer and closer to turning ROCKIN' into film and television. Suddenly I remembered the Whitesnake video for "Here I Go Again," with David Coverdale singing and Tawny Kitaen (left and above) . . . dancing. Or, rather, slipping around rather provocatively on the hoods of two Jaguars, one of which was Coverdale's.
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This was back in 1987, when Coverdale and crew re-recorded "Here I Go Again" for their eponymous 1987 album WHITESNAKE (the original version was released as more of a blues song on their 1982 album SAINTS & SINNERS). The re-recorded song soared to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on October 10, 1987 and number 9 on the UK Singles Chart on November 28.
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Personally, I think it had something to do with Tawny's . . . uh, performance.
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The music video was directed by Marty Callner, who directed most of Whitesnake's videos in the 1980s. As one website put it, "this '80s sex kitten, Tawny Kitaen, ushered many a boy into puberty by writhing around in lingerie on the hoods of the two cars." Amen, brother. I can only imagine what it was like seeing it for the first time, as Kitaen comes into view immediately as the video begins, doing a full left to right round-off across the two hoods. Yeah, baby!
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Kitaen would become Coverdale's wife for a couple of years, and she appeared in several other of their videos, including "Is This Love" and "Still of the Night." They divorced in 1991. Before Whitesnake, she had been associated with the burgeoning "glam metal" scene of the '80s, as she dated Ratt guitarist Robin Crosby. Her legs appeared on the cover of Ratt's self-titled EP sporting black stockings and black pumps, pictured with white rats. Then, in ripped-up clothes, she appeared on the cover of Ratt's OUT OF THE CELLAR.
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After her divorce from Coverdale, she was romantically linked at various times to Tommy Lee, O.J. Simpson, Jerry Seinfeld, and Jon Stewart. She married Anaheim Angels pitcher Chuck Finley in 1997, but had a difficult personal time for many years. In 2002, she was arrested in Newport Beach, CA and charged with domestic abuse and battery for attacking Finley while the two were driving home. Kitaen reportedly kicked Finley several times with her high-heeled boots (shades of the Whitesnake video shown above), leaving visible marks. Finley filed for divorce three days afterwards. Actually, she's had a pretty active run as a television actress.
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What we remember from all this (besides Kitaen's big, big hair and lithe body) is the sheer astonishment brought forward by '80s cars-and-rock videos like this. Here are just a few of the 5,265 comments (thus far) accompanying the continuing YouTube broadcast of "Here I Go Again":
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mikeandjonnie (1 year ago): "this is quite possibly the greatest song ever made."
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ThisWasTheLastName (1 year ago): "BTW, if you pause at 2:19, you can clearly see a nipple!"
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enzo454 (1 year ago): "Wow, for me, "Here I Go Again" is the best song ever from Whitesnake. It's a good song to [get it on with] a pretty girl. And, yeah, I did it."
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PhoenixCelticEnigma (1 year ago): "They aren't glam. They're hair metal."
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nascar9141 (1 year ago): "I never lived through the '80s. I'm only 14. But I love this music and this is my favorite band."
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morningsnoopy (1 year ago): "I used to love this song, but the video [now] makes me cringe from the "look at me" redhead and too much shaggy perm going on here, but, hey, it was the '80s, and so I dedicate this to the old crowd I hung with."
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friskydingo2007 (1 year ago): "Tawny Kitaen dancing on ritzy cars. It just doesn't get better than that!"
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mernmernstein (1 year ago): "Check out the image at 2:18 of this clip. Are my eyes mistaken or did my day just improve??"
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javier855 (1 year ago): "Hard rock at its finest."
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PhantomsAngel1870 (1 year ago): "Ummmmmm . . . the only reason I watch this vid . . . that damn David Coverdale can work wonders with a mic . . ."
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berfolley (1 year ago): "This band is still brilliant. I'm 23 and love them. My Mom loved them when she was younger."
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rrtt11 (1 year ago): "This was a fantastic song when it came out in '87, and I was a senior in high school. Saw them and others at the Texas Jam--Boston, Aerosmith, Whitesnake, Poison, and Tesla. Great, great day, except it was over 100 degrees on the field. I miss the '80s."
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Guffstang (1 year ago): "I saw these guys live in '87 with Great White opening. Tawny was there on the side of the stage. Such good times!!"
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Hunkola (1 year ago): "Oh baby . . . Roll down the windows and crank this baby loud and proud 'cuz it's a freakin' anthem for the ages!!!!"
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omega5959 (1 year ago): "My uncle used to listen to Whitesnake and he told me they are one of the coolest bands of all time."
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BritishBobbie (1 year ago): "I'm nearly 16 and my god I'm in love with the '80s. I mean, Dylan, Dire Straits, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, and Springsteen. Where the heck is that kind of talent these days?"
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millionspiders (1 year ago): "I love this song. I just hate that my Mom won't let me listen to it in her car."
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nickmaroudas (1 year ago): "Tawny is like the sexiest woman to ever dance on a car. Man, she is fine."
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bossford1 (1 year ago): "There is nothing like '80s videos!!! The '80s were the best time in my life!"
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Say no more, boys. Gotcha loud and clear. This vid's for the ages. I will remember that!

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Best ROCKIN' automotive-themed concert posters for September '08

(above) RANCID, by the Firehouse
(above) NICK CAVE, by the Firehouse
(above) PERTH DANCE MUSIC, by Ed Shepherd (Australia)

(above) MELVINS, by Bobby Dixon
(above) SOCIAL DISTORTION, by Jimbo Phillips
(above) CONOR OBERST, by Print Mafia
(above) COLUMBUS DUO, by Adam Bogusiak (Lodz, Poland)

(above) STEREOLAB, by Matt Terich
(above) DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, by Gary Houston
(above) DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS, by Jeff Wood / Drowning Creek Studios
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As you can readily appreciate, September was a great month for seeing the release of new automotive-themed rock concert posters, as well as one unearthed from Jeff Wood's Drowning Creek Studios archives and one done by Jimbo Phillips earlier this year for Mike Ness' Social Distortion.
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But I'd have to say that the silver championship cup goes to the Firehouse, for their two fabulous entries. Sometime later this week I'll be picking up my own copies!
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Especially nice to celebrate: posters from Australia and Poland.
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Poster lovers and collectors, heads up: the annual poster artists showcase produced by TRPS (The Rock Poster Society) will be held on Saturday, October 11th at the Hall of Flowers in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco (10:00 am - 5:00 pm). You'll see Chuck Sperry and Ron Donovan from the Firehouse, Gary Houston (who'll have traveled down from Portland, OR), Jimbo Phillips (who'll have traveled up from Santa Cruz) and one of ROCKIN's all-time heroes, Stanley Mouse--among many other notables.
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Many of you will note that Gary's DEATH CAB poster again uses his scratchboard technique that he employed to such great effect on the "State Trooper" full-page meditation in ROCKIN'. That technique also has graced Gary's work for posters he did for Willie Nelson, Alejandro Escovedo, BB King, and other notable musicians.
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The featured guest postermakers at the TRPS event will be Malleus, a hugely imaginative design-and-screenprinting collective from Italy, who've just released their first retrospective book, THE HAMMER OF GOD. They also will have a special show the night before at the ArtRock Gallery in San Francisco, and a book signing event at the 540 Gallery (also in SF) the day after, before heading up to Portland and Seattle. Readers of this blog may remember my sharing their snowscene-on-the-street poster done for Sonic Youth, which is absolutely stunning.
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It still amazes me, and happily so, that after all this time--forty years after Randy Tuten's Cadillac-centric Led Zeppelin poster produced for Bill Graham for their Fillmore West appearance with Country Joe McDonald--that such imagination can still be brought to bear on automotive-themed rock posters.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

one ROCKIN' new book: WHOLE LOTTA LED ZEPPELIN

(above) Led Zeppelin, London, England, 1968, photo by Dick Barnatt/Redferns
photo courtesy Voyageur Press, used by permission
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A beautiful new book has appeared on Led Zeppelin, full of rare memorabilia and outstanding reminiscence. This would be WHOLE LOTTA LED ZEPPELIN, published by Voyageur Press, and out this Fall. The compiler is Jon Bream, with photos by notable lensmen such as Robert Alford, Jorgen Angel, Adrian Boot, and a ton of others, along with anecdotal and historical contributions from Jim DeRogatis, William McKeen, Jaan Uhelszki, and many others as well. For all fans of this great band, I would regard this as a must acquisition.
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Plus, it has one of my favorite rock and cars photographs, shown above. And, WHOLE LOTTA was co-edited by Dennis Pernu, the editor for ROCKIN' DOWN THE HIGHWAY. Congrats to all.

Monday, September 08, 2008

a ROCKIN' cover story 'bout rock and cars in Sunday's Washington Post (Style & Arts)

(above) the Style & Arts cover story art which accompanied the
cars & rock piece in the Washington Post this past Sunday 9-7
photo-illustration by Chris Meighan - The Washington Post
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Hey, when a reporter does his homework, a great story is possible. All props to Josh Freedom du Lac, staff writer at the Washington Post, for his insightful piece about rock and cars which appeared in yesterday's (Sunday) edition as the cover story in their Style and Arts section.
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The thrust of his argument is that songs about cars have lost their way. While that's a matter of perspective (what isn't?), I was happy to shed some light myself, as you'll read below.
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Indeed, we have to hope for a resurgence, so that the next generation has their own "Little Deuce Coupe" and "Rocket 88" and will still know what you're supposed to sing about when you go "Racing in the Street."
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Herewith, the entire text of "Rollin' On Empty":
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Rollin' on Empty: In the World of Rock Music, Songs About Cars Have Lost Their Way By J. Freedom du LacWashington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, September 7, 2008;
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"Dude, where's my car song?
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"While you were electronically adjusting your side-view mirrors or being guided by GPS or reading the external temperature gauge or something, a curious thing happened in rock: The car-song trend sputtered and lurched and finally went kaput.
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"According to the diagnostics, those revving automobile engines -- the inspiration for countless rock-and-roll songs, from the Cadillac-Ford race of Chuck Berry's classic "Maybellene" to Bruce Springsteen's rhapsody about "a '69 Chevy with a 396/Fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor" in "Racing in the Street" -- have gone silent.
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"They ain't writin' car songs no more," laments Paul Grushkin, author of "Rockin' Down the Highway: The Cars and People That Made Rock Roll."
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"They ran their course; they did their thing," says Brian Wilson, co-author of some of rock's greatest car songs, both for Jan & Dean ("Dead Man's Curve," "Drag City") and his own group, the Beach Boys, who released enough automotive-themed tunes in the 1960s to fill their own gas-'n'-go compilation. Among them: "409," which celebrated Chevrolet's new 409-cubic-inch V-8 engine and opened with a vroom vroom.
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"Never mind that it was apparently a Chevy 348 making all that noise; gearheads were geeked, especially with Mike Love singing about "my four-speed dual quad posi-traction 409" as if he'd just emerged from under the car with grease all over his face.
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"As a genre, rock-and-roll fetishized cars and celebrated car culture from the get-go. Indeed, the ongoing debate over the starting point of rock music usually includes Ike Turner's fuzzed-out 1951 chart-topper, "Rocket 88," a paean to the Oldsmobile 88 on which Jackie Brenston (whose name was on the single instead of Turner's) sang of a "V-8 motor and this modern design/My convertible top and the gals don't mind."
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"A caravan of car songs followed, spanning decades, makes and models, and filling more than a few summer soundtracks, not to mention road-trip mixes.
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"Today, there are still automotive references in popular music, particularly in hip-hop. But they're usually brief mentions that often aren't about cars at all; instead, they're sexual metaphors ("Girl you look just like my cars; I wanna wax it," R. Kelly sings) or status signifiers ("I deserve to do these numbers/The kid that made that deserves that Maybach," Kanye West raps).
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"The few later-model car songs that have been released by brand-name artists aren't actually car songs at all, as with Audioslave's "Getaway Car," a 2002 album track about escaping a relationship, or Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car," a 1988 hit about a cycle of poverty and substance abuse.
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"Or they are about cars but aren't paeans: In Cake's "Stickshifts and Safetybelts," from 1996, John McCrea is annoyed with his vehicle, rather than in love with it, because its design seems to be conspiring against him and his female companion. Particularly those bucket seats. "When we're driving in the car," he sings, "it makes my baby seem so far."
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"In country music, when Craig Morgan isn't singing about his combine harvester, trucks are the vehicle of choice, often used to represent something like a companion -- a motorized horse.
So much for the song-length homage to hot rods and luxury cars and the like.
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"Even as Hollywood continues to churn out movies about cars ("Death Race," "Talladega Nights," "Cars," the upcoming "Fast and the Furious" sequel), the trend in rock-and-roll has gone the way of the Oldsmobile and the in-dash eight-track.
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"There were songs in the pre-rock era, of course, such as "Cadillac Boogie" by Jimmy Liggins, along with automotive references by the likes of Hank Williams. But they exploded when the new idiom arrived, with songwriters romanticizing their rides and all that they represented.
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"Back before cars became utilitarian things -- Point A-to-Point B conveyances with computerized everythings powered by $4-a-gallon gas -- they were objects of lust, symbols of liberation and power, the center of the youth movement's sexual universe in post-World War II America. (What happens in the back seat stays in the back seat!)
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"Cars and rock-and-roll defined youth culture, screaming power and freedom and individuality. Cars were celebrated in cinema and on TV, but they were most at home in rock-and-roll.
Loud music and loud machines in which young people listened to that loud music: Of course the twain would meet.
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"The whole obsession of cars in rock music was a reflection of teenage culture," says Bob Merlis, a music publicist and automotive journalist who curated two "Cars and Guitars" exhibits for the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. "The car was a very exotic thing that gave the teenager a place of his own, or her own. It's where you'd go to escape your parents. . . . It was a refuge from square culture and repressive attitudes. It was your own universe where you could have your own social life."
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"To Dean Torrance, cars represented freedom and creative expression. But, he says now, he and Jan Berry weren't thinking about cars quite so deeply in the 1960s, when their group, Jan & Dean, had success with several automotive-themed songs, including "Little Old Lady From Pasadena," a Berry song (co-written by Don Altfeld and Roger Christian) about a Super-Stock Dodge that tore up the quiet streets of Pasadena, Calif.
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"It was just the only other thing we knew anything about," Torrance says from his Orange County home. "We started out writing about boy-girl situations and our surfboards. There had to be something else to write about. What else did we know anything about? Cars!"
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"Cars, especially the American ones, were romanticized, celebrated as shining objects of desire, with their metal-flake paint, red-line tires, sexy lines and all that horsepower. Hubba , hubba.
They were good for getting girls, but also desirable "girls" themselves: In "SS 396" by Paul Revere and the Raiders, the car of the title is referred to as "she."
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"In the early 1960s, Brian Wilson and the rest of the Beach Boys were infatuated with cars -- along with girls and surfing -- and they turned their obsession into a minor industry, with hits including "Little Deuce Coupe" (about a lightning-fast 1932 Ford) and "Shut Down" (detailing a drag race between a Super Stock 1962 Dodge Dart and a 1963 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray).
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"If Chuck Berry was behind the wheel of the bandwagon, then Wilson was riding shotgun, with his frequent lyrical collaborator, the AM-radio disc jockey Roger Christian, in the back.
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"But Wilson gave up the seat years ago. In a telephone interview, he says he can't remember the last time he came up with a song about automobiles.
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"I was always fascinated by cars," he says. "They made me think of the competitiveness of life. I still like cars, but I don't write about them anymore."
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"Do you blame him?
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"Personal cars circa 2008 tend to be impersonal, ubiquitous and inherently uninteresting weapons of mass environmental destruction. (Your mileage may vary.)
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"Don't bother looking under the hood; you won't find a muse. There's nothing particularly exotic about driving anymore. The new-culture smell is long gone.
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"There's not as much focus on car culture these days," says Merlis, the automotive writer and music publicist whose clients include the noted gearheads and occasional car-song singers in ZZ Top. (His cars include three Studebakers.) "People need cars, they drive them, but they [complain] about putting gas in them. They're so anonymous. The romance is gone.
"What's still there is mostly nostalgic: 'Remember that '57 T-Bird blah blah blah.' Younger people don't relate to that."
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"Says "Rockin' Down the Highway" author Grushkin: "It's still the American prerogative to sing about your car. The problem is, most of the songs about cars were written a while ago. So we're singing about something that now is not your primary vehicle. And with gas being so expensive now, you're not even taking that car -- probably American, hopefully a convertible -- out for a joy ride on a regular basis. It's expensive even to drive down to the Trader Joe's."
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"And besides, writing car-centric songs right now: kind of silly, says Nils Lofgren, whose old band Grin paid tribute to a "Heavy Chevy" on its 1972 album, "All Out."
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"Cars used to be romantic, but nothing's as romantic as it used to be, because there's so much serious stuff going down," says Lofgren, who has performed with Neil Young (a car buff who never really did car songs) and Springsteen (a car buff who did). "With the ominous destruction of mankind, we're all a little distracted."
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"Which isn't to say that car culture has disappeared. NASCAR is one of America's most popular spectator sports, and people are still pimping their rides, on MTV and elsewhere.
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"But it's more of a series of subcultures now: classic hot rods, tricked-out low riders, souped-up Japanese imports that have never held much lyrical appeal in Western pop. Car culture is no longer a part of the mass culture.
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"And yet Grushkin says the relationship between music and cars is as evident as ever, if only for this reason: "Music still sounds great in a car. People will always be driving down the highway, listening to their tunes, beating on the dashboard. . . . It doesn't matter if you're listening to a Wilco song that mentions a car in passing, a rap song, a Brandi Carlile song that was used in a GM commercial or Bruce Springsteen's 'Pink Cadillac.' The beat goes on."
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Now, if you're motivated (or "motorvated," as Chuck Berry might say) cruise on over to the Washington Post's comments section underneath the story, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/05/AR2008090501060_pf.html and let 'er rip. Josh du Lac and I'd both be very interested in your viewpoint.
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Sunday, August 31, 2008

as August ends, a ROCKIN' potpourri of items discovered this summer

(above) friend and ROCKIN' TV supporter Darrel Burnett
with his sweetie Kelly and Darrel's black & white Thunderbird
(viz: The Delicates' song of the same name)
at the USAF Thunderbirds event in Rockford, IL
(above) finally, a great shot of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' bus,
FURTHUR (also known as FURTHER)
(above) Janette Beckman's shot of RUN DMC
in their hometown of Queens, NY (courtesy Morrison Hotel Gallery)
(above) Commander Cody in Modesto, in the '70s,
with opening act Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs
(handbill art by Chris Frayne--George's brother)
(above) outtake shot of Bob Dylan and then-girlfriend Suze Rotolo;
photo by Don Hunstein, who took the FREEWHEELIN' cover shot
(above) typically nervy handbill art for John Seabury's own band,
Psycotic Pineapple
(above) 2008's never-say-never renegade, Amy Winehouse,
signing autographs, in her car
(above) Green Day, in (their) car, in New Orleans, photo by Danny Clinch
(photo courtesy Danny Clinch)
(above) Muddy Waters, bluesman and bandleader,
on the bus in the mid-'60s, in Europe
(photo courtesy Reelin' in the Years Productions)
(above) Fats Domino's car's license plate, outside his
New Orleans home, photo courtesy Geary Chansley, photo researcher
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(left) found at Amoeba Records, in Berkeley, CA, but the cover art's something of a disappointment, considering the novelty of the song itself
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So here we are on the last day of August, before school officially begins for my wife Jane (she teaches special ed at the award-winning Lincoln Elementary School in Vallejo, CA, where the school topped the entire district with its test scores--hooray!!), and for our son Jordan, whom we just dropped off at Georgetown University to begin his freshman year. And what else did I do this summer, you may ask?
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Besides acquiring, from our daughter Jessica, a smart as all heck Yorkie-Poo (Yorkie Terrier / Poodle mix) named Charlie, we basically celebrated the end to high school (and volleyball and soccer and enormous cuts of red meat and huge washing machine loads) for both our kids, and got ready for the long-anticipated trip to Washington DC to install Jordan . . . and I kept searching for all things rock-and-cars.
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From the top:
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(1) Next month, many presentations begin taking place to develop ROCKIN' DOWN THE HIGHWAY into television. This is being headed up by Michael Rose Productions, out of Marina del Rey, in Southern California. Michael is a tremendous filmmaker, responsible for (among much else) the acclaimed television series GREAT CARS. He's a rocker, too.
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Among many rockers who've elected to join the cause as a support team member, is Darrel Burnett, who's based in Rockford, IL (along with radio program director John "Brizz" Brizzolara, whom you'll meet shortly in another blog). You see Darrel (and Kelly) above, with his black and white Thunderbird, at the Rockford airport where the USAF team of F-16 C/D Flying Thunderbirds gathered for an airshow. It was quite an achievement for Darrel to be able to wheel his 'Bird out onto the tarmac. All this is relevant to ROCKIN' because one of the episodes will be devoted to The Delicates, who wrote and performed "Black and White Thunderbird," of whom Denise Ferri and Bernadette Dente are also on the ROCKIN' team. More on them shortly, too (and refer back to the essay on The Delicates in ROCKIN', please).
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(2) If I didn't already tell you, it's been much harder than I'd ever thought finding THE picture of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' bus FURTHUR (or FURTHER). But here's one which arrived in my lap quite unexpectedly. DAY GLO!!!
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(3) Morrison Hotel Gallery has become of the top locations (in several cities, and on the Internet) for showcasing the work of the top rock photographers. Here we see RUN DMC outside their home, and by a car (of course), in Queens, NY, photographed by Janette Beckman.
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(4) One of my great joys in writing THE ART OF ROCK (Abbeville Press, 1987) was meeting George and Chris Frayne. George is Commander Cody, and Chris (now passed) was his artist brother. Chris created many of the Cody band's great posters and handbills. Here's an unusual one, for a Modesto, CA gig, with Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs (now there's a rock-and-cars band name) also on the bill.
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(5) Earlier this year, Suze Rotolo released her book of reminiscence, A FREEWHEELIN' TIME: A MEMOIR OF GREENWICH VILLAGE IN THE SIXTIES. Rotolo was Dylan's girlfriend during the time he wrote songs like "Blowin' in the Wind," "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall," and "Masters of War," and Dylan penned other songs about their love affair, including "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right," "Boots of Spanish Leather," "Tomorrow Is a Long Time," and "One Too Many Mornings."
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Rotolo was photographed with Dylan for the cover of FREEWHEELIN' WITH BOB DYLAN, strolling down a street in Greenwich Village in New York City, about which I blogged some time back. The photo above, by Don Hunstein, is an outtake from that legendary session. Check out Anthony DeCurtis' visit with Rotolo in the NY Times' "Memoirs of a Girl from the East Country (O.K., Queens)") which appeared on 5-11-08.
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(6) The original artwork for a Psycotic Pineapple handbill-to-be, is by John Seabury, also a bandmember in Pyno, and is typical of John's brilliant outrageousness. His flyers are among the all-time-most-amusing-ever, in Berkeley, CA--where millions of flyers have been created and posted since the middle '60s. John's a good friend who you can meet at many NorCal poster events, and even, every so often, at national poster events such as Flatstock, now being held for the 18th time, this time again at at Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle this weekend. You can read more about John at http://runawaydinosaur.com/2008/01/29/rock-art-wednesday-john-seabury/ and see more Pyno art by searching the archive of his art at http://www.gigposters.com/.
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(7) Amy Winehouse, autographing for fans, in her car, somewhere in the UK. Great singer, but "nuff said.
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(8) Green Day, in the truck of their car, in New Orleans, shot by Danny Clinch. I cannot say enough about Danny's talent. It was an absolute joy to have his work included in ROCKIN'. And I hope that everyone survives Hurricane Gustaf, another humdinger of a storm, which seems to have come just minutes after Katrina in the scheme of things.
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(9) Muddy Waters, in his tourbus, somewhere in Germany, in the mid '60s. I thank the greatly respected photo researcher (and my pal) Geary Chansley for turning me on to the resource known as http://www.reelinintheyears.com/. Check it out, you'll see why. At some point I intend to blog about Chansley, because it's people like him who help authors like me discover spectacular and previously unknown material. Among much, much else in his career, Geary was the Package Coordinator for CELEBRATE: THE THREE DOG NIGHT STORY, 1965-1975.
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(10) It was Geary who turned me on to this shot of Fats Domino's car, parked in front of his 9th Ward home in New Orleans, years before Katrina. The photo is by Paul Harris, in Geary's words "a cool cat from England who's come to the American South many times to photograph guys like Fats . . . plus other great stuff." FYI you can see more of Paul's work at http://www.paulharrisphotography.blogspot.com/.
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Fats' home has now been rebuilt, but will it withstand Hurricane Gustav? I hope and pray it will. Fats is a national treasure.
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(11) And finally, trippin' around Amoeba Records in Berkeley (one of the last great independent record stores in America, with two other locations, in S.F. and L.A.) I stumbled across this '45 single for the Chordette's "No Wheels." That novelty song is well known among aficionados, but the cover art is, shall we say, lacking. But it is history. And the history of the rock-and-cars interface is a lot of what I'm all about these days.
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Hope to hip you to what's happening with ROCKIN' television shortly. Hope everyone had a relaxing and rewarding summer.
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Thursday, August 21, 2008

a tale of two ROCKIN' musicians and their GM commercials: Steve Earle's "Revolution"

(above) LIVE FROM AUSTIN TX, recorded at "Austin City Limits" 9-12-86,
the same summer GUITAR TOWN, Earle's first LP, shook up Nashville
(above) a few years later, circa COPPERHEAD ROAD,
but Earle was headed for a difficult time
(above) older, still basically uncompromising,
but the years, the road, and some time in lockup have taken their toll
(above) the justly celebrated 1986 GUITAR TOWN that, for some,
suggested Earle was "the next Springsteen"
(above) imperfectly assembled, but nevertheless the "Guitar Town" video
(above) the reward--and chore--of a hit album, even for a radical:

autographing an LP on the bus for fans (also from the "Guitar Town" video)

(above) "There's a speed trap up ahead in Selma Town,

But no local yokel gonna shut me down."

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Singer/songwriter/bandleader Steve Earle, just like Brandi Carlile more recently (see previous blog), made a decision to associate his recorded product with that of General Motors, back in 2005. But even just three years ago, GM was not touting its hybrids and its bio-fueled cars of the future: it was pickups and doolies, dude, and what amazed some is that one of the songs chosen was Earle's "The Revolution Starts Now" (which, I guess, by name alone, or also by a shallow reading of the lyrics) actually became a sales tool. But, for many amongst Earle's legion of fans, that decision to "sell out" (if that's what a radical musician does when he finally cashes in) was a slap in their faces.
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But who's to say, right? "Revolution" can mean any number of things . . . possibly including a campaign to sell vehicles. Back then, Chevy was emphatic about promoting on TV and radio the concept "American revolution," as it tied into their products through an appeal to elemental patriotism and the promotion of Americana. . . but using Earle's song was a risk because the suits also left the door open to Earle's own wider, darker (certainly left-leaning) interpretation of the term . . . revolution.
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"I was walkin' down the street
In the town where I was born
I was movin' to a beat
That I'd never felt before

So I opened up my eyes
And I took a look around
I saw it written 'cross the sky
The revolution starts now
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"The revolution starts here
Where you work and where you play
Where you lay your money down
What you do and what you say
The revolution starts now
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"Last night I had a dream
That the world had turned around
And all our hopes had come to be
And the people gathered 'round
They all brought what they could bring
And nobody went without
And I learned a song to sing
The revolution starts now"
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As the revolution Earle was positing was not written, per se, about developments in American automotive product, but rather about the desire for social and political change, one has to ask . . . did the suits mis-read his intentions? Did they assume his songwriting was simply in the same vein as Seger's "Like a Rock," which carried no political baggage?
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Carlile clearly stated on her website she wouldn't have done an ad for pickups, but saw the advantages of helping promote GM's (avowed) new change in direction. For his part, Earle just needed the money, and if the song was in the same anthemic vein (as Chevy's ad agency believed it was), as John Mellencamp's "This Is Our Country" and Bob Seger's "Like a Rock," then what the heck, right?
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Well, yes . . . and no.
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According to Wikipedia, "Since early on, Earle was involved with political causes. [Going back to his first public performances], Earle was unable to play in bars due to his age [he ran away from home at age 16], and took to playing in coffeehouses alongside anti-Vietnam War campaigners. These experiences had a strong effect on him, later on prompting his strong opposition to the war in Iraq."
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For instance, years after GUITAR TOWN brought to the forefront Earle's exceptional songwriting talent, he recorded "John Walker's Blues" on his 2002 album, JERUSALEM. Although Earle said he was just emphathizing with John Walker Lindh, (the American Taliban recruit) and not glorifying terrorism, anyone would have to say Earle was putting forth a controversial message. Two years later, he issued the album THE REVOLUTION STARTS NOW which coincided with the 2004 US presidential election (for which he backed John Kerry), and the title song of the same name was chosen to promote Michael Moore's anti-war documentary film Fahrenheit 9/11.
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My point is, Earle came to the table with heartfelt antiwar bona-fides, and briefly got away with something that neither he or his fans--or Chevy and GM, for that matter--really could justify. It's just not possible to imagine Chevy and GM then having any intention to lean in a particularly unusual direction, although I'm guessing they don't consider the green revolution as politically left--it's beyond Al Gore, it's actually a mainstream sentiment now--making it so that Brandi Carlile's concerns more naturally square with those of the carmaker.
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Earle's manager at the time was quoted as saying, "It was just a business decision we decided to make and we went with it." On the website http://www,nucountry.com.au, it's noted: "In 2005, "The Revolution Starts Now" was inked for a TV ad for Chevy pickups. But as karma collided with the singer, Chevy inexplicably killed the ad days after it began airing. Earle hadn't actually signed his contract, and he only got a fraction of the money he'd been promised. "It just goes to show you," Earle said, "when you finally get ready to sell out, nobody's buying.""
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Another blogger put it very simply, "Don't ever fault a man for making money."
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But let me give you several other sentiments expressed at the time:
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Jim DeRogatis, the distinguished rock critic and columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times interviewed Earle at length, and published excerpts from the interview on March 4, 2008. Earle noted, amongst much else, "I've never written a record that had no chick songs, and I've never written a record that had no political songs!"
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One of DeRogatis' readers, Scott Tipping, responded: "But how could you not take the opportunity of doing the interview to ask him about selling "The Revolution Starts Now" to Chevy trucks? Knowing your thoughts on corporate shilling and the destruction of rock & roll through advertising, I thought you'd be the one guy to take him to task and ask, "WHY??" Why would you take a political piece that was intended to inspire people, and reduce it to a car commercial?"
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Austin Mayor, another reader, responded to Tipping's point: "What Scott said. Hearing "Revolution" promote Chevy's fossil-burners really turned me off to that whole album. I don't really believe it's about "selling out"--we've all gotta eat--but putting that particular song in a truck commercial really underminded the legitimacy of its political content. Steve Earle broke my heart selling that song to Chevy."
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DeRogatis, to his credit, responded to both men the following week, by saying: "You guys are right. I dropped the ball on not asking Steve about that commercial. I guess I blocked out the painful memory of it!" (And, apparently Earle did have some further reponse, elicited by DeRogatis, but I was unable to find it while preparing this blog).
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For those interested, there are excellent discussions of this painful topic at:
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http://www.houstonpress.com/2005-07-28/music/breakdown-lane/ -- by John Nova Lomax, in which he concludes, "As for Earle, it must be remembered this is a man with no fewer than six ex-wives and close to an equal number of ex-managers, some of whom he still owes money. In his 2003 biography, Earle told author Lauren St. John that, all told, his overhead was then $35,000 a month. Kinda reminds me of a quote from bluesman R.L. Burnside, a musician with similar family obligations, if on a smaller scale: "Man," he once told a reporter, "I got to put 12 biscuits on the table 'fore I get to eat even one." Chevy ad deals buy a lot of biscuits, people. What's more, Chevy is an American company that provides a lot of increasingly rare, blue-collar living-wage jobs. Sure, selling "Revolution" will rob one of Earle's songs of some of its pure radical power. Get over it--he'll write more--and as it happens, Earle was wrong. Dubya won. The revolution didn't start then, anyway."
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Mark Caro's 2007 blogs in the Chicago Tribune under the title "Pop Machine," including "Finally, some sell-outs we can enjoy!" and "Wilco loves certain German Cars," and "Mellencamp's sell-out backfires," and best of all, his 10-4-06 column (with huge readership response) is this one: http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_popmachine/2006/10/because_they_di.html
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including this comment: "Apparently the same commercial that left us scratching our heads angered a bunch of wingnuts on the opposite end of the political spectrum. While we couldn't figure out why Earle had gone corporate, they couldn't figure out why Chevrolet had hired a "radical musician." Sort of mollified our outrage. If Earle pissed off a bunch of wackjobs by "selling out," maybe that makes the whole thing some sort of subversive act. (Or maybe not). In any event, the thought of the commercial angering its target audience is rather amusing."
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and watch the fur fly. Similarly, the exchange at http://portland.metblogs.com/2005/08/22/the-revolution-startshow/
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So, three final thoughts.
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(1) From "Pete" at http://ickmusic.com/category/steve-earle/page/2/, "It IS possible to discover cool music through commercials." Yes, true, because that's how I encountered Brandi Carlile.
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(2) Tom Waits, quoted in the L.A. Times, "By turning a great song into a jingle, advertisers have achieved the ultimate: a meaningless product has now been injected with your meaningful memory of a song. The songs and the artists who have created tthe songs have power and cultural value, that's why advertisers pay out millions for them. But, once you (the musician) have taken the cash, you, your song, and your audience are forever married to the product."
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and (3) the first song on Earle's LIVE FROM AUSTIN TX, which is his "Sweet Little '66." Because, just as we'll forever stand in awe of GUITAR TOWN as a fully realized, impeccably crafted set-piece of great, inter-related songs with great highway settings, we all should remember that Earle comes from the right rock-and-cars place too:
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"Now I'm a pretty big man around this town
I got me the hottest little Chevy around
My sweet little '66
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"She got a yellow front fender and a gray one on the back
But my income tax is comin' and I'm gonna paint her black
Sweet little '66
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"She got the 396, she got the four on the floor
And those stickers in the window ain't just for show
My sweet little '66
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"Now old Bubba and me built her back in '79
Then he went into the army so now she's all mine
Sweet little '66
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"I used to run her down on River Road and make a little dough
But can't afford another ticket so I'm layin' kinda low
Me and my '66
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"Now she ain't too good on gasoline, she burns a little oil
But she was built by union labor on American soil
Sweet little '66
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"So when your Subaru is over and your Honda's history
I'll be blastin' down some back road with my baby next to me
In my sweet little '66."
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Maybe that's the song Steve Earle should have sold to Chevy. All the right sentiments from an ol' leftie. Just sayin'. Peace out.
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