Once a road was built to accommodate the American automobile, it was only a matter of time before an appropriate sort of music came along for the ride.\u00a0 It was inevitable that a new, fast moving way of life and the excitement of the open road would have an infectious musical accompaniment.<\/p>\n
No song better complements the great American highway and the sense of possibilities and promise it holds than the Bobby Troup classic, Route 66<\/i>.\u00a0 In no other country or culture on earth could lyrics comprising little more that a litany of place names make the spirit soar and swing: \u201cFlagstaff, Arizona, don\u2019t forget Winona\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Troup and his wife Cynthia literally wrote the song on a 1946 American Automobile Association road map as they drove west from Lancaster, PA bound for Los Angeles and a songwriting career.<\/p>\n
The highway that the Troups connected with several days into their trip got its start in downtown Chicago, Illinois:\u00a0 Jackson Boulevard at the Michigan Avenue intersection.\u00a0 Between Jackson Boulevard and the highway\u2019s end at Santa Monica\u2019s, Ocean Avenue (at its intersection with the Pacific Ocean.) were old wagon roads, animal trails, and Indian paths.\u00a0 Stitched into a unified highway, Route 66 became the 20th<\/sup> century equivalent of the transcontinental railroad with the difference that it was not some company\u2019s property; it was everyman\u2019s road.\u00a0 You didn\u2019t need a ticket.\u00a0 Just your automobile or your thumb and away you went.<\/p>\n \u201cGet your kicks on Route 60\u201d would be unlikely to spark a hit song.\u00a0 But in 1925, when the demand for some sort of orderliness resulted in a uniform designation for a highway from Illinois to southern California, the original name assigned was U.S. Highway Number 60.\u00a0 It was comprised of sections of the Ozark Trails and the National Old Trails and in 1926, maps duly labeled the combination of\u00a0dedicated roads as Route 60.<\/p>\n But a fuss ensued.\u00a0 The Midland Trail, from Kentucky to Virginia, was also Route 60.\u00a0 Governors got into the fray and the proponents of the western highway eventually accepted the alternative \u201c66\u201d for their road.\u00a0 After all, it was a bigger number.\u00a0 Then too, it sounded faster, and its pronunciation provided a pleasing and memorable sibilance.\u00a0 Route 66 it was.<\/p>\n Soon distinctively patterned wooden signs appeared beside the road in Peoria, in Albuquerque, in Joplin.\u00a0 A combination of a shield and a sheriff’s badge and emblazoned with a sturdy \u201c66\u201d graphic, they were patterned after the sort of markers oil companies had been providing for the convenience of their motoring customers.\u00a0 These companies provided free maps and thoughtfully installed their own private route signs to aid the motorist traveling unfamiliar, unmarked roads.\u00a0 Soon the Bureau of Public Roads adopted the idea and the handy devices sprang up all along America\u2019s highways.<\/p>\n Route 66 was a symbol in its heyday.\u00a0 It was the route west, to California, for those trying to leave their ruined dustbowl farms and towns.\u00a0 They went in the direction nomads have always taken hoping to follow the sun to a place where its light was eternal. \u00a0John Steinbeck drove the road, gathering details for his novel The Grapes of Wrath<\/i> as he went. He then sends the Joad family along Route 66. \u00a0In the movie version of The Grapes of Wrath<\/i>, <\/span>scenes of the real pre-war Route 66 grace the screen.\u00a0 A little later and a slightly more hip author Jack Kerouac, traveled extensively on Route 66.\u00a0 Kerouac took a lot different trip than the Joad family in his classic novel, On the Road<\/i>.<\/p>\n Progress, prosperity and the resulting interstate highway system gradually made Route 66 seem old fashioned and cumbersome.\u00a0 Eventually, inevitably the cobbled together interstate was superseded.\u00a0 By the late 1960\u2019s, parts of the original highway had grass growing through the pavement.\u00a0 Almost as an afterthought, in 1985, \u201c66\u201d was deactivated as a U.S. Route number.\u00a0 Though Route 66 lived just fifty-nine years as a highway, it survives as a perfect part of an American lore that probably never really was but ever shall be.<\/p>\n As a matter of interest–and further enshrining Route 66 in the rock and roll ethos–Paul McCartney and his then fianc\u00e9 (and now wife) Nancy Shevell, planned a trip.\u00a0 They rented an SUV and toured the country, their itinerary: driving on or paralleling old Route 66.\u00a0 And a final,\u00a0additional rock and roll Route 66 tidbit:\u00a0the Eagles were “standing on a corner,” namely the northwest corner of Kinsley Avenue and Second Street in Winslow, Arizona.<\/p>\n \u00a0
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