Customer Reviews

Highway 61: A Father-and-Son Journey through the Middle of America

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is a quick and dissapointing read. Let me say I'm a Dylan and blues fan, and wouldn't have read it if I weren't. But McKeen is obsessed with Dylan, or "His Holy Exalted Bobness" as he calls him. Almost disturbingly obsessed. In fact, he can hardly write 5 pages without dropping his name or thinking "how it felt for Bob to do (insert action here.)" Yeah, I'm sure they're on a first name basis. His whole commentary and conversation is just annoying and feels forced. In short, the real Highway 61 and Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" are indescribably better. Buy the album and drive the highway....that is a lot more fun than reading irritating book.

What a great book, and for a kid who is just learning about rock and roll, I found it quite educational. I just hope my Dad is cool enough to take me for a trip like this when I am 18. I especially liked it when they ate food all the time. Buy this and give it to your Dad if he likes rock and roll, the older stuff, not like Radiohead or Third Eye Blind. Doyn doyn.

William McKeen has accomplished what would seem to be an almost impossible task: combining the lure of a road trip, an encyclopaedic knowledge of rock 'n roll history and a chance to delve deeper into his relationship with his son without turning those disparate elements into a chronicle that is weepy, academic or melodramatic. What arises instead on these pages will satisfy both the rock historians and the road trippers out there -- all of whom will want to fire up the car and stoke up the cooler once they read this book.

McKeen and his son, Graham, who grew up apart from his journalism professor father, take this trip through the literal and figurative heart of America, off the beaten path and down the back alleys of music and kitsch. Along they way, they rediscover America's cultural heritage and their own place in each others' lives. McKeen has a tremendous sense of humor, as dry as some of the stretches of highway he traveled. The ghosts of Dylan, Handy, Holly and Robert Johnson haunt this book and the drive south along a legendary stretch of pavement.

Is there gas in the car? Yes, there's gas in the car.

A wonderful book about the love between a father and a son. There's also a lot of humor and rock'n'roll as dad and son travel 6,000 miles down the middle of the country.

This is a story about a divorced father who has spent a lot time away from his son. It is a road trip story, not a book focused on Dylan's Highway 61. Rather it is about traveling on that actual highway from the northern point in Minnesota to it's southern most point. The author weaves various music genres into the chapters, St Louis, Memphis, etc. If you are looking for a book on Dylan, don't be misled by the title. I found it to be a great read. McKeen and his son did something many people dream about doing with their kids.

Yes, I stole this title from the first lines of the one star review, because this is telling. This COULD have been such a good book. You have unique travel, father/son, good food, good times, good observations and some good history -- but then this immature baby boomer professor (big surprise -- those who can't do, teach), feels the need to talk about his rock n' roll t-shirts and obsess over music that is a half-century old. Thankfully, after awhile, whenever some silly and redundant Dylan story came up, I skipped the part, as it was 10000% unnecessary and irrelevant to the book -- only weakening it.

I loved the relationship stuff, the positive way they treat some great towns like Duluth (though they miss ALL the attributes of Dubuque, somehow), but why oh why must McKeen show his juvenile side and obsess about music every other dang page!? It took away from a 4 or 5 star book.

Look "bro," since I know part of being liberal is acting "cool," focus on America and real history, not some washed-up, America-hating hippie, and then spew your white guilt over the Blues down south.

And the comment about the "Jewish" Dylan (please, think he goes to temple and supports Israel?) loving blacks b/c of empathetic discrimination is absurd, offensive and silly for me as a Jew to read -- yet typical of a left wing college prof.

So, again, losing sight of serious matters, one turns to music, and obsesses over it. I expect it from a 19 yr old, but not a 50 yr old. Then again, this guy teaches a course on the "history of rock n' roll." Enough said. And as if he, born a Hoosier, now living in a college town, really wants to live in Memphis and New Orleans -- where NO ONE, even those living there, would prefer to reside. Drinking and talking music one night is different than residing in that filth, McKeen. Silly prof, yet typical.

The five star reviews prove only folks who value music over real life would rate "Highway 61" so highly. I actually skimmed the final 40 pages once he got to Memphis and south as it was fawning over dead blues musician and trying to fit in with the black culture in their t-shirts (juvenile). It was pathetic, though telling. If you're going to write a book about music and a mid life crisis, that's fine -- but be clear up front. This was hardly a travel book.

Aging, Dylan obsessing baby boomer takes his teenager on a car trip. A one dimensional documentary of a road trip taken by white, middle class, status-quo folk. I was excited when I saw the title, "I thought Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", I thought "Grapes of Wrath", I thought "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". I thought, "Characters, baby, situations man." But no, McKeen writes dialog like someone who, well, tries to write dialog from an armchair. He keeps talking about Gonzo, but man he could take a few lessons on keeping it real, keeping it desperate, keeping it edgy and tough. Hell, he won't even settle for a regular old domestic beer in his book. How real is that? This book sags like middle age paunch over a coach belt.

"Highway 61" proves you don't need a ticket, or wheels, to go on an adventure. Just kick back your slippers, pour some gin into your black tea and sink your teeth into this gripping father-son journey. It will move you like a classic rock 'n' roll recording. Heck, it could stand right next to the other pop treat with the same name: Bob Dylan's masterpiece album.