Music and the Road: Essays on the Interplay of Music and the Popular Culture of the American Road

Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and Paul Simon—these familiar figures have written road music for half a century and continue to remain highly-regarded artists. But there is so much more to say about road music. This book fills a glaring hole in scholarship about the road and music. In a collection of 13 essays, Music and the Road explores the origins of road music in the blues, country-western, and rock ’n’ roll; the themes of adventure, freedom, mobility, camaraderie, and love, and much more in this music; the mystique and reality of touring as an important part of getting away from home, creating community among performers, and building audiences across the country from the 1930s to the present; and the contribution of music to popular road films such as Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, Thelma and Louise, and On the Road.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction (Gordon E. Slethaug, University of Waterloo, Canada) 2. The Semiotics of the Road (Gordon E. Slethaug, University of Waterloo, Canada) 3. Easy Riders and Hard Roads in the Early Recorded Blues (Steve Knepper, Erksine College, USA and Jim Tuten, Juanita College, USA) 4. Easy Street on Mud Tires: the “Heartland” and the Frontier of the Road in Country Music (Virginia Shay, University of Waterloo, Canada) 5. The Tour Bus and the Road (Anaia Shaw, Independent Scholar) 6. Band on the Ruins: Meditations on Music and Motion (Warren Leming, Cold Chicago Productions, USA) 7. “All That Road Going”: Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, and The Beach Boys’ Smile (Dale Carter, University of Aarhus, Denmark) 8. “Happiness Is the Road”: Bob Dylan (Susan Kuyper, Independent Scholar) 9. “Apology and Forgiveness Got No Place Here at All”: On the Road to Washington D.C. with Bruce Springsteen Chad Wriglesworth (Chad Wrigglesworth, St. Jerome's University, Canada) 10. “But People Are Strangers”: Lyric Narratives and Ethics on Paul Simon’s Roads by (Alex Hollenberg, Sheridan College, Canada) 11. Gender Is Over: Transgender Narrative Homecomings, Punk Music, and the Road (Evelyn Deshane, University of Waterloo, Canada) 12. Knowing the Score: Road Movie Soundtracks and Cinematic Verities (Kurt Jacobsen, University of Chicago, USA) Conclusion: “The Miracle of Serendipity” Works Cited Index

About the Author :
Gordon E. Slethaug is Professor at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is the former Head of the English Department and former Associate Dean of Graduate Programs in Arts at Waterloo, as well as the former Director of American Studies at the University of Hong Kong. His published books include: International Teaching and Learning at Universities (2015); Adaptation Theory & Criticism: Postmodern Literature and Cinema in the USA (2014); Hit the Road, Jack: Essays on the Culture of the American Road (2012); Beautiful Chaos: Chaos Theory and Metachaotics in Recent American Fiction; and The Play of the Double in Postmodern American Fiction (2000).

Review :
Gordon Slethaug has assembled a band of traveling companions for a musical road trip that spans time, place, and genre. This is a sparkling collection of essays that casts a critical yet appreciative eye on American road music and its power to mobilize and mythologize. This collection opens on to new vistas and soundscapes of the American road, offering fresh and compelling perspectives on how music, race, gender, and mobility shape one another across the landscapes of the twentieth-century United States. Scholars and students of cultural history will find Slethaug and his contributors excellent traveling companions. …a good introduction to road music. Summing Up: Recommended.