On Highway 61: Music, Race, and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom

Dennis McNally, who has written excellent tomes about Jack Kerouac, as well as the Grateful Dead, paints his prose across an even grander canvass with On Highway 61.Indeed he traces an alternative, and more accurate history of America, vis a vis the development of music and popular culture over the last 150 years. This is a path that is examined with marvelous scholarship, research, and a clear eye on the social structure and consciousness that reveals all the strengths and all the horrors that are woven into the tapestry of this country.Primarily though, it is a tale of the rich evolution of music in America, and its unique gifts to the world: Blues, Jazz, and hence, R&B, Gospel, Soul, and Rock & Roll.Tracing the movement and yearning for freedom, both individual and collective, of both blacks and whites in the United States, the constant melting, melding, and unfolding of creative musical forms and the associated social implications are conveyed in a highly entertaining, engaging and readable style by Mr. McNally.This is a comprehensive tale of the intertwining threads that make up our common story, and will appeal to all who appreciate music, musical biography, history, and the story of the indomitable human spirit.Highest recommendation.

On Highway 61, author Dennis McNally presents a roadmap from Henry Thoreau down the Mississippi River through the blues and jazz to Bob Dylan. Mr. McNally, as in his previous works, does an impeccable job researching the lives of such characters as: Mark Twain, John Handy, Louis Armstrong, and many of the major Mississippi blues masters. I found On Highway 61 to be a good read, but hardly as essential as, say, Robert Palmer's Deep Blues which covers much of the same blues music territory in much better detail and other books detailing the other subjects and civil rights years much more compelling. McNally does his best to weave a story that begins with Thoreau and moves through the civil rights era. That said, the last third of the book rushes to the end way too quickly to reach to the ending that Mr. McNally had probably envisioned when contemplating the project ending the book as if just taking off the needle of good groove record before the ending.

This scope of this book is broader than its title suggests. It is among the best histories, perhaps the very finest I have read, of traditional and early commercial black music. The author asserts that its focus is "idiosyncratic" though I believe he is being too self-deprecating. Mr. McNally is a superb writer and story-teller and has a very interesting perspective, that freedom has a broader cultural and spiritual dimension and that this dimension has come to permeate the entire American experience. And that though this cultural and spiritual dimension may parallel the obvious aspect of freedom-from-slavery, that it is distinct unto itself, and that it has become a precious inheritance from the American black experience for us all. Having loved this music for over 50 years, I think his book is a great blessing. Read it! Give it as a gift! Introduce yourself and others to the richness that has become our common heritage as Americans, regardless of race or creed or ethnicity.

On Highway 61, Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom is a brilliant tour de force; the book is erudite, impeccably and thoroughly researched yet intimately conversational. Dennis McNally has provided the backstory for the alive, sexy, creative origins of our American (sub)culture, particularly as it has manifested through music. I am grateful to him for contextualizing the particles in the wave of this rich, multidimensional history. Get Dennis' book if you care at all about how we arrived at where we are and why the whole world loves to listen to jazz, blues and rock and roll. Now I want to see a deluxe version of this book released along with a set of CDs of all the music referenced.

The book gives a lot of interesting history of the blues and blues performers.

Husband has read this, made notes, will refer to it in one of the classes he teaches at a local university, and he even found the name of one of his university colleagues and mentioned it to him, so now colleague is going to buy the book too. Husband said this was a thrillingly crazy ride through culture/history/music and at every turn it gave him something else to think about. The endnotes were in his opinion very thorough and gave him ideas and places to look for more information. Well sourced; research was topflight.

I'm finding the chapters read more like a text book than a story. It interesting information written in a non-interesting way. The style, for me, doesn't draw me in and I find as much as I want to learn, I'm not enjoying this book.

I got this for class but enjoyed reading it for itself. A very interesting look into American history

Este libro es para aquellos que realmente desean conocer a fondo la historia del Blues, el Jazz y otros subgéneros que conforman el vasto espectro de la música en Norte América. Detalla a fondo el contexto social, racial y cultural dentro del que nació y se ha desarrollado la mejor música del mundo. Excelente documento para musicólogos profesionales, aficionados y fanaticos por igual.

good study on American culture and music

Not finished reading it , but very pleased so far