Easy Riders, Rolling Stones ...

Jacket copy:

Easy Riders, Rolling Stones delves into the history of twentieth century American popular music to explore the emergence of “road music.” This music—which includes styles like blues and R&B—took shape at pivotal moments in history and was made by artists and performers who were, in various ways, seekers after freedom. Whether journeying across the country, breaking free from real or imaginary confines, or in the throes of self-invention, these artists incorporated their experiences into scores of songs about travel and movement, as well as creating a new kind of road culture.

Starting in the Mississippi Delta and tracking the emblematic routes and highways of road music, John Scanlan explores the music and the life of movement it so often represented, identifying “the road” as the key to an existence that was uncompromising. He shows how the road became an inspiration for musicians like Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan and how these musicians also drew stimulus from a Beat movement that was equally enthralled with the possibilities of travel. He also shows how the quintessential American concepts of freedom and travel influenced English bands such as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. These bands may have been foreigners in the US, but they also found their spiritual home there—of blues and rock ‘n’ roll––and glimpsed the possibility of a new kind of existence, on the road.

210 × 148 × 20 mm
254 pages
Paperback
ISBN: 9781780235295
45 illustrations

Editions
Reaktion Books (UK), September 2015
University of Chicago Press (North America), October 2015

From the ‘Introduction’

Throughout history, humans have been ‘on the road’ [ … ] and have been – variously – wayfarers, pilgrims, traders and tourists. They have been bought and sold as slaves and sent on journeys that landed them thousands of miles from their ancestral homes, and placed them into a seemingly permanent exile. They have been spiritual and mystical seekers of truth who saw that ‘enlightenment’ demanded that the hold of the physical world be transcended. In traditions ranging from ancient Greece (and the archetype of the hero journey) to medieval Europe (and the idea of pilgrimage) and early modern Japan (the journey as a route to self-understanding) wandering has symbolised the human condition, and not least life as itself a journey during which we may – at various points – take the form of exiles, spiritual or mystical seekers of greater truths, or drifters of indeterminate purpose.

The transformation of North America following waves of colonization and migration – and particularly the enforced migration of Africans, produces, over time, a cultural and musical distinctiveness. The American music that becomes blues, rock’n’roll and other related forms is, in important ways, the result of movement. Perhaps it is the result of movement above all else – particularly movement across the boundaries that separates people from their native forms of expression, and that consequently gives way to a new imaginative territory where the mixing of traditions and experiences that become, in their own way, singularly American.

But, in the end, there is no music of, or on, the road without listeners. So, what could it be that makes the idea of the road such a persistent theme in this music?

As listeners, we may actually be more likely to have a very different experience to that portrayed in road music. We live in places, in societies, that have been defined by their boundaries, that have made itinerancy an aberration, and where we all seek the comfort of some kind of home. In other words, we do not – for the most part – desire to be on the road. Yet, it is those of us who live settled lives who become the ‘consumers’ of the dreams of those others who opt for, and create a culture from, a life of movement. We became the audience for generations of travelling musicians who remained in many ways detached from our kind of fixed and relatively stable lives. Perhaps it is because migration and movement is nonetheless a sedimented historical experience, an inheritance, that marks most of us – even if only through our predecessor generations – that this ‘road music’ holds such appeal for us, and seems in some way to deserves to be called ‘true,’ ‘real,’ and ‘authentic.’

Easy Riders, Rolling Stones does not present an inventory of songs about cars, trains, planes or – indeed – highways. To do that would be to end up detailing a somewhat dreary discography. Rather, it tells the more elusive story of the role that the road has played in the cultural imagination of America, and the music it produced and inspired in the 20th century. It is a tale characterised by paradox and mystery. If the figures of itinerant wanderers we encounter here become almost stand-ins for ways of life that represent a kind of freedom that is now almost entirely foreign to those of us who look on in admiration or wonder, they are nonetheless – in terms of their cultural durability and influence – venerated as models of authenticity and originality; and often as avatars of a kind of truth-telling that goes to the core of what, although we might not be explicitly conscious of it, makes us human. And this is undoubtedly part of the appeal of this road music, which both conveys a sense of movement and suggests that there is a vitality in being open to the possibilities that escaping the confines of normal experience presents. If the music discussed in these pages also, at times, suggests the kind of disorder and transgression that seems far from a contemporary listener’s experience, the performers responsible for this nonetheless also inspire us – through their songs, performances and ways of living – to be true to our own selves, and to resist compromise. Why would this be the case? It is – arguably – because on the road the world is turned inside out: loss becomes discovery, the drifter becomes artist, the stranger becomes familiar, the mundane becomes the source of ecstatic experience, and law and society are supplanted by the kind of mores and habits perhaps appropriate, at other times, to frontier living.

Reviews

‘John Scanlan’s fascinating study explores the theme of being on the road in 20th-century American popular music, from the itinerant blues guitarists of the Mississippi Delta travelling Highway 61 in the 1920s, to the mostly English, blues-inspired rock groups of the 1960s and 70s, such as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin . . . A wonderfully evocative musical odyssey.’ — Guardian

‘John Scanlan delivers a beautifully rich and finely researched account of how Americas endless highway has influenced and manifested itself in key artists work . . . Scanlan draws from known documentation but displays an innate feel for his subject as he throws up insightful theories about the more direct times before social media, when artists could be covered at close range by chroniclers of the time . . . It’s rare to find a tome which makes you ponder then punch the air in agreement but this highly recommended work is as much an endangered species as its subjects.’ — Record Collector

‘Beginning with early blues artist Charley Patton, [Easy Riders] explains how a mythology can quickly build up around itinerant musicians who never stay in one place too long . . . a fascinating read for anyone who’s ever wanted to head out on the highway.’ — Classic Rock magazine

‘Despite the vast nature of his subject matter, Scanlan manages a concise, well-structured and presented picture of the musics evolution, placing it within a social and cultural context that owes as much to history as those with a reverence for the past and its preservation. Touching on the heavy hitters and lesser known performers in equal measure, Scanlan paints a holistic picture that serves as a sampler platter of sorts for a variety of artists, offering an inroad to those who may seem somewhat inaccessible. With his clear, sharp prose and decidedly British and openly reverential take on his subject matter, he presents a well-argued thesis and exploration of some seventy-five years of popular music rooted in the American South and eventually filtered through a British lens and back into a relevant form years after its initial appearance. No easy task, but one Scanlan manages with aplomb . . . Easy Riders, Rolling Stones proves a fascinating look at a bygone era from an outside perspective.’ — PopMatters

‘The many facets of the road are delineated in John Scanlan’s absorbing new book, from the Faustian pacts made by the old bluesmen at the crossroads, to the importance of the road to the aura of excess that grew up around bands such as Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. When we talk about the road, of course, we mean the great highways of America not the M6 and Scanlan suggests that for both generations, the road provided a space that allowed music to become a vehicle for journeys that would inform the kind of experience that leads to self-discovery.’ — Choice Magazine, Paperback Book of the Month

‘The road has long been one of the most evocative cultural motifs in popular music. In Easy Riders, Rolling Stones John Scanlan provides a fascinating account of the emerging relationship between music and movement, from its origins in the pre-war Mississippi Delta to its deafening denouement in the rock shows of the 1970s.’ — Matthew Gandy, Professor of Geography, University College London

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From the ‘Introduction’

Reviews

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