Highway 61 reviews

The Chicago Tribune
"Move over, Kerouac .... Dad is a rock 'n' roll history professor, and we're going to drive down U.S. Highway 61 from Bob Dylan's home in Hibbing, Minn., to bluesman Robert Johnson's grave in Mississippi? We're going to stop at rock and blues history points in St. Louis, Memphis and all along the Mississippi River down to New Orleans? I'm there. These two seem to find real music — the performed sort and the music of a happily compatible father and son — wherever they go."

The San Francisco Chronicle
"[F]unny, colorful and heartfelt . [McKeen] crafts a book of narrative power and impressive scope. His set-piece on Memphis club owner Silky Sullivan is masterful, and he offers nicely done roadside vignettes attuned to the pitch of American speech. "

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"(An) inspiring coming-of-age road trip .... This 6,000-mile trek promises a great opportunity for father and son to cement forever the tender bond between them. McKeen provides his son - and readers - with an education in the history of Mississippi River music they will remember long after the rollicking journey on Highway 61 ends."

USA Today
"Armed with boxes of rock CDs and a roadmap, University of Florida journalism professor William McKeen and son Graham embarked on a 6,000-mile road trip down Highway 61, known as the road of blues music. The duo explored the diverse musical roots of middle America. McKeen knows his rock 'n' roll. He teaches a course on the history of rock, has edited an anthology on the genre and has profiled the Beatles and Bob Dylan in his books. It was Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited that inspired McKeen to show Graham the musical landmarks along America's dividing line."The Courier-Journal ( Louisville, Ky.): “It's a personal celebration of McKeen's three great loves -- words, music and his children -- and of pricless moments.... Highway 61 might someday do for father-son road trips what Jack Kerouac did for traveling alone and John Steinbeck did for traveling with dogs."

The Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Most refreshing about McKeen's narrative style is his ability to translate intense emotions about fatherhood to the page. Highway 61 is peppered with stirring recollections of his long-departed dad and the kind of bond he wants to maintain with Graham as he becomes an adult. Their closeness intensifies as they progress toward New Orleans; every pit stop is a chance for Graham to learn more about American music from his father. A touching memoir."

Library Journal
"(McKeen) writes with comfortable cadence, liberally embellishing his narrative with local history and the lives of musicians he reveres. As a divorced and long-distance father, he views the summer journey as a means to connect with his college student son; fortunately they share a love of blues and rock'n'roll, which provides a unifying theme for the trip. This is a book for music lovers as well as armchair travelers."

The St. Petersburg Times
" William McKeen is my kind of dad .... The journey of parenting includes its own crossroads, along with rocky paths and treacherous curves. Highway 61 's biggest success is that it can easily serve as a guidebook, helping other fathers struggling to find their way. Kudos to this graying Dylan afficionado, and to his son, who sees a 6,000-mile trip in his father's car not as hell on wheels, but as an opportunity, as he describes it, 'to breathe a little deeper.'"

The Orlando Sentinel
" Highway 61 is part memoir and autobiography, as McKeen shares indelible memories of his Midwestern adolescence, of marriage and divorce, and the challenges of being a long-distance father. The pair spend a good bit of time searching for the mythic Delta crossroads where Robert Johnson made his deal with the devil, trading his soul for musical gifts. In Highway 61, McKeen in middle age stands at a similar crossroads, looking back on his life, surveying his present and peering into a future with a new bride and family. There's no devil in sight, and the view is oh, so sweet. Highway 61 might appear just a quick book about a long road trip, but readers will savor the experience long after the journey is over.

The Albuquerque Journal
"There's enough here to satisfy any parent who struggles to connect with adolescent progeny [or who] enjoys a lively account of long, beer-fueled nights some of the most colorful denizens of Memphis, or wonders what really went down that moonless night in Mississippi so many years ago when a young Robert Johnson found himself at a literal and figurative crossroads, face to face with the devil.”

The New Orleans Times-Picayune
" A charming memoir. The descriptions of the Mississippi Delta are right on. A good companion for s summer road trip."

Nick Fowler, author of A Thing (or Two) About Curtis and Camilla
“I read the book with joy and admiration for a writer at the top of his game. The book bursts with inspiration and cunningly chronicles the nuances of father/son relations in the broader context of a rock’n’roll illusion. McKeen achieves a stunning narrative velocity and scope. A brilliant writer!”

Curtis Wilkie, author of Dixie
“From the Iron Range of Minnesota, where they search for the spirit of Bob Dylan, to the Mississippi Delta haunted by the ghost of Robert Johnson, William McKeen and his son take the reader down Highway 61 on a trip as rich as the musical roots they explore en route.”

Michael Wallis, author of Route 66: The Mother Road
and the voice of the sheriff in the wonderful movie "Cars"
"All the senses are touched in this sassy but poignant road book. William McKeen's stick-to-the-ribs words will make readers hunger for greasy burgers, thirst for icy beer, and listen to a constant serenade of music and poetry from the shoulders of the highway. En route they eavesdrop on a father and son memorizing each other during their free-fall journey without any reservations."

Rick Bragg
"William McKeen proves how much fun you can have in this life with a full tank of gas, some beer money and a love of American music."

Tom Wolfe
"Rock authority, scholar and newly minted good ol' boy when he feels like it, William McKeen doesn't even know how to be uninteresting, least of all on Highway 61."