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Coming Through the ’60s: An American Rock ’n’ Road Story
Bill King is a musician, photo journalist, radio veteran, and author. Not a book of celebrity run-ins, it is a document of early life, ancestry, the anxiety and pressures of living with a decorated World War II veteran suffering PTSD; discovery, boyhood schemes, that first piano lesson, those early jazz concerts, education, leaving home, crossing America, homelessness, the flower generation, relationships, California, Greenwich Village, the army, and then Canada. *** I dreamed of breaking those long drives musicians reminisced about throughout the American South. Past fields of sprawling kudzu down fog-shrouded backroads. The perfect way to decompress after a long night playing on the funk side of town. I was ready to climb on the band bus or into the back of a station wagon and begin my journey. The many one-nighters I had already played were mostly local, no more than 100 miles in all directions. I knew radio was the best company a carload of musicians could ask for to free the mind of setlists and missed opportunities with local groupies. I had already ridden in a battered station wagon, taken on road grime and patches of red clay — the windshield a graveyard of suicidal beetles, palmetto bugs, wasps, and grasshoppers. On the horizon, weeping willows near where mockingbirds eyeballed and serenaded all-night drivers.
277 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 25, 2020
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 16, 2021
Read in one night. Bill King was in my class at High School so I was very familiar with most of the things he talked about - although not first hand.
He begins with his early experiences in Jeffersonville INdiana - many of those things were also familiar to me - since we both lived in the same town. I was unaware of his family situation though and the expereices that he had. We know so little about the people we "think" we know - we only know thier "public" mask
He also talks about his military expereinces in the Vietnam days - a person who rebelled against going to Vietnam So many people were against the Vietnam war - and, back then, you did not have a choice over whether to join or not - you were drafted and forced to go. I don;t think I knew anyone who wanted to go to Vietnam - or who believed that we should be involved at all. And I was married to someone in the reserves at that time. His telling of his expereinces brought back memories of my own at that time - plus I learned about his... many things I did not know.
He also talks about the race relations at that time - things we knew and things we did not know. Remember those were the days of MArtin Luther KIng. He mentions driving through the south and the racial put=downs he saw there. I remember driving with my parents through the south too - that is when I began to ask questions - I did not understand what I was seeing
Bill King is also a musician - still is - jazz piano. He talks about his early experiences with learning to play music - to his later experiences in working with and meeting many well know musicians ( including Janis Joplin and Linda Rondstadt and many well kmown jazz musicians)
A very interesting read
He begins with his early experiences in Jeffersonville INdiana - many of those things were also familiar to me - since we both lived in the same town. I was unaware of his family situation though and the expereices that he had. We know so little about the people we "think" we know - we only know thier "public" mask
He also talks about his military expereinces in the Vietnam days - a person who rebelled against going to Vietnam So many people were against the Vietnam war - and, back then, you did not have a choice over whether to join or not - you were drafted and forced to go. I don;t think I knew anyone who wanted to go to Vietnam - or who believed that we should be involved at all. And I was married to someone in the reserves at that time. His telling of his expereinces brought back memories of my own at that time - plus I learned about his... many things I did not know.
He also talks about the race relations at that time - things we knew and things we did not know. Remember those were the days of MArtin Luther KIng. He mentions driving through the south and the racial put=downs he saw there. I remember driving with my parents through the south too - that is when I began to ask questions - I did not understand what I was seeing
Bill King is also a musician - still is - jazz piano. He talks about his early experiences with learning to play music - to his later experiences in working with and meeting many well know musicians ( including Janis Joplin and Linda Rondstadt and many well kmown jazz musicians)
A very interesting read
Displaying 1 of 1 review