Comments, input and alterations are very welcome!
_______________________________________________________________________________

Route 66
(Bobby Troup)

Regent Sound Studios, London, UK, January 3, 1964

Mick Jagger - vocals
Keith Richards - electric guitar
Charlie Watts - drums
Bill Wyman - bass
Brian Jones - electric guitar

Well, if you ever plan to motor west
Jack take my way, that's the highway, that's the best
Get your kicks on Route 66

Well, it winds from Chicago to LA
More than 2000 miles all the way
Get your kicks on Route 66

Well, goes from St. Louie down to Missouri
Oklahoma city looks oh, so pretty
You'll see Amarillo and Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona, don't forget Winona
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino

Would you get hip to this kindly tip
And go take that California trip
Get your kicks on Route 66

Well, goes from St. Louie down to Missouri
Oklahoma city looks oh, so pretty
You'll see Amarillo and Gallup, New Mexico
Flagstaff, Arizona, don't forget Winona
Kingman, Barstow, San Bernadino

Would you get hip to this kindly tip
And go take that California trip
Get your kicks on Route 66
Well, get your kicks on Route 66
Well, get your kicks on Route 66

Produced by Andrew Loog Oldham

First released on:
The Rolling Stones - “The Rolling Stones” LP
(Decca LK 4605) UK, April 16, 1964



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2014-02-10 11:03 by René.

I have blasted this in my car when driving through Flagstaff and Winona. They're pretty close together compared to the other cities in the song, so you can hit two birds/lyrics with one song, so to speak. I got a speeding ticket outside Flagstaff. Maybe the Stones had something to do with that.

Essential Rock'n'Roll from the Greatest Rockband in the World THE ROLLING STONES 11/10
Early favorite together with Off The Hook and Carol....

2 1 2 0

Two points about this great song.

1. Many of their contemporaries did this song, and could be judged by how many of the words (especially place names) they had to guess. The Stones got most of them right.

2. It helped me pass my history A level exam (advanced national exams British kids take in their last year of high school). For reasons too complicated to explain, but which can be summarized as "she was an idiot," our history teacher hadn't taught us enough of the American history part of the syllabus. There was a question that included a discussion of the order in which states joined the Union. I had no idea of the answer, so thought "Route 66 is about a trip West, the states on the eastern seaboard were the first to join, so the states mentioned [cities, anyway, luckily I knew what states they were in] in the song must have joined later, I'll list them and try to guess the rest." I scraped the lowest passing grade possible.

(One alteration, Rene, it's St Louis with an s. )

What an incredible first song to launch your debut album. This song triumphantly heralded the arrival of the greatest rock'n'roll group in the world at the top table of popular music.

A rock'n'roll song in 1964, at the heart of Merseybeat? But Route 66 must have felt similar to what punk did in 76 - it galvanised the true rockers and helped create a short lived rock'n'roll and r'n'b revival with others like The Animals, The Yardbirds and The Pretty Things also joining in.

The song hasn't dated an iota since it was released and that is an amazing accolade in itself.

Their first (Long player) album track!

Full throttle on all cylinders from the get-go

Love the clapping, that makes the somewhat buried drums rumble like a speed train.

The live version which appears on the U.S. album December's Children has a furious distorted guitar attack that was at the forefront of the hard rock sound of 1965. This version is a virtual proto-punkadelic nugget!

Quote
stonehearted
The live version which appears on the U.S. album December's Children has a furious distorted guitar attack that was at the forefront of the hard rock sound of 1965. This version is a virtual proto-punkadelic nugget!

(also on Live In England '65)

ROCKMAN

I absolutely love the version on Cow Skins and Pig Shoes (Shephards Bush, 1999). Keith at his best. Great soundboard recording anyway.

Route 66 and Little Red Rooster - two pillars of the Rolling Stones

Love this track and was my theme song for last year's Stones trip.

My favorite version of "Route 66" ? When they stumbled on the tiny stage of the Trabendo in 2012 and hammered it out. Had a bit of a brain freeze and it took me a few seconds to figure out what they were playing...priceless!

--------------
IORR Links : Essential Studio Outtakes CDs : Audio - History of Rarest Outtakes : Audio

Funny to think that we are now disussing the third album beginner song in a row - first from their hey-day peak album, then from the latest (so far? ever?), and now from their very first - and if we listen them all in row, they essentially sound the same - the greatest rock and roll band doing what they do best, that is, play kind of music I described in regards to "Rough Justice" as their 'home-vocabulary' music.

That is to say that "Route 66" offers something that we would immedeatily recognize as The Rolling Stones sound. Maybe first time ever so purely. We hear a driving guitar there (actually two), which with an extraordinary relation to the drums and bass, offers a groove that no other rock and roll band ever have succeeded to copy. We hear a guitar solo that goes straight to the point with no any extra gimmcks, just adding a needed spark to the song. We hear a singer who uses his voice like another instrument in the band, trying to reach to whatever accents and nuances his endless study on American black music has given him, ending up sounding totally unique by his tone. Altogether, the song is like an undivided organ, a beautiful band effort where everything is in its place, even though a bit sloppy or chaotically, even dangerously as if it might fall apart any sec, and what there is not, is not needed. The wholeness is bigger than its parts. What else there is to say... but "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones..."

Probably they also knew that what they do with this song is something extraordinary. Surely they it had been one of their gig favourites already in Richmond days (as it would be for a year or something), but placing it as an open number of their debut album, they surely were rather satisfied with what they achieved in a studio. And I can't think any better song for that job. Okay, the yankees got the already familiar (for UK ears) "Not Fade Away", which also offers an introduction to their unique sound world, so that's alright.

Ever since I've heard the song I would love to have done that "California trip". Still live in hope.

- Doxa



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 2014-02-03 14:22 by Doxa.

A sparkling, delightful cover that fits perfectly on their brilliant first album.

Drew

That live version was great, but so is the studio version. This has always been one of my all time favorites.

Maybe a bit of genius by ALO to have them cover Route 66. The song was probably at least mildly familiar to many fans or the blues, jazz and even parents of the time. It had been hit for Nat King Cole in 1946, covered by others and eventually Chuck Berry. So to start off the album with something that was bluesy, but not by any means obscure, something that people might have some familiarity with, but done in a newer way, probably made the album more accessible at the time.

There is a riff in the middle of a Louis Jordan song, I forget which one, that is the Route 6 riff. I often wonder if that is where Troup initially got it.

The energy coming out of this band on that first LP is insane. Route 66 is just smoking hot. Translated live it gets even more intense. The rendition played on the Charlie is my Darling set is over the top amazing. One of my favorite guitar intros from the Stones and that says alot considering the catalogue.

To listen to Route 66 I had to visit friends who just purchased the whole album at the time, a great Rocking track about exploring the cities in the US where The Stones really wanted to perform at the time and have been doing now for 50 years .

I don't much like the Stones version: I prefer Them's.

If there is a song which describes the early Rolling Stones and why they were just much better than any other R'n'B combo, it is this song.

The drive, Keith and Brian's guitars, Bill and Charlie's rumble and Jagger's vocals. It's all there, right from the beginning. The fundament of 50 years of pure rock and roll.

I think my favorite version of the song is on the bootleg that also features Cops and Robbers, Mona and You Better Move On, with Long John Baldry doing the intros.

Absolutely love it. It's quite possibly the first Stones recording a young Big Al heard in his fathers car, some 20-plus years ago.

He doesn't say "kingman"
It's another town but i can't figure it out.

Mick slurs alot of the town names. In the actual lyrics, it's Goes from St. Louis, Joplin Missouri, although it does sound like he says down through Missouri.

Regent Studios. I was in there last summer. It's now a music shop. It's very small and I can only imagine how close the guys were when they were recording.

When I saw the Stones on the No Security Tour for their first Anaheim show, Mick said from the stage (rough paraphrase) "Bobby Troup—who wrote ROUTE 66—died a couple days ago, so in his honor we'll play ROUTE 66." They did it great, from the B-stage.That was the first time they played the song on that tour, but not the last.

Quote
DGA35
Mick slurs alot of the town names. In the actual lyrics, it's Goes from St. Louis, Joplin Missouri, although it does sound like he says down through Missouri.

In those days, the only way to get a copy of the lyrics was to purchase sheet music. They likely interpreted the lyrics as they heard them from records they listened to, so misheard lyrics were sung as (not) read. The Joplin reference is new to me, but I'm still going to hear it as "down through" because that's how I've always heard it--the Stones way.

Hey Stonehearted, I agree! Also, instead of Barstow it almost sounds like he's saying Moscow!