The road that runs parallel to Route 66 in the public imagination is US Highway 61 — the Blues Highway, running from New Orleans to Memphis to Chicago along the Mississippi River. But the blues and Route 66 were never entirely separate, because the people who made the music were often the same people the road was moving.
Bessie Smith, the greatest blues singer of the 1920s, died in 1937 in a car accident on a Mississippi highway. The details of her death became the subject of legend and controversy for decades afterward. John Hammond, a white record producer, claimed she’d died because a nearby segregated white hospital refused to treat her. Later research suggested the story was more complicated. But the story stuck because it expressed something true about the relationship between Black Americans and American roads.
The geography of Route 66 ran through Jim Crow country for significant stretches. Black travelers in the 1940s and 1950s used a publication called the Green Book — a travel guide published annually listing hotels, restaurants, and gas stations that would serve Black customers — to navigate the road safely. Without it, a breakdown in the wrong town could be genuinely dangerous.
The freedom mythology of Route 66 was always more available to some travelers than others. The road that Nat King Cole sang about was a different road than the one he could safely drive.
The blues was partly an art form for processing exactly this gap between the America that was promised and the America that existed. Route 66 runs through that gap whether it wants to or not.
We are offering licences for ROUTE 66® Beer in specific territories. An invitation to others to become part of this story. To carry a piece of the road with them and to contribute to the story. We will share a percentage of royalties with Route 66 associations to keep the story alive.
The journey continues. This story is brought to you by ROUTE 66® BEER. Find us at ROUTE66BEER.COM
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