A Synonym For Hip

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On their very first album released in the United States,
the Rolling Stones recorded a song entitled Route 66.

It was a rockin' good blues, all about a road:
  
If you decide to motor west,
Jack, take my way
that's the highway
that's the best

It winds from Chicago to L.A
more than 2000 miles all the way.
Come get your kicks on Route 66

Then someone told me the song had been written for  Nat King Cole
but, in 1964, I was much too hip to believe that.
I was all of fifteen years old and–
of course–I knew everything!

Nat King Cole: the guy whose music was soooooo dull...
The guy* my parents listened to all the time...
could never,  ever have recorded a song
that Mick Jagger sang with
so much gusto.

I was much too hip to think that could ever happen.
Let Nat King Cole sing about chestnuts roasting
on an open fire but leave all the good rockin'
to people like Mick Jagger
and the Rolling Stones.

But as Time–that nasty, irreversible, tick-tock thingy–
went on, I was indeed proven WRONG.

In 1946, Route 66  was written for Nat King Cole by  Bobby Troup.
At that time, I was minus three years old.

Then along came the Sixties and  anything  the Rolling Stones
recorded with  Brian Jones  in the band was–and still is–
manna from heaven.  It makes my ears
morph into a mouth.

But the only song I have a problem listening to...not so much a problem  
but an absolute need to hear immediately thereafter...
is the Nat King Cole version of Route 66.

It was featured on the previous page.

Now listen to the  Rolling Stones' cover of Route 66.

YES...it does rock and it is a blues BUT...
it can not shine the shoes of
the Nat Cole Trio, traveling
the same musical road.

Sometimes hip is a synonym for "stupid." 


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Footnote
Brian Jones is responsible for the only Rock & Roll classic
where the lead instrument was a sitar:  Paint It Black.

Brian was introduced to the sitar by his friend,  George Harrison.

*
That guy–Nat King Cole–made music that was  in no way  dull.
If you think otherwise, please take some musical appreciation
pills and come back to the GoFather of Math in the morning
or just straighten up and fly right!


It behooves me to quote  Mark Twain,  approximately:
When I was fifteen years old, I thought my parents
were pretty ignorant but by the time I turned
twenty-one, it amazed me how much 
they learned in six years. 

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