King of the Road
[purchase]
It is
standard lore that musicians on the road used to tend to excesses. It cannot be
a great life: days/months on the road. Grueling hours. Consider this: you start “work” at 10PM. Yes, back stage, they “accommodated” groupies. Their contractual “riders” included requirements that would make
the average Joe blanche – more bottles than even a hard-drinking band could put
away between 10 and 12 midnight. Moreover, when the show was over and they retired to their accommodations,
the show went on. There are legends about their use/abuse of the lodgings/the
hotel.
I recall –
30 or so years ago – a night in Zagreb (Yugoslavia
It's more than likely that today's rock star on tour gets charged for damage to the room: that appears to not
have been the case in the 70s - or maybe the damages were just billed as part
of the collateral damage. Not being a hotelier, in today’s atmosphere of
airport security normality, I naively assume that even hard core rockers toe the line a bit more.
There are
a number of stories about my choice this time around: King of the Road.
Roger
Miller sang and played the guitar back in the 50s and 60s (OK .. and beyond).
As such,
he hit the road.
Legend
has it that on one such trip, he saw a sign advertising “trailers for sale or
rent”, and the phrase stuck with him. Apparently, more than once, while on the
road, he managed with rooming that we probably wouldn’t put up with in this day
and age. At a later date, he worked this phrase into the lyrics of what would
eventually become King of the Road.
Specific
references to hotels/motels in the song are limited: the early 60s was a
different time and place. The lyrics include the lines: “8 x 12 4-bit rooms” and “Rooms to let, fifty
cents/ No phone, no pool, no pets” – much of it still
recognizable to travelers 50 years later. The culture of the American roadside
motel is essentially the same today.
The Internet has it that Roger Miller went on in later years to purchase and operate more than one hotel/motel himself.
