Looking West
Sunsets are quite often stunning this time of year. The winter sky has a clarity in its faded light that allows for magnificent reds, purples, oranges, pinks, and other hues that are simply so uniquely stunning that they fall outside the realm of named colors. It’s also that time of year, looking west, when the setting sun can be blinding. The sign in front of me, that I was attempting to block the sun with, read Newport, Oregon 3,365 miles. I was sitting at the start of U.S. Route 20, the longest road in the United States, in Boston’s Kenmore Square. It dawned on me that it has been almost a year since I traveled on U.S. 20 west of the Massachusetts border, which means the same for my travel on Interstate 90 – the second longest road in the country. That’s a long time for an old road dog to be away from the confines of the pavement while rolling through wide open spaces.
There are so many great songs about being on the road plus the movies, the books, the romanticism, the mystery. Everyone has a favorite road story – theirs or someone else’s. There are the iconic numbers: 66, 61, and, of course, 1. The interstates decimated the towns and attractions along the U.S. routes in some places but in others there are still thriving enclaves. It would be a grand adventure to travel from Boston to Newport along U.S. 20. You’d have to take your time in order to soak it all in, to connect the dots between the communities. As the landscape changes, so does the country – from politics to food to dialect to weather. Connecting dots, that’s what these great roads did, once upon a time. And, those dots were the people with their traditions carried over from the old country – brought to life, a new life in a new world. A shared experience between people of all stripes, forging something new.
There’s a building – I hesitate to call it house, not knowing for sure – in the Mohawk Valley along Interstate 90 in Upstate New York that I’ve watched crumble over the years – seemingly brick by brick. I have lost track of how long I’ve been witnessing its decay. But, it always presents as regal, despite its immense state of disrepair. Although, having not been by there in close to a year, it could be demolished. That’s one of the things about the road, you expect the same objects to be there, year after year – even people. As a society, as a republic, I believe that the majority of Americans always felt that democracy would be here year after year – with no hard work, with no sacrifice, with no commitment to its growth, and ever-changing population. It was expected. Just like at one point, the expectation was that the truth mattered, that facts mattered. That house along I-90 in the Mohawk Valley is a pretty apt comparison to our democracy, being chipped away in the recent decades until the bulldozer and wrecking ball reared their ugly heads – finding ourselves in this current debacle, nightmare. There are no words strong enough. One can only assume that the two hundred and seventy-one members of Congress that are affiliated with the Republican Party lied – that they don’t believe in the truth, the oath they swore to uphold the Constitution, or democracy itself. Otherwise, what choice do we have but to assume that for their complete, willful inaction in the face of our democracy being destroyed – not to mention our standing in the world?
What happened to all those seemingly connected dots? There are a myriad of reasons, and certainly not enough time in one day or essay to disseminate them all. But, the basic fact is that the American people – taken as a whole – voted for Fascism. And, just like the military code, pleading ignorance is no defense. “I didn’t think he meant it” (when it was clearly spelled out) or wanting cheaper eggs and gas at the time is no excuse for not knowing what was actually being discussed – for not understanding history, for not wanting to do just a little hard work, for not wanting to sacrifice, or make a commitment to the truth. And, of course, the biggest issue is racism. The American people voted for this, the American people are going to have work to get us out of this mess – to get the world out of this mess that we created. Maybe the road, reconnecting those dots is one of the starting places.
The road is a wondrous adventure but certainly not for the faint of heart. It doesn’t change. It’s a tough life, especially on the indie-musician level. It was rough back in my years of nonstop touring. I can’t imagine how anyone does that these days. It’s a grind in the best of times, and always has been – from Elvis, Scotty, and Bill in a 1955 Cadillac to the Duke Ellington Orchestra in a converted school bus to my years in beat-up old van going from coast to coast. There’s a fine book of historical fiction, But Beautiful, by Geoff Dyer that chronicles jazz musicians. It alternates chapters between two musicians traveling from town to town with stories about well-known players. I highly recommend it. It is an entertaining, thought provoking read. The chapters dealing with the musicians traveling are some of the best writing I have ever read that details the road experience.
I’ll end with where I started: sunsets. The amount of stunning sunsets – practically otherworldly in their presentation – I’ve witnessed are too numerous to count. But, there is one that has stuck now for 34 years. We were heading west, leaving Salt Lake City, Utah moving on towards California in mid-November. We were entering the Great Salt Desert right as the sun was approaching the horizon. The last rays of light were hitting the Desert’s basin producing indescribable colors while reflecting the sky’s oranges and reds that were fading into purple. The closest comparison I can draw would be a kaleidoscope – nature’s kaleidoscope. These are the moments, and most are as fleeting as a brilliant sunset, that make the trials and tribulations of the road a life-long love affair.
Have Mercy!
The Mercy Brothers – Barrence Whitfield and myself – have two shows coming up in New England this winter. First, we’ll be at The Parlor Room in Northampton, Massachusetts on Saturday, February 28. Find tickets here. Then, on Wednesday, March 18, we’ll be at The Press Room in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Find those tickets here. These shows precede the reissue of our album Strange Adventure on Cupcakes & Muffins Records coming soon in 2026. Stay tuned for that release date. Strange Adventure was originally released on Gibraltar Records in 2003.
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Find me on the radio dial every Saturday afternoon 4-5pm EST with Crooked Road Songs on WICN 90.5fm locally in Worcester, Massachusetts, and globally at wicn.org. My playlist from Saturday, January 24, 2026:
Frank Stokes “Downtown Blues”
James Booker “On the Sunnyside of the Street”
Jimmie Rodgers “Dear Old Sunny South by the Sea”
Bobby Hebb “Sunny”
The Carter Family “Keep on the Sunnyside”
Doc Watson “Rising Sun Blues”
Bill Withers “Ain’t No Sunshine”
Freddie King “Ain’t No Sunshine”
Freddie King “Same Old Blues”
Sammi Smith “Sunday Morning Coming Down”
Irma Thomas “Save a Little Bit for Me”
Arthur Alexander “I’m Comin’ Home”
Bruce Chanel “Hey! Baby”
The Ronettes “Do I Love You”
Fats Domino “Can’t Go on Without You”
Johnny Rivers “Poor Side of the Street”
Big Maybelle “96 Tears”
Shuggie Otis “Inspiration Information”
Beautiful writing here. The metaphor of that crumbling building along I-90 as a stand-in for democracy is spot on. Infrastructure decay and civic decay really do mirror eachother. That Salt Lake Desert sunset sounds unreal btw. I remember driving through similar stretches out west where the landscape just forces you to pay atention to whats in front of you. Roads used to connect communities in ways beyond just physical distance, and maybe rediscovering that is part of the work ahead.