Book: Roadkill On The Three-Chord Highway
Written By Colin Escott (Routledge) (Published Sept. 2002)
Reviewed by John Sekerka

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It turns out Perry Comatose wasn't so square after all. Huh. In his superb bio comp, Colin Escott delivers fourteen swank life snippets of the great, not so great and rather obscure music performers. He starts off with the biggies: Roy Orbison, Patti Page and Perry Como, offering profound insights to what I had considered dead dogs - Como's groundbreaking television work for instance. Next up are great recollections of historically important figures who never really sold that many records, like Sonny Burgess and Wanda Jackson. Then we get to the nitty gritty: country and rockabilly artists without much of a name, but each with a grand story well worth unearthing and preserving. Folks like Wynn Stewart and Vernon Oxford. Escott delivers the tales matter of factly, with just the right amount of reverence, disdain and humour, never preaching or cutting. Of course he succeeds cuz by book's end you'll be clamouring for the records that he writes of - a sure fire sign of mission accomplished.

© 2003 - John Sekerka