I second Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild.
Plus, Allman Bros' Nobody Left to Run.
And Grateful Dead's Ripple for a mellower tone.
My playlists is heavy on Prince but otherwise pretty soul deficient. I’m sick of Little Red Corvette and 1999 but I never tire of When Doves Cry, KISS, Tambourine and Alphabet Street. I’d include Temptation and If I was your GF except for the over the top endings that are a little too Prince for my Drive playlist. My favorite Prince for driving is his best B side - “She’s Always in my hair”. I link a YouTube version but you can’t cuz Prince. I like the New Power Generation stuff a lot too. The musicianship was upped with those guys. Sexy MF and Get Off are a blast!!
I second Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild.
Plus, Allman Bros' Nobody Left to Run.
And Grateful Dead's Ripple for a mellower tone.
Ramblin’ Man — Allman Bros.
War, "Low Rider"
Paul Simon, "Graceland"
Rush, "Red Barchetta"
Tom Waits, "Long Way Home"
Prince, "Little Red Corvette"
The Who, "Going Mobile"
Cake, "Bucket Seats and Safety Belts"
Jimi Hendrix, "Highway Chile"
BoDeans, "Texas Ride Song"
Albert King, "Matchbox Blues"
CCR, "Playing in a Traveling Band"
Bright Eyes, "Travelin' Song"
Jason Isbell, "Traveling Alone"
Chuck Berry, "Maybellene"
Talking Heads, "Road to Nowhere"
John Hiatt, "Tennessee Plates"
Rolling Stones - Don't Stop
Note all of the references in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNX_UCEzu7w
Highway Song ~Blackfoot
Takin' Care of Business and You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet ~BTO
Keep Your Hands to Yourself ~Georgia Satellites
Night Moves ~Segar
I can't stand music while driving most of the time. Give me a podcast or some good ole talk radio.
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge" -Stephen Hawking
from someone who's spent decades on the "road", if you need to be ALERT during those long evening legs, just slip that cassette of HIGHWAY TO HELL in...
you're good for while...
oh, and jack it up...
"One POSSIBLE future. From your point of view... I don't know tech stuff.".... Kyle Reese
Lots of great ones have already been mentioned. I'll add the following ten.
- Come on Baby Drive My Car (The Beatles)
- Take It Easy (The Eagles)
- Mustang Sally (Wilson Pickett)
- American Pie (Don McLean)
- Sweet Home Alabama (Lynyrd Skynyrd)
- I've Been Everywhere (Johnny Cash)
- I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) (The Proclaimers)
- Ramblin' Man (Allman Brothers)
- Born to Be Wild (Steppenwolf)
- Hit the Road Jack (Ray Charles)
I was tempted to include this as a guilty pleasure since I love to play this during my extremely annoying morning and evening commute. Ya see, some genius here in Richmond, VA decided it would be a good idea to merge I-95 and I-64 for six miles in the middle of the city. What a freakin daily disaster. This is what can happen when you try to engineer a highway system around a colonial city. It got my blood pressure up just thinking about it so I went with the concept of driving songs on the way to a beach vacation instead.
I've always associated bluegrass music with movement, and have listened to a lot of instrumentals when travelling. A particularly fine one is Foggy Mountain Breakdown. No one can do it better than the composer himself, Earl Scruggs. He was a true giant of American music, and here he performs with a little help from his friends:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQIJuu3N5EY
He had a lot of friends.
Man, if your Mom made you wear that color when you were a baby, and you're still wearing it, it's time to grow up!
I enjoyed the heck outta that! Purist might thumb their noses at “bluegrass” with drums, keyboards and electric guitars but I’ll take Leon Russell and Albert Lee anyway I can get them.
I love Bluegrass and I love Steve Earle so Steve’s bluegrass record with the Del McCoury band is an all time favorite. The Mountain was the 3rd of 4 records in 4 years from SE that were pure genius. The whole record is outstanding but these are on my Google drive tunes playlist
https://youtu.be/65Fj-LeEaQk
https://youtu.be/sROgp6QG7nQ
https://youtu.be/mY2FVUAWow8
https://youtu.be/ukvUqaCe8To
Not on my drive playlist but this is another great one featuring Iris Dement
https://youtu.be/BUGYzSoi_Vk
Rockin' Down the Highway by the Doobie Brothers, Take the Highway by The Marshall Tucker Band, Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple, Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf.
Tom Mac
To expand on my earlier vote for Uncle Tupelo, I have trained a Pandora station to pretty much play nothing but Uncle Tupelo, Son Volt, Jay Farrah, The Jayhawks, Magnolia Electric Co., Wilco, Whiskeytown and a little from Old 97’s. It’s obviously pretty chill but the time just flies by.
“Coach said no 3s.” - Zion on The Block
That same genius was probably the same person who decided it would be a good idea to put 4 toll gates on I-95 in Richmond and Petersburg, where you had to throw a quarter or two into a basket. You'd have to be pretty Crusty to remember those. P.S. How much worse would it be without the I-295 bypass?
(Apologies for the "detour")
Certainly I-295 and I-195 help, but if you work downtown in the financial district there are few options for getting in and out. Richmond is divided into north and south by the James River which only exacerbates the situation. It is best to find a job in the surrounding counties and avoid downtown altogether. It can take 30-45 minutes to get home and only takes 12 minutes with no traffic. A single accident can make it and hour to and hour and a half. This city could really benefit from a mass transit upgrade. Back to the music....(for some reason I have Zeppelin's Communication Breakdown in my head right now).
Roll Me Away - Bob Seger
Although I suppose it's technically a riding song, not driving.
It's also a great song to end a workout at the gym with. Listening to this at the end of a workout always makes me push just a little bit harder.