Vol. 28: When Horsepower Met Rock 'n' Roll
Dedicated to the memory of Bob “Goody” Goodwin.
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There are songs that make you want to dance. Others make you want to sit quietly and listen.
And then there are songs that make you want to go for a drive.
You probably have a few of your own. One of those songs that comes on, you turn it up, and suddenly you realize you’re driving a little faster. The trip to get your morning coffee feels a little too short. Maybe you even sit in the driveway until it finishes or spin the block one more time.
Cars and music have been keeping each other company for a long time. When rock ’n’ roll was finding its voice, cars were already part of the conversation. They appeared in the lyrics, on album covers and outside the places where the music was playing.
This week, I’ve been thinking about that connection because of someone our family recently lost.
Bob Goodwin was a longtime friend of my dad and our family. Dad used to bring me along on his drop-ins at Bob’s house when I was younger, and over the years I became great friends with Bob’s son Eric. Like my dad, Bob loved music and classic cars, two interests that made him the inspiration for this week’s story.
When I asked Eric about the cars his dad had owned over the years, he sent back quite a list. A 1929 Ford Model A. A 1941 Willys. A 1950 Ford coupe. Two ’55 Chevs. A Road Runner, a Coronet, a couple of Novas and several Mustangs, including a 1970 Mach 1.
That’s a lot of automotive history in one person’s life.
Bob and Eric went to car shows together. His musical tastes included the Beatles, Chicago, BTO, ELO, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Motown and plenty of ’50s and ’60s rock ’n’ roll.
It got me wondering how those two worlds became so closely connected.
A car song near the starting line
One of the records most often mentioned in discussions about the beginnings of rock ’n’ roll is “Rocket 88.”
Recorded in 1951, it was credited to Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, although the musicians were actually Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm. Brenston sang about the Oldsmobile Rocket 88, celebrating a car that offered plenty to get excited about.
It’s often called the first rock ’n’ roll record, although that claim is debated. Whatever side of that discussion you land on, a song bragging about a car helped get things moving.
Check it out if you’re unfamiliar. It definitely rocks, with a bit of swing to it. That piano instantly reminds me of Billy Joel. And I love how Jackie Brenston brags about his car. It reminds me of the way a rapper might boast about his ride decades later.
By 1955, Chuck Berry was putting a story behind the wheel.
His breakthrough single, “Maybellene,” follows a man pursuing an unfaithful woman in a Cadillac while driving his own Ford. There’s speed, jealousy, an overheating engine and the question of whether he’ll catch her.
Berry borrowed from the country tune “Ida Red,” but gave it a new identity through his guitar, rhythm and storytelling.
You don’t need to know anything about engines to follow “Maybellene.” The car chase supplies the excitement. The relationship supplies the reason.
One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve learned more about Chuck Berry is how well he understood the everyday interests of young people. He turned school, romance, dancing and the possibility of getting away from it all into songs that sounded like their lives.
And a car was a pretty good place to put all of that.
When the car became the star
By the early ’60s, the Beach Boys were making records for people who could get as excited about an engine as a guitar solo.
“409,” “Shut Down” and “Little Deuce Coupe” put cars at the centre of the song. Alongside the harmonies came a vocabulary of horsepower, modifications and races. If you knew the language, you were in on it.
Even if you didn’t, the enthusiasm was easy to understand.
The car on the cover of their Little Deuce Coupe album had a story of its own. It was a customized 1932 Ford owned by Clarence “Chili” Catallo, who bought it as a teenager for $75. He didn’t yet have a driver’s licence, so a friend had to drive it home.
The coupe appeared in Hot Rod magazine before a photograph from that shoot became the Beach Boys’ album cover. There’s a detail car enthusiasts might appreciate: the cover car’s Oldsmobile engine differed from the flathead described in the song.
So the car on the sleeve didn’t quite match the one coming out of the speakers.
Years later, Catallo’s son Curt helped bring the car back into the family. To Curt, the famous coupe was also his dad’s car, and he wanted to preserve it.
“Hot Rod Lincoln” had a real car behind it, too. Charlie Ryan, who first recorded the song in the 1950s, built the hot rod that inspired it. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen later brought the song to another audience with their 1972 version.
Their recording turns a car race into a thrilling story, with the guitar doing its share of the storytelling.
Put these songs together and you start to hear a culture taking shape. People were taking ordinary cars and making them faster, louder and more individual. The records celebrated that work and gave everyone else a way to share in the excitement.
Bob’s soundtrack
While writing this article and putting together the accompanying playlist, I asked Eric about the music his dad loved. Among his favourites was the American Graffiti soundtrack. As Eric put it, Bob “played the shit out of it.”
Released in 1973, George Lucas’s American Graffiti looks back at a night in 1962, following young people cruising, meeting friends and thinking about what comes next. Lucas drew inspiration from his own youth in Modesto, California.
The soundtrack brings together Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, the Platters, Del Shannon, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, the Beach Boys and others. It’s quite a collection.
But what makes the music work so well in the film is how you hear it. The characters are travelling along different streets, having different conversations and making different decisions, while Wolfman Jack’s radio broadcast follows them through the night.
There’s a great bit of craftsmanship behind that sound.
Sound designer Walter Murch and Lucas played the assembled radio program through a speaker outdoors and recorded it from a distance. They moved the speaker and microphone to capture the changing sound, then Murch blended those recordings with the clear original audio.
That helped the songs feel as though they were coming from car radios and drifting through the streets. Music moves closer, passes by and fades away as the cars do.
They went to considerable trouble to make those old records sound like they belonged in the world you were watching.
And there was pressure to do it differently. Murch recalled that Universal wanted to save on music licensing by having a band record sound-alike versions. Lucas insisted on the original recordings.
I’m glad he did. When you know a record well, you recognize more than the tune. You know the voice, the instruments and the little details. A different version can be perfectly good and still feel wrong in that moment.
I can understand why Bob would love that soundtrack so much. Its combination of old rock ’n’ roll and car culture brings together two of his lifelong interests in one place.
Bob carried that connection with him throughout his life. The cars changed over the years, from a 1929 Ford Model A to a 2003 Mustang Cobra, but the music stayed with him.
For Bob, horsepower and rock ’n’ roll were never very far apart.
In memory of Bob
This edition is dedicated to Bob Goodwin, a friend of my dad, our family and so many others.
In lieu of flowers, Bob asked that donations be made to Steer Friends, an organization very close to his heart.
His son Bobby attends twice a week for activities, social time and fun. Eric shared how passionate his dad was about the joy, inclusion and experiences they provide. Seeing Bobby happy there meant everything to him.
Steer Friends provides day programming for youth and adults with disabilities and complex care needs. Its activities include art, community outings and music programming.
If you’d like to make a donation in Bob’s memory, please visit the Steer Friends donation page and select his name from the dropdown.
Thank you to Eric for sharing these memories of his dad and helping me put some of Bob’s favourite music into this week’s playlist.
🎵 When Horsepower Met Rock ’n’ Roll
Rock in memory of Bob “Goody” Goodwin.
This week’s accompanying playlist includes the music explored in the article, selections from the American Graffiti soundtrack and many of Bob’s favourites, as shared by Eric.
Turn it up and spin the block one more time.
Listen to the playlist on Spotify