Nat King Cole: Route 66

In olden times (pre-Interstates), U.S. Route 66 was the main highway from Chicago to L.A. It was lawful to travel in the opposite direction, but since songwriter Bobby Troup's "Route 66" journeyed from east to west, that's how everyone thought of it. Fortunately, by the 1940s, east-west migration was less desperate than during the Great Depression. Folks were now receptive to the romance of a road with such colorful place names as Joplin, Amarillo, Gallup, Flagstaff, Winona, Kingman and Barstow. A decade before Jack Kerouac's On the Road, Nat King Cole made it cool to get your kicks on Route 66.