Bobby Troup Books

Close on the heals of hosting the (KABC & ABC) classic television program "The Stars of Jazz," uniquely cool vocalist Bobby Troup brings from the show a top flight crew of side men for this remarkable album. Among those musicians, for example: on sax, Benny Carter and Bud Shank; on trumpet, the Candoli brothers and Shorty Rogers; on drums, Shelly Manne and Mel Lewis; on guitar, Barney Kessel... you get the idea. The 12 standards Bobby covers include "I'm Through With Love," "Perdido" and "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby." The only downside is that this great songwriter ("Route 66," "Daddy," "The Meaning Of The Blues"...) only sings one of his own on this album, "Free and Easy" (which he co-wrote with Henry Mancini). The arrangements are superlative and if you haven't been introduced to Bobby Troup's vocalizing (called "ultra-sophisticated" by several critics), start here. If you love West Coast and/or Cool Jazz, this is worth every nickel.

I just returned from Route 66. I drove it 9 years ago with a different guide and had no problems. This guide is so confusing I became angry at it several times. The author writes as if the reader already knows EVERYTHING about Route 66. He will tell everything about one way to get to the next city and then say, "but if (another city) is your preference, then (do such and such). How do I know what my preference is?? I'm trying to travel Route 66!! He will start to tell some directions and then go off into a tangent about what to see or where to eat and then never come back to the directions. He will just say, "Upon leaving (such and such city, do this) . But he has never really said how to leave the city. I was VERY frustrated several times. In one town in Missouri we followed his directions implicitly and didn't find the bed and breakfast we were looking for. So we thought maybe we had the north, south, east , west thing wrong. So we went the other way and found the bed and breakfast. The lady there said, "I'm surprised you found us with that guide. We are in the completely different direction than it says!" Instead of turning right when he says to we should have turned left. So that made us doubt other instructions in the book. It made me wonder if this man has actually driven route 66 and if he has I wonder if he tried to use his own book. I would not try to use this book if you are traveling Route 66. There are much better ones out there. One star for interesting stories in the back.

I wasn't really very interested in Route 66 until my wife and I got interested in it during a trip to Arizona. We found this book and it became vital to finding sections of the old road and looking for certain landmarks along the way. When we moved from Texas we used this book to follow part of old Route 66 and we had a great time of it. Well worth the effort to find it!

The Route 66: EZ66 Guide for Travelers is a must but the Collector's Edition: Roadside Companion, with the Corvette and Model "T" picture on the cover is Great to have too. Also nice to include Here It Is! The Route 66 Map Series to make the collecton complete!

Excellent and informative. It would be impossible to find some parts of the old road without it.

The companion I did not find as helpful and did not use it on my trip down route 66. The book that this companion goes with was enough. I found the route 66 map from AAA a better companion with the book and is what I used on my trip.