Only 400 more posts to 1,000!

Route 1 celebrates our 600th post to the blog with a hoedown!
After several days spent listening to Herbie Hancock and the Chi-Lites, I decided to shift musical gears by cuing up my HONKY TONK playlist.
It opens with one of my all-time favorite songs: Johnny Horton's classic "Honky Tonk" man from 1956.
Born in Los Angeles, raised in Texas and fishing in Alaska, Horton is one of those singers in my "What might have been" category.
After establishing himself with songs such as "Honky Tonk Man," which I adore, he turned to historical epic songs that I cannot stand.
Some people love "The Battle of New Orleans." I'm not one of them. Although it won a 1960 Grammy for Best Country & Western Song, "The Battle of New Orleans" always seems to me to show a watering down of Horton's talents to gain mass appeal. It almost seems to be straining for popularity, with its foot-stomping, sing-along approach.
It's also so damned catchy, it never fails to lodge itself in my brain.
So, who was the "real" Johnny Horton? Was it the honky tonkin' swinger of the mid-1950s or the "North to Alaska" novelty singer of the late 1950s?
We will never really know.
Horton was killed in November 1960, struck by a drunk driver in a head-on collision with a drunk driver on Highway 79 near Milano, Texas.
Of course, it sounds like a cliché, but Horton lives on for me in a single song -- and it sure ain't "The Battle of New Orleans!"
"I'm a honky tonk man, and I can't seem to stop/
I love to give the girls a whirl to the music of an old jukebox/
But when my money's all gone I'm on the telephone/
Hollerin' hey hey mama can your daddy come home."