Rock 'N' Roll Hwy 67 🎸 Traditional Cache

Rock ’n’ Roll Highway 67 is a segment of U.S. Highway 67 running approximately 111 miles through White, Jackson, Lawrence, and Randolph counties in northeastern Arkansas, with a portion in Miller County in southwestern Arkansas. Its name is derived from the rockabilly music performed at nightclubs and other venues located on the highway by legendary progenitors of the genre. 

The term “rockabilly”—a portmanteau of “rock ’n’ roll” and “hillbilly”—is defined as a mixture of blues, country and western, and rhythm and blues music that saw its biggest popularity beginning in the post–World War II era and lasting until around the time of the British Invasion of the early 1960s. Original rockabilly artists included Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis, along with noted Arkansans Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, Sonny Burgess, and Billy Lee Riley. 

After Governor Mike Beebe signed legislation for the highway designation, there was growing effort to capitalize on the designation by civic boosters eager to attract tourists to their communities. For example, Walnut Ridge—where the rockabilly-influenced Beatles stopped briefly at the municipal airport in 1964 en route to a vacation destination in Missouri—started a Beatles-themed music festival called Beatles at the Ridge (tag line: “Where Abbey Road Meets the Rock ’n’ Roll Highway!), erected a life-sized sculpture depicting the Beatles from the cover of their landmark album Abbey Road, and created the Walnut Ridge Guitar Walk—a colored concrete walkway in the shape of an Epiphone Casino electric guitar popular with musicians of the era. The walk includes ten stations with recorded information, narrated by Sonny Burgess, about musicians who traveled the highway. 

Be sure to head into Walnut Ridge to do the Adventure Lab: "Walnut Ridge - Rock N' Roll Hwy" so you can explore more of the town and it's history!