Hit the Road Jack

"Hit the Road Jack" is a song written by rhythm and bluesman Percy Mayfield and first recorded in 1960 as an a cappella demo sent to Art Rupe. It became famous after it was recorded by singer-songwriter-pianist Ray Charles with The Raelettes vocalist Margie Hendricks.

Ray Charles' recording hit number one for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, beginning on Monday, October 9, 1961. "Hit the Road Jack" also got a Grammy Award for Best Rhythm and Blues Recording. The song was also number one on the R&B Sides chart for five weeks, thereby becoming Ray Charles' sixth number one on that chart. The song is ranked #387 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Notable recordings

Hit the Road Jack (TV series)

Hit the Road Jack is a British comedy television series. It is shown on Channel 4 and features Jack Whitehall touring the UK, performing stand-up comedy. Each episode is about 24 minutes long.

Episode list

References

External links

Hit the Road Jack (album)

Hit the Road Jack is a 1976 album by the reggae artist Manley Buchanan from Kingston, Jamaica, better known as Big Youth. In February 2011, as part of its Reggae Britannia TV series, the BBC broadcast an interview with Buchanan in which he discussed his version of Hit the Road Jack.

Track listing

All tracks composed by Manley Buchanan; except where indicated

Personnel

Recording Information

References

Hit the Road

Hit the Road (1941) is a crime comedy film featuring the Dead End Kids.

Plot summary

Delinquent gang members Tom (Billy Halop), Pig (Huntz Hall), Ape (Bernard Punsly), and String (Gabriel Dell) are trying to break out from the reformatory their confined to, but they are caught and brought to the parole officer Cathy Crookshank (Eily Malyon). All of the gang members are sons of gangsters, which makes it even harder for them to get paroled. They tell their superintendent this, and that they have no sponsor. To remedy this, Miss Crookshank asks the leader of the boys fathers' gang, Valentine (Barton MacLane), to come to her office. Valentine is barely released from prison. He is reluctant to help the boys, arguing that he is a reformed man and is now living on a farm with his wife Molly (Gladys George) and their daughter Pat (Evelyn Ankers). He has also decided to take a new name, "Ryan."

Miss Crookshank explains the boys’ predicament, however, and Valentine agrees to take them in under his wings. One of the younger members of the gang, Pesky, is also taken in by the ex-gangster. The would-be mobsters in reformatory are quite disappointed when they are sent away to the horse-breeding farm in the country instead of out into the city streets. When the boys are transported out to the farm, a gangster named Spike the Butcher (Edward Pawley), who had killed Valentine's men ten years earlier, follows Valentine to his farm in hopes of finishing the job and kill Valentine too. Spike brings his two henchmen, Creeper (John Harmon) and Dingbat (Shemp Howard), to ambush Valentine/Ryan in his new home. Unfortunately for Spike, district attorney Paul Revere Smith (Charles Lang), who is Pat's boyfriend, arrives at the farm at the same time. Later that day the delinquent boys try to steal Valentine's station wagon. Fortunately, the car has a flat tire and an old hunting dog gets in the way of the car, spoiling the boys’ plan to escape.