HIGHWAY TO HELL: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BON SCOTT (1994)
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Highway to Hell was first published by Pan Macmillan in Australia in 1994, and the following year it was published in the UK by Sidgwick & Jackson. Immediately it set a new benchmark for Australian music books, both in terms of quality and sales; read here a piece I wrote for the Age called “In Search of Bon Scott;" read here an interview with Bon from beyond the grave that I reconstructed for a Playboy magazine '20 Questions' feature. In 2001, the book was published in the US by Verse Chorus Press. In 2002, Pan Macmillan published a new Australian edition in Picador. Then in 2007 the book underwent a major revamp for new editions in Australia, in Picador, and in the US through VCP, which remains the only edition still illustrated. Read here the Preface I wrote to this still-selling edition. Subsequently, there have been French, Italian, Bulgarian, Spanish and Finnish editions, and a new fourth Australian edition will be published by Pan Macmillan in October 2015.
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“Like the Doors after the publication of Danny Sugarman’s No One Here Gets Out Alive, the Bon Scott-era AC/DC is about to become a bona fide cult sensation. Cast in the Sugarman role is respected rock writer Clinton Walker ... a timely and acclaimed biography” - Glenn A. Baker, BILLBOARD
“Australia’s leading rock writer Clinton Walker has a best-seller on his hands - his book about AC/DC singer Bon Scott looks like becoming the most successful Australian rock’n’roll book ever” - THE BIG BACKYARD “This is much more than just the story of a heavy metal band ... The history of Australian music is being forgotten, and Highway to Hell is an important part of the remembering” - Toby Creswell, JUICE “Peppered with the exuberance and good humour of its subject ... (Walker’s) easy-going style makes this biography both entertaining and not insubstantial reading” - Andrew Watt, IN-PRESS “Great reporting, scholarship and story-telling” - David Fricke, ROLLING STONE |
Finnish edition
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Bulgarian edition
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Italian edition
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Spanish edition
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French edition
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“If, like this reviewer, you’d always figured all you wanted to know about Bon Scott could be contained on a couple of battered albums, Highway to Hell comes as a revelation ... unquestionably, the most perceptive book written about an Australian rock figure ... as much about Australian youth culture in the 60s and 70s as it is Scott” - Stuart Coupe, SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
“Great stories about Bon’s reckless spirit, about the Young brothers, about what being on the road is really all about. It’s also a great insight into how the Australian culture shaped one of the greatest rock’n’roll bands in the world ... a compulsory read” - Robyn Doreian, METAL HAMMER “In this well-written, thoroughly-researched biography, Walker paints a graphic picture of men behaving badly ... sensitive but unsentimental. Nor does (Walker) indulge in sensationalism” - Valerie Potter, Q “The best AC/DC-related book so far” - ELECTRIC OUTLAWS “Walker manages to piece together Scott’s story and paints a vivid picture of not just the man but the machinations of being in a band, and the development of Australian rock music from the 1960s into the 70s ... a fine testament to the man who once answered the question, Are you the AC or the DC? with, Neither - I’m the lightning flash in the middle!” - Barry Divola, WHO WEEKLY |
Australian first edition
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First Picador edition
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First US edition
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