Clinton Walker
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HIGHWAY TO HELL: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BON SCOTT (1994)

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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Current Australian edition
BUY
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Current US edition
BUY
“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

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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
“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

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Australian first edition
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First Picador edition
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First US edition