Highway Star

Highway Star may refer to:

Highway Star (song)

"Highway Star" is a song by the English rock band Deep Purple. It is the opening track on their 1972 album Machine Head and is the fastest song in tempo on the album. It is characterised by a long, classically inspired guitar solo and organ solo. Organist Jon Lord claimed that the organ and guitar solos were based on Bach-like chord sequences.

History

This song was born on a tour bus going to Portsmouth in 1971 when a reporter asked the band how they wrote songs. To demonstrate, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore grabbed an acoustic guitar and began playing a riff consisting of a single "G" repeated over and over, while vocalist Ian Gillan improvised lyrics over the top. The song was refined and was performed that same night. The song first appears on the 1972 LP Machine Head. The track remains one of the band's staples in live concerts, and was the set opener even before it was released on any album.

The very first live version released, recorded live for German TV program Beat-Club in September 1971 is featured on the History, Hits & Highlights '68–'76 DVD. It's the opening track on the live albums Nobody's Perfect (1988), Come Hell or High Water (1994), and From The Setting Sun… (In Waken) (2015). The most famous live version is featured on the 1972 live album Made in Japan. The Guardian said, "Blackmore’s playing is like a force of nature on the [Made in Japan] version; those slashing chords in the intro, and that amazing solo featuring the distinctive neo-classical descending runs, combining the spirits of Bach and Jimi Hendrix."

Highway Star (manga)

Highway Star (ハイウェイ・スター, Haiuei Sutā) is a graphic novel created by Katsuhiro Otomo. It is his second published collection of short stories from various years, each running at roughly 20 pages, and includes Otomo's second-earliest collected story. It has been reprinted four times, the last year being 1997.

Stories

Following a dismissal, a family of four leave the city for the country. The daughter is soon spoiled because of her inability to understand the family's financial difficulty, and after a missed chance for first-time love between the parents, they decide on a way out of it all...

An unbearable heat in Tokyo during Summer forces a man to steal a ventilator in a store, only to fail and get chased away. He decides to hide in a family's house and take them hostage, though to his dismay they lack a ventilator too, and so comes up with another idea...

A young girl named Yukie wishes to resemble a famous dancer she sees on TV, and so sets out dressed like her along with her gang of friends. The mothers soon start to worry, as the kids have totally disappeared and a pervert is roaming the streets...