“Midnight on the Highway” is an original bluegrass song associated with Hot Rize, the influential Colorado band. It is credited to members of the group, chief among them the singer and multi-instrumentalist Tim O’Brien, and it appeared on the band’s 1979 self-titled debut album.
The song is a road song — the lonely, hypnotic feeling of a musician driving through the dark hours, the highway unrolling under the headlights toward the next town and the next show. That working-musician’s subject, set to a brisk bluegrass drive, gave the song an authentic, lived-in quality.
“Midnight on the Highway” became one of the better-known songs from Hot Rize’s early repertoire and has been recorded by other bluegrass bands since, a small classic of the modern road-song tradition.
