Motorcycles, Minotaurs, & Banjos

Two years ago, I left my house on my 60th birthday, on a modest but sexy Royal Enfield motorcycle, carrying a small banjo and in the company of a giant myth. I took a 2500 mile ride down the jagged spine of Appalachia to visit the graves of six banjo heroes and one murder victim. To play and sing and document the experience.

I thought I was going to claim music in some personally new way. And maybe I did, but the most satisfying outcome of the trip was that it returned me to writing. The resulting book, Motorcycles, Minotaurs, & Banjos: a Modest Odyssey, is available now, in print, as an eBook with hyperlinks to ride videos, and as an audio book, read (and occasionally misread) by me.

The book became a story about 21 days and 60 years. A loosy goosey retracing of my journey from high school dropout with an arrest record to professor with a bunch of books in the world. And the last 20+ years arm in arm with a Minotaur. The Minotaur. My M. The book is about banjos and players, fo sho, and Old Time music, and ghosts and the South, and bikes and riding, and the evolution of a literary life. It is also about perseverance and creative process. About overcoming obstacles, both real and imagined. About the power of curiosity.  A sustaining force. A path. A map for living a life dedicated to creating.