Bonfire of Roadmaps [With CD]

Title: Bonfire of Roadmaps [With CD]
Author: Joe Ely
ISBN: 9780292716537
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2007
Binding: Hardcover
Language: English
Condition: Used: Very Good
Clean, unmarked copy with some edge wear. Good binding. Dust jacket included if issued with one. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.

Q 1615791

Publisher Description:
In Bonfire, I can't help but think of the Beat writers--Corso, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and mostly, of course, Kerouac. . . . Bonfire of Roadmaps, at its very best, is about where music comes from and how it comes from. It offers us a glimpse into the heart of music. . . . This book is true. --Terry Allen Since he first hitched a ride out of Lubbock, Texas, at the age of sixteen, singer-songwriter and Flatlanders band member Joe Ely has been a road warrior, traveling highways and back roads across America and Europe, playing music for 2 hours of ecstasy out of 22 hours of misery. To stay sane on the road, Ely keeps a journal, penning verses that sometimes morph into songs, and other times remain snapshots of what was flying by, just out of reach, so to savor at a later date when the wheels stop rolling, and the gears quit grinding, and the engines shut down. In Bonfire of Roadmaps, Ely takes readers on the road with him. Using verse passages from his road journals and his own drawings, Ely authentically re-creates the experience of a musician's life on tour, from the hard goodbyes at home, to the long hours on the road, to the exhilaration of a great live show, to the exhaustion after weeks of touring. Ely's road trips begin as he rides the rails to Manhattan in 1972 and continue up through recent concert tours with fellow Flatlanders Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock. While acknowledging that it is not the nature of a gypsy to look in the rearview mirror, Joe Ely nevertheless offers his many fans a revelatory look back over the roads he's traveled and the wisdom he's won from his experiences. And for those who want to venture beyond the horizon just to see what is there . .. to those, I hope these accounts will give a glint of inspiration . . .