Travis Edward Pike's Odd Tales and Wonders

Travis Edward Pike's Odd Tales and Wonders offers a collection of his original poetry, song lyrics, and an illustrated account of his musical career during the politically, socially, and musically turbulent decade from 1964-1974.

Imagine a time capsule, sealed in 1974, full of exciting storytelling songs and rhymes composed at the height of the American social and musical revolution of that time -- not recordings, but lyrics and rhymes never before recorded for public release. Then, imagine the time capsule is deteriorating with most of its treasures still inside, and unless these works are retrieved and recorded quickly, they may soon be lost forever. Travis Edward Pike's Odd Tales and Wonders is equal parts memoir and collection of some of his most memorable works from 1964-1974. Arriving in Los Angeles in 1968, this multi-talented Bostonian won an INTERCOM award for Special Achievement - Writing at the 1999 Chicago Film Festival for his feature-length video performance of his original epic narrative rhyme, Grumpuss. At the 2006 U.S. International Film and Video Awards, as the co-writer, co-producer and editor, he took home Certificates for Creative Excellence for the feature documentary Volunteers for Verdi. If his career was a screenplay, this book would be its First Act and its publication would signal the beginning, in screenwriter's jargon, of its Third Act, when all the obstacles introduced in this First Act are overcome and the saga's many subplots are resolved. Music journalist Harvey Kubernik, author of A Perfect Haze: The Illustrated History of the Monterey International Pop Festival and Canyon of Dreams: The Magic and the Music of Laurel Canyon writes in his Foreword to Odd Tales and Wonders, "Read his book and listen to the soundtrack from the First Act of the life now being revealed by this multi-talented Hollywood multi-hyphenate. Discover his music and poetry, once heard live by thousands, preserved in memory and notebooks, and finally, for the first time, arranged and recorded for this generation in Odd Tales and Wonders: Stories in Song and Odd Tales and Wonders: Stories in Rhyme." Includes the words to all the songs and rhymes in the collection.

Born in 1944 in Boston, Massachusetts, Hollywood multi-hyphenate Travis Edward Pike is an author, screenwriter, publisher, filmmaker, singer-songwriter, storyteller, producer, film director, independent scholar, and entrepreneur. The former director of production for Cine-Media International, former president of Otherworld Entertainment Corp., former executive vice president of the Alameda Writers Group, and Chairman Emeritus of the New Playwrights Foundation, Pike’s skills, imagination and artistry are legend.Pike’s “Odd Tales and Wonders” introduces him in the decade that saw his earliest career transitions, from animator, singer-songwriter, actor, and storyteller, to music director, production executive, screenwriter and composer of an original rock musical, “Morningstone.” Pike is currently writing a book, scheduled for publication in 2016, that will utilize much of Morningstone’s screenplay form to tell its story to the public. It’s introduction will be about the motion picture development that helped forge it into the form it has today. There will be another section (or possibly another whole book), Morningstone’s Mysteries, about the occult, mythic, and folkloric elements in the work, that should finally give Morningstone its rightful place as a modern classic.In 1997, Pike produced the world premiere live performance of his award-winning, critically-acclaimed, epic narrative rhyme, “Grumpuss,” at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England, for the Save the Children Fund. That video production is no longer in release, but “Travis Edward Pike’s Grumpuss, the 15th Anniversary Audio Theater Edition” is currently in release in a double CD set, and an illustrated book version is tentatively scheduled for publication as soon as the illustrations are delivered.Pike is finishing up another music album, for release early in 2016 and when these projects finally reach completion, Pike will finally address “Long-Grin,” his original epic saga of the red-backed, scaly, black-bellied, tusked, bat-winged dragon of Arthurian legend. And should Pike live long enough to complete that five-part series, there are rumors of another, equally exciting piece waiting in the wings.