The sign alerts drivers that the pavement is ending. Washtenaw County’s dirt road leading to Mr. B’s house outside Ann Arbor was unexpectedly bumpy, a reflection of the musician’s life during the past year.
Mr. B is Mark Braun, a well-known and beloved Michigan musician whose decisions to take the road less traveled have earned him celebrity status in Southeast Michigan.
“I don’t read or write music, and I never studied the piano formally at all,” he said. Yet he performs and composes blues and boogie-woogie music at the region’s top venues and around the world. “Things come to me with some regularity. I just slowly begin to flush them out, based on what appeals to me and what seems interesting and what just feels natural to me. Usually it takes me several months, not always.”…