Bill Harley - Acoustic Guitarist and Spoken Word Artist in Pleasanton

Bill Harley - Acoustic Guitarist and Spoken Word Artist

Date: 03/31 Saturday

2pm Family Show
8pm Adult Show

Storytellers were people's first magicians, people's first history keepers, society builders, culture shapers, and spiritual and emotional filters, making sense of the world long before written communication. For all humanity's sophisticated technology and mass electronic entertainment, there is still a need for those voices in the dark, by the fire, in the hall. A master storyteller connects everyone and intimately affirms lives with resonant truths, no matter how embroidered, funny, mysterious or horrific the tale. Bill Harley is a master storyteller.

The nationally-touring, critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter, author, musician and monologist is considered by fans and peers alike to be one of the best storytellers in the country for his celebrations of commonality and humanity through comic narrative songs and confessional spoken works. Entertainment Weekly labeled Harley, a two-time Grammy Award winner and multiple Grammy nominee, "the Mark Twain of contemporary children's music." However, tagging Harley with the "children's artist" label, even of the top-drawer variety, is as deceptive as this gifted artist's Puckish demeanor. In slice-of-life vignettes about school and family life, Harley uses humor and a fine-tuned sense of the ridiculous to illuminate compassionate truths, even while inspiring belly laughs. Adults absorb a Harley performance through a double filter of past and present.

As a regular commentator on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Harley's performances for adults feature his trademark blend of song and story, wit and wisdom. Children respond from the immediacy of their own lives, as with rubber-faced abandon he examines human foibles, flaws and embarrassments, common fears and simple pleasures. Join Firehouse as Bill returns to Pleasanton for two shows, his family show at 2:00pm and popular adult show at 8:00pm.

Categories: Other & Miscellaneous