“The best of the young American songwriters, a voice full of feeling and a big, big heart. And the balls to say what he thinks.” — Boston Phoenix
“If you’re into literate, soulful singer-songwriters, David Berkeley is the Gabriel Garcia Marquez of beautiful-voiced troubadours.” — KRUU
Singer-songwriter David Berkeley returns to Brattleboro for the New England release of his newest album, Cardboard Boat, and the accompanying novella, The Free Brontosaurus (Rare Bird). Joined by guitarist Bill Titus and special guest Tyler Gibbons of the Vermont-based duo Red Heart the Ticker, Berkeley will perform in the museum’s Wolf Kahn & Emily Mason Gallery, surrounded by the artwork of Jim Dine.
TICKETS: $16 in advance, $20 at the door
Because space is limited, we recommend purchasing tickets in advance via CatamounTIX.
Seating is by general admission. Doors open at 7 p.m
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Singer-songwriter/author David Berkeley will release his sixth album, Cardboard Boat, on September 25, 2015 via his own Straw Man label. The album will accompany his novella of ten interwoven stories titled, The Free Brontosaurus (Rare Bird). The album and book will be released on the same day.
The songs are sung from the perspective of each story’s main character. The releases are a rare complement to each other, but with a degree in literature from Harvard, over a decade of touring under his belt, and a stage show that melds profound songs and hilarious anecdotes, Berkeley is uniquely positioned to be able to pull off such an ambitious project.
Berkeley has amassed a dedicated and widespread following who fully funded the creation of this new album and book. He’s been a guest on This American Life, Mountain Stage, World Café, CNN, XM Radio’s Loft Sessions, WFUV, NPR’s Acoustic Café, and many more.
He recently won the 2015 Kerrville New Folk competition and ASCAP’s Johnny Mercer Songwriting Award. Called “a musical poet” by the San Francisco Chronicle, “sensational” by the Philadelphia Inquirer and “spellbinding” by Blurt, Berkeley receives critics’ praise for his carefully crafted philosophic lyrics and soulful baritone, which at one moment resonates richly only to swoop into a fragile falsetto in the next.
This isn’t the first time Berkeley has paired songs with stories. In 2010, upon returning from a year on the island of Corsica, Berkeley released his initial book/album combination: 140 Goats and a Guitar. That book comprises 13 stories, each of which sets up a song on his fourth album, Some Kind of Cure. “With Goats,” Berkeley explains, “I told the stories that led to the writing of that album’s songs. The book is a lot about becoming a new father and the craft of songwriting. My new project, though, feels like the proper way to weave stories and songs.”
Cardboard Boat begins with an ominous bowed bass and ends with the ethereal tinkling of metals. In between, we get Berkeley’s carefully fingerpicked guitar, banjos, trumpets, organ, string sections, nylon and electric guitars and a whole array of drums and percussion sounds. Always front and center, though, are Berkeley’s voice and lyrics, supported on five of the ten tracks by the silver-throated Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek. Each song is a story in itself, a layered landscape of sounds and textures. “I’ve always been drawn to blending the organic with the electronic, finding that tense balance where one morphs into the other.”
Complex issues unfold, brought to life by Berkeley’s insights drawn from literature, poetry, and his own experiences. There are references to Moby Dick in “Setting Sail” and Norse mythology in “The Wishing Well.” One of the standout tracks, “To the Sea,” is an elegy for an estranged father sung by a prodigal daughter. It’s a prayer for second chances as Berkeley and Watkins sing together “let me be like the leaves on the trees. / They come back in the spring, gold to green. / Or let me be like the stream full of rain. / It comes back eventually to the sea.”
For more information, visit www.davidberkeley.com.
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