Biography

Bill Harley has been called "the Mark Twain of contemporary children's music," and the comparison is apt. Harley's songs and stories cut to the heart of everyday life with a broad appeal. Although he uses a wide range of genres in his music, from reggae to doo wop to country & western, it's his ability to turn a simple, heartfelt phrase in lyrics and stories that stick with you. Every one of his children's recordings has won some kind of national honor. Harley grew up in the Midwest and Connecticut. Although his escapades in elementary school and junior high figure prominently in his storytelling, Harley was not a problem child. "I never spent much time in the principal's office, despite what people think. I behaved well enough that grownups left me alone, so I held the adult world at arm's length. I still do." Harley graduated with honors in religion from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. But it was social action that really interested him. Harley worked in a program to help children and parents deal with violence, and was active in a variety of other community service programs. Harley started performing for children in 1980, mostly in the New England area. With his wife and manager, Debbie Block, Harley created his own label, Round River Records. In 1985, Round River released Monsters in the Bathroom, a collection of folk songs and stories with such titles as "Black Socks" and "What's the Matter with You?" The success of Monsters encouraged Harley to release Fifty Ways to Fool Your Mother in 1986, and Harley started appearing nationally in regional storytelling and folk festivals. Round River's 1987 release Cool in School featured one of Harley's best stories, "Zanzibar." The story of a boy's procrastination on his fifth-grade report, "Zanzibar" is reminiscent of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" -- but better. Cool in School won a Parent's Choice Award, and solidly placed Harley among the Top Ten performers of children's entertainment. Harley has always enjoyed collaborating with other artists, and it's this adventurousness that has added a great range of recordings to his credits. Harley worked with Peter Alsop in 1988, and the result was the following year's In the Hospital, a reassuring group of songs for kids. In 1991, Harley recorded the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. songfest at his house, and the result was I'm Gonna Let It Shine. Featuring the talents of over 20 folksingers, I'm Gonna Let It Shine chronicled the songs of the civil rights movement in the '60s. The album was selected Entertainment Weekly's Best Recording of the Year. In 1996, Harley again collaborated, this time on a stage musical for elementary age children. Lunchroom Tales: A Natural History of the Cafetorium featured several stories and songs, including "Morning Announcements," a hilarious send-up of the typical audio piped into classrooms. Harley followed the success of Lunchroom with a 1997 collection, There's a Pea on My Plate, filled with typically sensitive songs about losing at soccer and fear of vegetables. Ever prolific and versatile, Harley gained momentum in the early 21st century through his steady stream of new albums. Between 1999 and 2010, he put out 13 albums -- including a 2002 collaborative album, Sandburg Out Loud, with Carol Birch, Angela Lloyd, and David Holt, and a live album called Yes to Running! in 2008 -- and beginning in 1999, he started to rack up Grammy Award nominations. His first NARAS nod was for 1998's Weezie and the Moon Pies, which appeared in the Best Spoken Word Album for Children category at the 1999 Grammys; he'd be renominated in that category in 2000 for The Battle of the Mad Scientists and Other Tales of Survival and in 2010 for The Best Candy in the Whole World, while he'd take that award in both 2007 and 2009 (Blah Blah Blah: Stories About Clams, Swamp Monsters, Pirates & Dogs and the aforementioned Yes to Running!, respectively). In 2008, he was nominated for Best Musical Album for Children for I Wanna Play, and he'd return to that category in 2012 with High Dive and Other Things That Could Have Happened.... In addition to the regular release of records, Harley has published children's books on a regular basis. His first, the Peter Alsop collaboration In the Hospital, arrived in 1989 as a companion to the album of the same name, but as his popularity rose, so did the number of titles he published. His first full children's novel, The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisher, arrived in 2006, and his career as an author reached a pinnacle in 2013 with the unveiling of his Charlie Bumpers series. ~ P.J. Swift, Rovi