In a rare New England appearance, acclaimed singer-songwriter David Berkeley will give a solo concert at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m.
Berkeley will perform selections from his newest album, “The Fire in My Head,” released in July.
If there is a genre of American literary songwriters out there, David Berkeley could be its poster child. The Harvard graduate's memoir, “140 Goats and a Guitar,” accompanied his fourth album, “Some Kind of Cure.”
Both memoir and album were written during a year Berkeley lived in a remote mountain village of 35 on the island of Corsica. “I am fascinated by the relationship between stories and songs,” Berkeley explains. “What experiences make for a good story? And what is only expressable in song?”
Berkeley's doleful baritone and vulnerable falsetto, called “lustrous and melancholy” by The New York Times, showcase profoundly elegiac lyrics.
Supplementing his “traditional” career as a singer-songwriter, Berkeley has been moonlighting as a sort of Cyrano de Bergerac, writing personalized love songs, serenades, and songs to accompany wedding proposals.
Inspired by the hilarious tale Berkeley told on NPR's “This American Life” of one such private serenade, clients frequently fly him in to perform these songs in the most intimate situations. “It's been an honor,” Berkeley explains, “to play a role in such important moments in others' lives, but it can also be incredibly awkward. Some of these situations - wedding proposals, for example - are really meant to shared between only two people.”
Berkeley's voice has found its way into another unexpected place as well: soaring above processed drums, booming bass, and swirling synthesizers in the dance clubs around the world. After his hit song “Fire Sign” (which originally appeared in the CBS-TV show “Without a Trace") was remixed by a German DJ, Berkeley has been sought after by a host of DJs to write and perform vocals over their backing tracks.
His collaborations with Sean Tyas and Steve Brian, among others, have been spun by Tiesto, Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, and Pedro del Mar, to name a few. In 2012 Beatport had Berkeley on its list of the 50 Best Male Trance Vocalists.
Berkeley is the recipient of ASCAP's Johnny Mercer Songwriter Award. He maintains a near-constant touring schedule both in the states and abroad. He has opened for Adele, Mumford & Sons, Dido, Don McLean, Ben Folds, Ray Lamontagne, Billy Bragg, Nickel Creek, Rhett Miller, and many more.