Storyteller Bil Lepp, Sunday, October 4, 2020. 2 PM (Virtual) Workshop, 4 PM (Virtual) Performance

Bil Lepp is a nationally touring storyteller who travels around the country entertaining kids and adults with his funny tall tales. He’s been featured 15 times at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro, Tennessee has performed at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and can be found telling stories at many of the nation’s schools, concert halls, festivals, and public functions. He‘s a writer too and his picture book ‘The King of Little Things’ won the 2014 Pan America Prize for picture book writing.

Bil Lepp is also famously the five-time champion of the West Virginia Liars Contest, an event designed to perpetuate the art of oral history and Appalachian culture. He no longer enters the contest but has become somewhat of an authority on how these contests are run. So much so that in 2019 when SFMS decided to hold a Liars Contest at the Susquehanna Folk Festival, we tapped him to mentor us and serve as emcee at this inaugural event.

SFMS received the added benefit of having Bil at the festival where he performed on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and gave numerous workshops for kids and adults. He very quickly became a festival favorite, with fans following him around from event to event!

Now he’s back for a virtual storytelling workshop (for adults) and a performance which will both be held on Sunday, October 4 at 2-3:30 (workshop) and 4-5 (live-stream performance).

These events are held in partnership between the Susquehanna Folk Music Society and the Lititz Storytelling Festival

Both events will be held on Zoom and registration is required. To register visit https://sfms.ticketspice.com/storyteller-bil-lepp

CHAOS DOESN’T HAPPEN ON ITS OWN

A Storytelling Workshop for Adults ($15 and $20 at the Supporter Level)

2pm – 3:30pm on Zoom

Bil Lepp’s stories often move simple everyday acts and occurrences into complex, layered tall tales. How does the chaos happen? Through a few careful, but easy, steps. Want to find out what those steps are? This workshop will look at avenues of exploration and research to help you build the foundation for well-told lies, falsehoods and exaggerations — so your audience walks away giggling and thinking, “Yep, that’s what would happen if…”

LIVE STORYTELLING AND CONVERSATION

4pm Live-stream Performance (A suggested donation of $15 -$20 at the Supporter Level)

After the workshop, we’ll go on the air with Bil for an hour of truth-stretching, shaggy dogs and outright whoppers, and a chat with an SFMS community member.

Want to learn more about Bil? The information below was taken from online interviews and Bil’s website at https://www.leppstorytelling.com

LEARN MORE!

ABOUT BIL (from his website)

Bil’s humorous, family-friendly tall-tales and stories have earned the appreciation of listeners of all ages and from all walks of life. Though a five-time champion of the WV Liars’ Contest, Lepp’s stories often contain morsels of truth which present universal themes in clever and witty ways. Audiences all across the country, from grade schools to corporate execs to the Comedy Central’s Hudson stage, have been delighted by Bil’s mirthful tales and delightful insights into everyday life. Bil’s books and audio collections have won awards including the PEN Steven Kroll Award for Children’s Book Writing, Parents’ Choice Gold awards, and awards from the National Parenting Publications Assoc., and the Public Library Assoc.

THREE EXCERPTS FROM A RECENT ONLINE INTERVIEW July 2, 2020 interview Betsy Bird Q & A, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-rXFRwBK0U

1. Storytelling process

“The stories that I tell on stage, almost all of them I’ve written myself. They are not really fractured fairytales; most of them are sort of Appalachia-based tall tales that I’ve created out of folk cloth. I deal a lot with twisting the way we normally perceive things and turning characters around so they are not who we expect and those sorts of tricks.

The difference between telling a story and having a conversation is when you tell a story the audience can’t ask you questions so you have to anticipate what they might want to ask.

You have to look at what you are putting together and figure out what you might be taking for granted. What you are assuming that everyone else knows. And you have to make sure that it’s clear to your audience what it is that you are talking about.”

2. Creating a believable setting

“The easiest way to do this is to start a story with, “Once upon a time,” or “a long, long time ago.” Anytime we hear those phrases, we’ve been trained since we were little tiny babies that this might mean that plants and pots and pans can talk, and anything magical can happen. We may be put in a world that is still on earth but beyond what we normally experience. As listeners when we hear that it opens up what I call the ‘context box’ and it’s inside the context box that we allow ourselves to suspend disbelief so that we can have an emotional reaction to things we know aren’t true.

3.Becoming a storyteller

“I didn’t know that there was any storytelling outside of the West Virginia Liars Contest. I mean I would get invited somewhere, like one of my very first paying gigs I was at a Buckwheat Pancake Festival and I had to stand on a milk crate and there was a microphone attached to a record player—that was the entire sound system. And I told stories as people went through the buffet line. So nobody had time to listen to my stories as I was telling them.

So I did the Liars Contest for about 8 years then I was invited to a West Virginia festival which was mostly West Virginia tellers, but they invited a guy named Ed Stivender who is a storyteller out of Philadelphia and Ed is a professional storyteller. He’s the first professional storyteller I ever met and it’s the first time I knew that’s a job you could do and then Ed, he’s just an amazing storyteller.

And when I saw Ed I thought, ”Man that would really be fun!” But more importantly, Ed heard me and he liked what I did and he gave my name to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro Tennessee. And in 2000 I got to do a 15-minute spot at the National Festival and it really went well. And things just sort of took off from there. And by 2003 storytelling was my full-time job and I’ve been doing it full time ever since then. “

Bil with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners at the Susquehanna Folk Festival Liars Contest

 

Saturday, September 12 at 7:30 PM Rob Kronen, 2020 Emerging Artists Showcase winner plays virtual concert

On Saturday, September 12 at 7:30 PM the Susquehanna Folk Music Society presents guitarist and songwriter Rob Kronen who will perform a virtual concert.

Rob Kronen took top honors at the 2020 Susquehanna Folk Music Society Emerging Artist Showcase in early August. He wowed the judges with his soulful voice, groovin’ blues guitar, and songwriting chops. He wowed the watchers too, as the runaway favorite in the showcase audience poll.

Rob, who hails from Berks County, PA, describes himself as a singer-songwriter and guitarist. He has self-released one full-length album, titled Neanderthal (Blue), as well as an EP, titled American Flood: Part 1. He has a passion for incorporating folk melodies into innovative sonic landscapes, as well as learning and teaching the techniques of hill country blues and Delta-style slide guitar.

A suggested donation of $15 ($20 at the Supporter Level) is requested, although viewers may pay what they can. Registered audience members will receive a confirmation email with an access link to view this performance live.  Access is available for one device at a time and cannot be shared.

Tickets are available at https://sfms.ticketspice.com/rob-kronen

For more information, visit the Susquehanna Folk Music Society website at www.sfmsfolk.org or https://www.facebook.com/RobKronenMusic/

We had a chance to learn more about Rob’s background, influences, and projects during a recent Zoom interview.

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FOLKMAMA: Congratulations on your 2020 Emerging Artists Showcase win! Your set was so impressive that we just had to get you back for a full-length concert!

I’m curious about your musical background and whose playing has most interested you.

ROB: I was around 12 or 13 when I got a guitar. At the time I was listening to what is now known as grunge music. I wanted to emulate those guys but then I started playing in high school with two friends of mine and stated writing original music, Jam Band kind of stuff.

And then I kept going during college, got my music degree [SUNY Oswego], and kept writing there. After college, I began writing even more. I’ve just been doing that since.

As far as inspirations it’s been a mixed bag. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of blues artists. Robert Johnson, Furry Lewis. Then I started going on to Mississippi Fred McDowell and later to Arnold Burnside and Junior Kimbrough.

All these guys have been on shuffle throughout the quarantine.

Lyrically, it could be anything. I’ve been taking some inspiration lately from some science writings, mostly climate change stuff which ties into the American Flood project that I’m working on. But beyond that, whatever piques my interest. I like discovering little interesting factoids that I can fit into my songs.

FOLK MAMA: Tell me about your interest in the blues.

ROB: One of the projects I’m going to try to do before the end of the year is taking a lot of the old blues songs that I’ve been listening to a reworking the lyrics about COVID. I’m planning to play some of these on Saturday night.

I take inspiration from the music itself, but also this feeling that this music has to come out. It was sort of popular then it faded, got popular again. There are people that are always doing it because they have to do it.

The time period is interesting. You get the early blues and then the late 20s and the 30s and you get all these classic recordings. The first wave of recorded blues. And then it kind of tappers off, because of the depression and World War Two. But then you find them again —Leadbelly comes back and Big Bill Broonzy comes back and in the early 60s you get to rediscover all these people.

As someone who is trying to make it as an artist, you take solace at different points of their lives and you say ‘they tried’ and then due to circumstances beyond their control they couldn’t try anymore and 30 years later they get to try again. I mean, Furry Lewis was a street sweeper in Memphis, and then in his 70s he played with the Rolling Stones!

It’s interesting to say in the current climate “What am I doing with this? Why is this appealing in this way? What kind of credit do I owe?” And I don’t know quite honestly. It’s the music that is speaking to me at this moment.

FOLKMAMA: And how has your interest in climate change found its way into your music?

ROB: I read a bunch of science books. One of them was called Eaarth [Bill McKibben] and it had a line about ‘Beaches in Memphis’ Like if all the ice in the world would melt, there would be beaches in Memphis. The imagery of that has stuck with me.

There is a line in one of my songs Jacob about shark attacks on Memphis Beach which doesn’t make sense if you think about it, but in the context of climate change it does. It’s been interesting for me to write on a theme—something as broad as a flood and to write various viewpoints from it. You get a lot of religious themes, and especially around the time of the late 20s and the early 30s was the great Mississippi River flood. So you get a lot of flood songs that are blues songs. I’m just now discovering them.

I started writing these songs in 2013 and am now thinking about the wildfires in California, Climate Change seems so much more real.

It’s still an interesting concept to me and I tend to write about big concepts. My goal is –as it stands now its 3 records and I’m working on the 2^nd. The first one was called American Flood Part 1 and it’s a five-song EP (https://robkronen.bandcamp.com/releases) and it was the first attempt of exploring this theme.

FOLKMAMA: How did you find out about the Emerging Artists Showcase?

I went to the Susquehanna Folk Festival last year to see Dom Flemons. As we were walking around we saw about the showcase and my wife said “You should do that.” And I said, “I don’t know, they’re pretty good” But when the e-mail came out about the Virtual showcase, I decided to enter.

FOLKMAMA: So what are you planning for the Saturday night concert?

ROB: I’m excited. I’m going to be playing an electric guitar. Some old blues covers. I always kind of fall back on the guitar because I got a 10 year head start vs. singing.

So I have an electric setup that I kind of enjoy.  A little bit more atmosphere on guitar, Bill Pursell or some of the other advent guard musicians coupled with old blues songs. I like it. We’ll see how it goes.