A Dream About Lightning Bugs available July 30th
Multi-platinum selling singer-songwriter Ben Folds is known for his musical genius and spontaneous creativity – composing a song with the National Symphony Orchestra live, collaborating with the likes of Sara Bareilles, Regina Spektor and William Shatner, serving as a judge for five seasons on NBC’s acclaimed a capella show The Sing-Off, being named the first-ever artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, being an outspoken champion for arts education and music therapy. It’s not been an easy road to get to where he is today, but the ups and downs are what Folds insists are essential for any artist.
Now, Folds looks back at his life so far in a charming and wise chronicle of his artistic coming-of-age, infused with the wry observations of a natural storyteller. In his first book A Dream About Lightning Bugs, he opens up about finding his voice as a musician, becoming a rock anti-hero, and hauling a baby grand piano on and off stage for every performance.
A native of North Carolina, Folds writes that as an infant his cradle was a cardboard box, while his family’s mode of transportation was a doorless convertible jeep, where a four-month-old Ben would sit in catapult position. He discovered his love of the piano in second grade, and from there we follow his journey to becoming the musician he wanted to be.
Along the way there are great lessons – supportive music teachers pushing him, dropping out of college to start a real band — drums were thrown into a lake at the University of Miami. He puts it all out there, writing about the bad – a botched SNL performance where he couldn’t even enjoy hanging out with Samuel L. Jackson at the after party; and the good – he and two other young men eventually forming Ben Folds Five. He paid his dues — his polka career never quite took off — while never giving up on his dream. A Dream About Lightning Bugs is as humorous as it is poignant, as observant/revelatory as it is compulsively readable.
Folds hits the road starting in late July for a cross country concert tour, featuring his book at every performance, as well as holding stand-alone book events along the way.
Upcoming Book Events:
July 31 – New York, NY – The Strand @ The Cooper Union
August 5 – Pittsburgh, PA – White Whale Bookstore @ First Unitarian Church
August 7 – Winston-Salem, NC – Bookmarks @ R. J. Reynolds Auditorium
August 9 – Nashville, TN – Parnassus Books @ TBC
August 12 – Ann Arbor, MI – Literati Bookstore @ The Blind Pig
August 16 – Kansas City, MO – Rainy Day Books @ Unity Temple
September 12 – San Francisco, CA – San Francisco Jewish Community Center
September 16 – Los Angeles, CA – Book Soup @ Regent Theater DTLA
September 21 – Dallas, TX – Dallas Museum of Art
October 1 – Washington, DC – Politics & Prose @ Kennedy Center
