David Kleiner

David Kleiner’s tunes tell stories. Hearing Ramblin’ Jack sing the dramatic “Southcoast” (Ross/Eskin) on Gene Shay’s show compelled a teenaged Kleiner to learn guitar. Soon, he became an adept fingerpicker. Since then, he’s performed many hundreds of times, sung for and with his students for over 25 years, written songs for sketch comedy shows at Charlottesville’ s Live Arts Theater, seen his songwriting workshop for hospitalized young folks become a CD featuring artists like Pete Kennedy and John McCutcheon, toured France in an old-time band, won the emerging performer award at the Avalon Folk Festival, and recorded three studio albums. Most importantly, he’s composed about 200 songs, driven to create and share stories that reveal truths. In Sing Out’s review of “This Human Heart,” Angela Page notes that its love songs take listeners on journeys of “bitterness, aching, loss, devotion, fulfillment, and passion." That’s the power of good stories brought to life! Kleiner’s precise, evocative lyrics move audiences, even in his funniest songs. “The News That’s Fit to Sing,” his tribute to boyhood idol Phil Ochs, retells newspaper stories that moved Kleiner: folksinger Jack Hardy on the day his brother died in 9/11, fans of losing baseball teams, the death of “Nine Afghan Children.” Next? An album of character studies. Fans seeing Kleiner open for Pat Wictor or Dave Matthews or headline iconic venues like Charlottesville’s Prism or World Cafe, might not have known what to expect. Perhaps they heard acoustic love songs, energetic rock, outrageous humor, or incisive political commentary. But they surely left both entertained and reflective.