I’ve seen Ben Harper perform more than 20 times.
On the East Coast, on the West Coast, from major festivals like Lollapalooza to postage-stamped sized venues in Santa Rosa and Philadelphia.
At each and every one of those performances, through the trials and tribulations of life, he has never failed to deliver a rousing set of full of his trademark blend of spirited political protest songs, searing guitar solos and sweetly soulful love ballads that make thousands go weak in the knees.
Not once.
Harper has also never strayed from his values and commitment to social change. As he told me in an interview in 2006, referencing one of his idols, Bob Marley, “Change is a big-a** tree, and I’m a small motherf***ing axe. In my life, times have never been more charged than they are now, and I am proud to be one of the many voices of the silent majority, and I’ll keep putting it out there as I see it.”
It is that consistency of passionate performance that made Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals our top choice to headline the inaugural Mill Valley Music Fest on May 7th. They’ll be joined on the bill by Lettuce, one of the great funk-jam bands of the modern age, is also set to perform, alongside other popular acts like Nashville’s very own psychedelic-folk rockstar Liz Cooper & the Stampede; Latin Grammy Award-winning Venezuelan disco-funk trio Los Amigos Invisibles; and the Bay Area-based La Doña, a Latin-Alternative music project from Cecilia Cassandra Peña-Govea and considered to be one of the most sought-after new acts from the Golden State.
Here’s selection of music videos from Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals:
For more Ben Harper videos, GO HERE.
We’ll be serving up music videos from the rest of the amazing MVMF22 lineup in the days ahead!