Event

Bill and Kate Isles, a special LilFest House Concert

Bill Isles returned to performing after a twenty-five year hiatus in February of 2000. Since that time, he has become one of the most highly-respected singer/songwriters in the Minnesota acoustic scene and has begun to get national and international attention.

His songs are down-to-earth poetic reflections of life experiences and often explore adventurous metaphorical worlds. These worlds vary greatly in scope and texture such as the differences between the clever honky-tonk ambiguity of "The Hole in Our Town" and the enchanting feel of "Sistine Chapel", both from his 2003 release "The Threshold". Each of his compositions provides a spectrum of interpretation opportunities, as well, as demonstrated by "Sistine Chapel". At first, you might conclude that the song is a first-person account of Michelangelos first visit to scope out the project at the Sistine Chapel, but you start to realize that, perhaps, this is also an artists perception of entering the chapel of his/her audience. Then, again, it also hints at the intimate interaction of lovers. It is this multi-layering that has drawn fans to listen over and over again, and to describe his live performances as "mesmerizing".

His love of life and command of language has strong roots in his childhood, but his urgency to tell these stories comes from an experience in 1993 when, with just enough warning to drive himself to the hospital, his heart stopped beating. He arrived with just ten minutes to spare. After being defibrillated, and before the doctors had time to detect and open a blocked artery in his heart, he made a commitment to himself that, if he survived, he would begin to write again. Those paddles restarted his heart in more ways than one