Danville, KY – Cellist and songwriter Ben Sollee said he was hoping to play a counterbalance to the Vice Presidential Debate when he took the stage at the Debate Festival on the campus of Centre College.
While the atmosphere on social media and outside the Norton Center for the Arts once Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan start to debate will get partisan and heated, Sollee wanted to share his love for the region’s geographic and personal attributes.
“I love it here, I am going to celebrate the physical, natural beauty in the state, I’m going to celebrate a lot of the culture that I come from,” he said.
Sollee, who said he had strong personal leanings on the environment, said he would intentionally steer clear of brining his politics into the festival, which is sponsored by the AARP and has a strong presence from an organization called Clean Coal, Americaspower.com.
“We are going to play a song a lot in the audience have asked us to play called ‘A Few Honest Words,’ I think that’s what people are really craving in this debate and the whole political conversation is more honest conversation,” he said.
Sollee just released his latest album, “Half Made Man,” on his own Kentucky-based label and is currently on tour. He’ll head to Oberlin College for a show before proceeding to Ann Arbor, Mich.