Chances are you’re already a fan of Mr. Harley and you don’t even know it. Maybe you were watching the NBC’s Today show the morning they featured Mr. Harley singing “The Sneeze Song.” There’s the possibility you’re one of the 260 million people throughout Europe – that’s right, over a quarter of a billion – who saw the commercial for S. Olivers that featured Mr. Harley singing “Blue Shirt.” Perhaps you’re a fan on the DIY Networks Show Maine Cabin Masters where the stars of the show wear Mr. Harley’s Blue Shirts while they renovate old cabins in the deep woods of Maine. Or maybe you and your kids saw one of the hundreds of concerts Mr. Harley has given up and down the East Coast over the past fifteen years, and when they got back in the car they were singing songs of his that you found yourself humming a couple weeks later.

Well, the time has come for you to be properly introduced to Mr. Harley, a.k.a. Harley Smith, a children’s entertainer with an uncanny ability to connect with his audience – and their parents and grandparents.

Smith’s musical background is wide and deep; he got his start as a jazz-rock drummer, and his children’s songs move from one genre to another with the zip and excitement of a four-year-old. Find a four-year-old and play him “Funtime Animal Dance” or “These Rhyming Friends of Mine” to see what that looks like. And while the kids at his concerts are enjoying songs about dinosaurs and pirates and bananas (audience participation is not just encouraged, it’s practically spontaneous), the grown-ups are enjoying songs that share the sounds of jam bands, or ska bands, or even disco bands.

Libraries, schools, fairs, and other community events have featured Mr. Harley, and audiences have been truly enthusiastic, a fact that pleases the artist no end. “The honest, genuine happiness the children show… makes me feel what I’m doing is worthwhile,” he said in an interview, adding, “The only difference between a child and myself, in my mind, is my size.”

Mr. Harley has released three albums, Toast and Jelly, Blue Shirt, and Just Peel It which are all available on iTunes. He can also be found on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Whatever way you choose to follow him, the child in you will be glad that you did. And that child will have a LOT of company.