There are people like Ken Burns that collect information and are great story tellers. This is not about them. I am talking about people that are brilliant in their field and can tell stories and share their ideas for hours and still have you entranced. And they make their field so easy to understand you can watch them as a child and completely understand everything they are saying. The most obvious, of course, is Richard Feynmann and physics and I would also include James Burke (of Connections and The Day the Universe Changed) with his almost unique view of history. Also Joseph Campbell and the creation and legacy of myths. Unfortunately I missed the Zahi Hawass lecture so even though I know he can tell a good story, I don’t know if it would be spellbinding for hours. Who today would you put in this category? The geniuses in the field that you would beg to go see lecture?
I don’t know if this example applies, since it sounds from your OP that you’re looking for examples of people who are not only experts in a particular field of study, but are good at explaining and telling stories about it.
But when I initially read your thread title I immediately thought of comedian Mike Birbiglia. I’ve enjoyed all of his comedy specials, and I recently saw his latest comedy special ‘The Old Man and the Pool’. Now, the thing is, he also has a podcast I listen to, called ‘Working it Out’. As the title implies, he works out undeveloped material with other comedians he interviews on the podcast. So for months I had already heard a lot of the jokes that would be in TOMatP. And, hearing the unfinished bits individually, I actually thought they were a bit on the lame and corny side. So I began watching TOMatP fully expecting disappointment.
But the way he weaved the jokes, most of which I had already heard, into a larger storytelling tapestry really worked. The show was poignant, moving, and I thought very funny,
He is one of my favorites.
He’s been on a number of shows in a less comedic vein. I believe he was on This American Life talking about his sleep disorder. Entertaining, but sobering. I can’t recall the name of his last special, but it was about the hard realities of new fatherhood.
When you talk about great storytellers, you definitely have to mention comedians.
I’m also going with the Reply All podcast which was lightning in a bottle. Beautiful journalistic storytelling that was often about more than what it was about. I’ve yet to find another podcast that good, but Behind the Bastards with Robert Evans is a close favorite. The way he can tell a story from history that’s surprising and appalling and humorous and then draw a really salient conclusion in a way that you never get tonal whiplash is truly impressive. His hilarious six-parter on G. Gordon Liddy ended with a deeply felt homage to his grandfather in which he neatly delineated the difference between G. Gordon Liddy’s delusional ideas about what it means to be a man and what an actual war hero and true positive masculinity really looks like.
David Sedaris spins a good tale, as does his sister, Amy.
When she gets on a roll, Kathleen Madigan is fab. John Mulaney is a stitch, too.
Yuval Harrari, historian and social philosopher, is a good fit for the criteria laid out in the OP. Sapiens is a mind-expanding book; haven’t read Homo Deus yet but it’s on my list.
For more traditional (fiction) story-tellers, I lean towards Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell and the recently deceased Cormac McCarthy (I guess that’s a disqualifier?), and Neal Stephenson does a good job of integrating a lot of technical research into his novels, though many on this board do not share my favorable opinion of his works.