I was born in Memphis and raised in Chicago. I grew up hearing my mother and her sisters singing and playing southern spirituals and what was then called hillbilly music. Growing up in Chicago I was also exposed to blues and folk music. I had the best of both worlds. I was exposed to the music and cultures of the North and the South. I think you can hear the influences of both in my music.
The house I grew up in in Evanston Illinois, was a few blocks in one direction from where Steve Goodman (City of New Orleans) lived and a few blocks in the other direction from where Jethro Burns (Homer & Jethro) lived. Jethro's son John Burns and I were fast friends. John was in an incredible band called Wildflower. I would go watch John’s band, or Steve Goodman and John Prine as often as I could. I would sit there watching, listening, just soaking it all up. I was studying. It was Rock and Roll school and they served beer. John Burns was an amazing guitar player and a great showman and singer. He also played guitar in John Prine’s band (listen to John Prines "Bruised Orange" album) I was very aware of these guys and what they were doing. I studied them. Hung out with them as much as I could. just hoping some of their magic would rub off on to me. There was also a man who lived in my neighborhood who claimed to have written the song "Abilene". I would hear that song on the radio. I was surrounded by people who were doing it, so at a very early age I figured I would try to do it as well. And as I said, they served beer.
There was a club a few blocks from my house called Amazing Grace, which was truly an amazing place. It had begun as a coffee house on the campus of Northwestern University, but it moved off campus as it grew in size and stature. I spent so much time there that they eventually stopped charging me to get in. Amazing Grace would feature acts like Randy Newman, Emmylou Harris, Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie, John Prine, Jethro Burns and or Steve Goodman, and Chicago folk singers like Bryan Bowers, Jim Post, the Holstein Brothers, Bob Gibson, Bonnie Koloc and others. Again, it was like going to school. I soaked it up (and they served beer). There was something about seeing one person with just a guitar or sitting at a piano that really spoke to me. I saw it as being so intimate. No big noise to hide behind. It was just putting your soul out there. It was very raw and very naked. I was attracted to that.
Another club that was very close to my house in Evanston was Biddy Mulligan’s. An Irish blues bar! I saw Muddy Waters, BB King, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, Hound Dog Taylor, Otis Rush, James Cotton and dozens of others. The stage was about ten feet from the bar so it was very up close and personal. It was very easy to just hang out with the acts when they were on breaks or after hours. Biddy’s is where I first met Buddy Guy and Junior Wells. One of my favorites to see there was Koko Taylor. I sat with Koko many times drinking whiskey and talkin’ the blues. Years latter she and I did some shows together and we laughed about those times at Biddy Mulligan’s. Like me, Koko was born in Memphis and then lived in Chicago. I guess that was our connection. I loved Koko and her old man Pops.
I loved Chicago but the winters there just killed me. I headed for the sunshine state as soon as I was able. I settled in the sleepy college town of Gainesville, Florida. I soon discovered that Gainesville had quite a musical family tree. I just couldn’t get over how many people in this small town played music. It was amazing to me! Everywhere I turned there was a guy who played mandolin, another who played fiddle, guitar players, singers, and songwriters. It seemed every person I met played something. Then I found out all these heroes of mine came out of Gainesville. Bernie Leadon who was in the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Eagles was from here and is now a close friend. So was fellow Eagle Don Felder, Tom Petty and Heartbreakers Stan Lynch, Benmont Tench, Mike Campbell and Ron Blair, Stephen Stills, members of Blackfoot, and rock and roll pioneer and another dear friend Bo Diddley. This little town has produced some amazing talent. Gainesville bosts nine Rock and Roll Hall of Fame members. But for each one who has made it to the top there are dozens of amazing local players here who havent. I mean some amazing musicians. Folkies, Jazz heads, rockers, bluegrass pickers…it’s amazing.
My first Gainesville girl was Monica Leadon. Monica played guitar and turned me on to bluegrass. It was through Monica that I was really exposed to bluegrass first hand. She was from a very large family and just about every one of the Leadon family played something with strings on it. Her oldest brother Bernie Leadon had been in the Flying Burrito Brothers, had recorded with Dillard and Clark and was one of the original Eagles. Her brother Tom Leadon had been in Tom Petty's band Mudcrutch and had moved to California and played with Linda Ronstadt and Johnny Rivers. Tom recently teamed up with Tommy Petty to record the new Mudcrutch album. Monicas brothers Mark Leadon and Fran Leadon are great players as well. I am still very close to Monica and her family. They have adopted me. We still play some great music at the old Leadon home.
I moved to Gainesville in 1976. The first day that I moved to Gainesville I got a job working at the Great Southern Music Hall. The Great Southern was the Fillmore of the South. I worked with the stage crew but mostly what I did was to deal with the artists. Being a musician myself the promoters quickly saw that I could walk the walk and talk the talk, so they would have me take care of the artists. Those years at the Great Southern taught me so much about the craft of playing on stage and of working with sound and lights. I worked with so many wonderful musicians. It was during my time at the Great Southern that I first met John Hammond and Leo Kotkee. John and I became very close and are great friends to this day. He and I have had some wonderful times together over the years. It’s funny but we’ve always thought that we sort of look a like. We recently discovered that our mothers had the same maiden name. His mom and my mom were both McBride’s. We got a kick out of that and figured we share the same gene pool somewhere down the line. Years ago I took John out to Bo Diddleys ranch. He and Bo had never met and they spent the day playing in Bo's studio. Bo cooked us up a batch of his Bo Diddley gumbo. Fun times. I spent a good amount of time with Leo Kotkee as well. Leo is one of the funniest people I have ever met. I could tell some stories but I dare not! I mention John and Leo because of the influence they both have had on my playing. Over the years I have been lucky enough to spend a bit of one-on-one plaing time with both of them. Like a sponge I just soaked it up. They both taught me an awful lot and I thank them for that.
I have been lucky enough to have worked with Muddy Waters, BB King, Jessie Collin Young, Taj Mahall, Randy Newman, Greg Allman, Hot Tuna, Johnny Shines, Mellissa Manchester, Earl Scruggs, John Hartford, John Prine, Bonnie Raitt, and just way too many others to remember. It truly was like going to rock and roll school. I learned so much from being around all those people. I have to credit the promoters as well. Being around them taught me a lot about the business end of music.
It didn’t take me long to start carving my initials into Gainesville’s musical family tree. I began playing the local bars, pubs and clubs as a solo act. My first big show in Gainesville was a show I did with John Hartford and Gamble Rogers. I think that was in 1977?
I did the solo thing all through the late 70’s and into the early 80’s. Then I completely stopped playing for awhile. I was just burned out and was tired of playing solo. Somewhere around the mid to late 80’s I started to write and play again. I began to sit in with local bands and I got bit by the bug again.
One night back in the 80’s my dear friend and promoter Albert Teebaggy and I were with Robin Williams and Robin’s manager David Steinberg. It was just the four of us in Robin’s suite after a show just hanging out and talking all through the night. Robin and David had just finished doing the first Comedy Relief Concert and they were talking about how important it was to help the hungry and homeless. Robin’s passion is very infectious. Right then and there I had an epiphany and I said, “Hey maybe I could do the same thing with music here on a local level.” With the help of a group of other local musicians, that’s just what I did. I began to organize these huge fundraising concerts every year right around Thanksgiving to raise food for the homeless and hungry. I did it 5 or 6 years straight. It was really something. I’d have 10-15 bands playing all day and into the night. We raised thousands of pounds of food every year. The last year I did it, Eddy Money and Desmond Child showed up to play. They flew in and performed for free! It seemed like the more I did for others, the more good things began happening to me.
It was around that time that my music really started to build momentum. In 1989 I got a call from a promoter who had heard a tape of me performing Bo Diddley’s song, Who Do You Love. The promoter asked me if I would like to open for George Thorogood. He then asks if I have a band. I told him that sure I have a band and then ask if I can call him right back. Well brother, ten minutes later I had a band. Opening for George Thorogood in front of about 6,000 people was my bands first gig. Not a bad start.
Shortly after that we opened for Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Paul Schaffer, BB King, John Mayall, and Johnny Winter. Those were fun crazy times. We were a really good band and I am proud of the work we did.
After the band split up, I started playing solo again. I picked up right where I had left off with the band. I played shows with John Hammond, Robert Cray, John Mayall, Johnny Winter, Jessie Collin Young, James Brown and many others. I was also playing some clubs, festivals and different places.
In 2001 I decided to finally record a CD. The night of 9/11 I wrote a song called Slippin’ Away. “There’s war on the TV, I’m on my own, there’s bills on the table, right next to the phone.” You can listen to "Slippin' Away" on this website. The years of 2003 and 2004 were tough ones. I got divorced, my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and the woman I had been seeing left me. I took it all pretty hard. My mom eventually succumbed to her cancer. She had been my absolute best friend. She and I were just so close. After her death I fell heart first into a bottle of whiskey. I mean my heart was not just broken…it was shattered. I showed my ass for about a year. I was just so devastated. I burned my bridges at both ends.
Later in 2004, Florida was hit with four hurricanes within a six week period. It was so electric. I mean you could just feel all this amazing energy. Gainesville is inland but we were still hit pretty hard. There was no gasoline, very little food, the businesses for the most part were all closed, and the roads were full of trees or water so you couldn’t drive anywhere. I just sat up in my apartment and wrote songs for six weeks. I really thought I had something special. These were good songs. These were really good songs. It was like all of a sudden I got it. I understood it. I really began to understand the craft of songwriting. I had a lot of stuff to get out and my muse was in those hurricanes. It was an amazingly creative six weeks. Most of the songs were about Diane who was the woman who had left me. The woman who had broken my heart. Diane was Gram Parsons sister. I guess I felt that because of her connection with Gram that I really had to bring my songwritting to the next level.
I eventually went into the studio with a pocket full of new songs. I didn’t go in alone this time. I went in the studio with some hired guns. I felt like the guy sitting at the card table holding four Aces. I had my old friend Stan Lynch on drums, Ronny Cates playing bass, and my old pal Jeff Sims producing the record. Plus I had Derron Nuhfer (Less than Jake) engineering and mastering the record. Jeff Sims really put it all into place. I just showed up with my guitar and my songs. I do have to say it was pretty cool to be standing in the vocal booth and to look out and see Stanley sitting behind the drums. I was humbled. I mean Stan had been Tom Pettys drummer for all those years. He had produced Don Henley’s record (Insides Job), and he’s worked with the Byrds, Elvis Costello and just so many greats. Then there’s Ronny Cates. Ronny has 5 Grammy’s from his work with the band Petra. He is an amazing bass player. His bass strings sound thick as phone poles! Ronny owned the studio and besides playing bass and guitars and engineering the record he was a wonderful host. Then there was Jeff Sims. Jeff and I go way back to the 70’s when Jeff was in the Dixie Desperados. Jeff had vision. He knew exactly what my songs needed. I really believe he knew their potential. Jeff produced an amazing sounding record.
So anyway, I show up at the studio with the Pros from Dover. The four of us had never played together. Stan would say “Teach us a song.” I would play one of the songs on the acoustic guitar then Stan, Ronny and me would go into the studio and cut it live. Most of the tunes we got on the first pass. Then we would all go into the control room and listen to what we had. Jeff, Stan and Ronny would then go in with all these different guitars and start layering different parts. It was fantastic! Stan would maybe jump on an electric 12 string, Ronny on a baritone, Jeff on a Jumbo acoustic guitar. We cut all 11 songs in two days. Stanley went in and spent a day doing percussions and back up vocals. Then I went in and spent two days doing my vocals and harmonicas. Ronny and Jeff mixed it, Derron mastered it and it was done. When I heard it the first time I was floored. It just sounded so beautiful. They took my little songs I had written on my acoustic guitar and turned them into this beautiful music. Talk about a metamorphosis! I was one proud struttin’ butterfly.
So now I had this great record but I wasn’t really sure what to do with it. I normally play solo, just me sitting on a stool with my guitar and a harmonica around my neck. I didn’t have a band to back up the sound of the record and there was no way Stan, Ronny and Jeff were going to become my band. They all have dozens of projects going on. I didn’t want to release it and just sell it locally. I wanted something bigger than that. Plus I didn’t know exactly where it fit. Was it country? Was it a rock record? Was it Roots or Americana? So I sat on it for almost two years.
I played it for my friend Richard Bassil. Richard and I go back to the mid 70’s. Richard had been Marty Ballin’s (Jefferson Airplane) bass player for years and had played all around the world. Anyway I played it for Richard and he flipped. He completely fell in love with the record. He said I had to release it. He said people really needed to hear these songs. Sometimes you need someone to tell you that your work is valid. So I finally had it manufactured and released it.
I don’t know why I sat on it so long. It is a very personal record. I was really writing from the heart. I was writing from a broken heart. It was very healing though. The songs were about my heart breaking after my mom died, my divorce, and about my girl friend leaving me. It’s not a remorseful sounding record at all but it is about love and loss.
I have recently started playing again with my old bass player Kenny Shore. Kenny is a great bass player and may be the best harmony singer I have ever worked with. Kenny and I have been playing out as a duo. We are having a ball. After playing live as a solo for so many years it has really been great to be playing with Kenny again.
I am always writing or thinking about writing and have a handful of new songs that I am hoping to record soon. I'll keep you all posted!
Thanks - Barry Sides
