Barry Sides
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.
While still in high school I put together an all acoustic three-part harmony band called White Pony. We were very good especially for our age. We were so young. We had this manager who was about 10 years our senior who would get us gigs in all these clubs in Chicago and then down in Peoria. We weren’t even old enough to get in to the clubs but there we were playing in them. It was a great experience.
The house I grew up in 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. I ended up being great friends with Jethro’s son John. John Burns had this incredible band called Wildflower. I would go watch John’s band by myself as often as I could. I would just sit there and just soak it up. I was studying. John also played guitar in John Prine’s band and also recorded with Prine. I was very aware of these guys and what they were doing. I got it. I understood it and I wanted to be a part of it. They were all older than I was but I knew if they could do it then so could I. You can definitely hear the influence of those guys in some of my songs. There was also a guy who lived in my neighborhood who had 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 could do it as well.
I lived very close to a club called Amazing Grace, which was truly an amazing place. It had begun as a coffee house on the campus of Northwestern University, but 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. Weekly, Amazing Grace would feature acts like Randy Newman, Emmylou Harris, Richie Havens, Arlo Guthrie, John Prine, Jethro Burns and or Steve Goodman. Amazing Grace also featured the top Chicago folkies 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. I was studying every move they made.
I was really into acoustic music back then. 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 back then 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 a few 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 love 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. So was fellow Eagle Don Felder, Tom Petty and all the Heartbreakers, Stephen Stills, members of Blackfoot, and rock and roll pioneer Bo Diddley even calls Gainesville home. There must be something in the water. This little town produces some amazing talent. The cool thing too is that I have gotten to know some of those guys and have played with some as well. What’s even crazier is for every one who has made it there are dozens just as talented who haven’t. Folkies, Jazz heads, rockers…it’s amazing.
When I first moved to Gainesville, I was going out with Monica Leadon, who played guitar and who turned me on to bluegrass. I had of course heard bluegrass, but it was through Monica that I was really exposed to bluegrass first hand. She was one of twelve children and just about every one of the Leadon family played something with strings on it. Her brother Bernie had been in the Flying Burrito Brothers, had recorded with Dillard and Clark and was one of the original Eagles. Her brother Tom had been in Mudcrutch (Tom Petty’s Gainesville band) and had moved to California to play with Linda Ronstadt and Johnny Rivers. Her brother Mark was a great banjo player and most of her sisters sang and played guitar. I am still very close to Monica and her family. Some great music is still played at the old Leadon home.
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. I spent a good amount of time with Leo as well. Leo is one of the funniest people I have ever met. I could tell 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 quite a bit of one-on-one 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. Some of the others I worked with back then were 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. 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. Then, 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. 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 tell him 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 4,000 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. It got crazy. Every time there was a show I was opening for it. Then my guitar player moved to Tampa. The band was so good; but, we were good because of the players in the band. I knew all along that I would never try to replace anyone. Once one was gone that was it. It was the right call. We left a nice legacy.
After the band stopped, 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, and tons of 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.”
2003 and 2004 were tough years. 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.
I eventually went in 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 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 Petty’s drummer for all those years. He had produced Don Henley’s last 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.
Then I played it for my friend Richard Bassil. Richard and I go back to the mid 70’s. Richard had been Mary 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 am now slowly releasing 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. It’s about the one who got away.
I am so grateful to so many people. An awful lot of friends came through for me on this record. I had a lot of support. I will never be able to thank Stan, Ronny and Jeff enough. They are true brothers.
I hope you enjoy the songs as much as I enjoyed writing and recording them.
Peace…
Barry Sides
© 2007 Barry Sides
