Barbara Higbie

Barbara Higbie displayed an energetic versatility as a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and vocalist, gliding without friction across styles that included new age, folk, bluegrass, and polished pop/rock. Her earliest musical curiosity surfaced in her early teens once her family left Indiana for Ghana in West Africa. There she trained under master drummer Mustapha Tettey Addy while absorbing the highlife sounds that dominated the area. After journeying widely through Africa she returned to the United States and completed her studies at Mills College in Oakland, CA. She next headed to the Sorbonne, where she encountered noted violinist Darol Anger and launched her first committed explorations of music-making and joint projects. By the early 1980s Higbie had settled in San Francisco and entered the new acoustic movement in the company of Anger, Mike Marshall, and Rob Wasserman. She and Anger recorded Tideline for Windham Hill in 1982. The following year she collaborated with women’s music great Teresa Trull on the acclaimed Unexpected. By then established as a pianist, guitarist, fiddler, and songwriter, Higbie was recruited in 1983 by Anger and Marshall into Montreaux, the supergroup tied to the popular Montreaux Jazz Festival. She remained the ensemble’s pianist for the rest of the decade, appearing on all three of its Windham Hill albums and touring extensively. Her solo debut arrived in 1990 with Signs of Life, which also introduced her as a lead vocalist. Six years later came I Surrender; she promoted the album on the road with Liz Story and Margie Adam under the name Three of Hearts. A reunion with Trull yielded 1998’s Playtime, which was likewise supported by a lengthy tour. In 2001 she released Variations on a Happy Ending, a set of solo piano works. That same year she issued the Europe-only Interpretations of Carole King and began arranging another recording with Trull.