Biography
Since the dawn of the 1990s Danny Barnes has earned recognition as a key presence in American acoustic music, uniting profound regard for longstanding musical customs with an innovative urge to experiment with unfamiliar textures and carve out new directions. While performing with the Bad Livers the musician and his colleagues delivered bluegrass that carried an unconventional attitude and incorporated surprising instruments such as tuba accordion and electronics thereby drawing listeners from both alternative rock and traditional old-time circles. Following the Bad Livers disbandment in 2000 Barnes moved to the Pacific Northwest and began creating work that drew from bluegrass rock jazz and even hip-hop shifting between the gently unconventional traditional approach heard on the 2001 release Things I Done Wrong recorded with his temporary ensemble the Old Codgers and the 2005 album Get Myself Together which included versions of rural bluesman Willie Johnson alongside the not-so-rural blues admirers the Rolling Stones and extending to the broad stylistic range displayed on the 2010 album Pizza Box and the 2011 album Rocket. His abilities have earned respect from numerous fellow musicians leading to collaborations with Dave Alvin Robert Earl Keen Herbie Hancock Wayne Horvitz Bill Frisell Dave Matthews Laura Veirs and Jello Biafra among many additional artists.
Born Edward D. Barnes on December 21 1961 in Temple Texas the future performer grew up immersed in varied musical surroundings as his father and grandmother favored bluegrass and country one brother loved the blues and another brother preferred punk rock. At age ten Barnes attended a concert featuring bluegrass luminaries and Hee Haw regulars Grandpa Jones and Stringbean an event that prompted him to begin playing banjo while the distinctive banjo stylist and songwriter John Hartford a frequent guest on Glen Campbell’s 1960s television program also shaped his musical outlook. After finishing high school Barnes moved to Austin to study at the University of Texas completing a degree in audio production during 1985.
He embraced both the city’s unconventional atmosphere and its widely varied music community and in 1990 he joined local players Mark Rubin and Ralph E. White III to establish the Bad Livers. Depending on the occasion the group might perform classic bluegrass breakdowns deliver country gospel standards place acoustic interpretations on selections by Motorhead or Iggy Pop or present one of Barnes’s own intelligent and lyrically pointed compositions and through steady live appearances they built an enthusiastic audience throughout Texas. Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers offered to produce their first album the 1992 Quarterstick Records release Delusions of Banjer issued by the Touch & Go punk and indie subsidiary. A follow-up Quarterstick project Horses in the Mines appeared in 1994 the same year Barnes contributed to the LP Prairie Home Invasion a joint effort between Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra and eccentric roots performer Mojo Nixon. Quarterstick also reissued the cassette-only Dust on the Bible collection previously sold only at shows in 1994. The trio then moved to the established bluegrass and Americana imprint Sugar Hill Records where they recorded the three full-length sets Hogs on the Highway in 1997 Industry and Thrift in 1998 and Blood and Mood in 2000. During the Sugar Hill era filmmaker Richard Linklater recruited Barnes to compose the score for the 1998 film The Newton Boys providing his first opportunity to write for orchestra.
Ralph E. White had already departed before the sessions for Blood and Mood and Barnes had meanwhile released his own solo effort the home-recorded Oft Mendeed Rainment initially pressed in a run of 100 CD-Rs during 1999. By the close of 2000 the Bad Livers had ended and Barnes had issued another self-produced album Minor Dings. He had relocated from Texas to Washington where he assembled the trio Danny Barnes & the Old Codgers featuring Keith Lowe on bass and Jon Parry on fiddle. The group issued Things I Done Wrong in 2001 produced by experimental jazz figure Wayne Horvitz. In 2008 Barnes reciprocated by appearing on Horvitz’s orchestral project Joe Hill: 16 Actions for Orchestra Voices and Soloist. Adventurous jazz guitarist Bill Frisell connected with Barnes through their mutual appreciation of country and roots music and invited him to play on the 2002 album The Willies while also taking him on tour afterward. Barnes further contributed to projects by fellow Pacific Northwest artists the Walkabouts on the 2002 releases Watermarks and Drunken Soundtracks and Laura Veirs on the 2001 album The Triumphs and Travails of Orphan Mae and the 2003 album Troubled by the Fire.
Barnes worked with Terminus Records on two strikingly unconventional roots projects the 2003 album Dirt on the Angel and the 2005 album Get Myself Together along with the live recording Livin’ Large … In a Little Bitty Room issued in 2004. Over the following five years he concentrated on sideman duties supporting Texas songwriter Robert Earl Keen Charlie Sizemore Caroline Herring and the Rockingbirds among others. He also appeared on the Dave Matthews Band album Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King and when Herbie Hancock asked Matthews to record a version of the Beatles song “Tomorrow Never Knows” for the 2010 collection The Imagine Project Barnes joined to contribute banjo. Matthews signed Barnes to his ATO Records imprint which issued the two especially wide-ranging albums Pizza Box in 2010 and Rocket in 2011. Barnes honored one of his admired banjo players Don Stover on the 2016 release Stove Up which placed him in more conventional bluegrass settings than he had explored for some time. He next collaborated with renowned mandolinist David Grisman and Grisman’s bassist son Sam Grisman to create the Dawg Trio. The ensemble began performing in early 2018 and in October 2019 they released a self-titled debut on Grisman’s Acoustic Disc label. Barnes again gathered notable guests for the March 2020 album Man on Fire on which the inventive banjoist was joined by John Paul Jones Bill Frisell and Dave Matthews.
Born Edward D. Barnes on December 21 1961 in Temple Texas the future performer grew up immersed in varied musical surroundings as his father and grandmother favored bluegrass and country one brother loved the blues and another brother preferred punk rock. At age ten Barnes attended a concert featuring bluegrass luminaries and Hee Haw regulars Grandpa Jones and Stringbean an event that prompted him to begin playing banjo while the distinctive banjo stylist and songwriter John Hartford a frequent guest on Glen Campbell’s 1960s television program also shaped his musical outlook. After finishing high school Barnes moved to Austin to study at the University of Texas completing a degree in audio production during 1985.
He embraced both the city’s unconventional atmosphere and its widely varied music community and in 1990 he joined local players Mark Rubin and Ralph E. White III to establish the Bad Livers. Depending on the occasion the group might perform classic bluegrass breakdowns deliver country gospel standards place acoustic interpretations on selections by Motorhead or Iggy Pop or present one of Barnes’s own intelligent and lyrically pointed compositions and through steady live appearances they built an enthusiastic audience throughout Texas. Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers offered to produce their first album the 1992 Quarterstick Records release Delusions of Banjer issued by the Touch & Go punk and indie subsidiary. A follow-up Quarterstick project Horses in the Mines appeared in 1994 the same year Barnes contributed to the LP Prairie Home Invasion a joint effort between Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra and eccentric roots performer Mojo Nixon. Quarterstick also reissued the cassette-only Dust on the Bible collection previously sold only at shows in 1994. The trio then moved to the established bluegrass and Americana imprint Sugar Hill Records where they recorded the three full-length sets Hogs on the Highway in 1997 Industry and Thrift in 1998 and Blood and Mood in 2000. During the Sugar Hill era filmmaker Richard Linklater recruited Barnes to compose the score for the 1998 film The Newton Boys providing his first opportunity to write for orchestra.
Ralph E. White had already departed before the sessions for Blood and Mood and Barnes had meanwhile released his own solo effort the home-recorded Oft Mendeed Rainment initially pressed in a run of 100 CD-Rs during 1999. By the close of 2000 the Bad Livers had ended and Barnes had issued another self-produced album Minor Dings. He had relocated from Texas to Washington where he assembled the trio Danny Barnes & the Old Codgers featuring Keith Lowe on bass and Jon Parry on fiddle. The group issued Things I Done Wrong in 2001 produced by experimental jazz figure Wayne Horvitz. In 2008 Barnes reciprocated by appearing on Horvitz’s orchestral project Joe Hill: 16 Actions for Orchestra Voices and Soloist. Adventurous jazz guitarist Bill Frisell connected with Barnes through their mutual appreciation of country and roots music and invited him to play on the 2002 album The Willies while also taking him on tour afterward. Barnes further contributed to projects by fellow Pacific Northwest artists the Walkabouts on the 2002 releases Watermarks and Drunken Soundtracks and Laura Veirs on the 2001 album The Triumphs and Travails of Orphan Mae and the 2003 album Troubled by the Fire.
Barnes worked with Terminus Records on two strikingly unconventional roots projects the 2003 album Dirt on the Angel and the 2005 album Get Myself Together along with the live recording Livin’ Large … In a Little Bitty Room issued in 2004. Over the following five years he concentrated on sideman duties supporting Texas songwriter Robert Earl Keen Charlie Sizemore Caroline Herring and the Rockingbirds among others. He also appeared on the Dave Matthews Band album Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King and when Herbie Hancock asked Matthews to record a version of the Beatles song “Tomorrow Never Knows” for the 2010 collection The Imagine Project Barnes joined to contribute banjo. Matthews signed Barnes to his ATO Records imprint which issued the two especially wide-ranging albums Pizza Box in 2010 and Rocket in 2011. Barnes honored one of his admired banjo players Don Stover on the 2016 release Stove Up which placed him in more conventional bluegrass settings than he had explored for some time. He next collaborated with renowned mandolinist David Grisman and Grisman’s bassist son Sam Grisman to create the Dawg Trio. The ensemble began performing in early 2018 and in October 2019 they released a self-titled debut on Grisman’s Acoustic Disc label. Barnes again gathered notable guests for the March 2020 album Man on Fire on which the inventive banjoist was joined by John Paul Jones Bill Frisell and Dave Matthews.
Albums
