{"id":13587,"date":"2017-12-11T05:30:35","date_gmt":"2017-12-11T10:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=13587"},"modified":"2017-10-19T10:52:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-19T14:52:48","slug":"sidney-barnes-a-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/11\/sidney-barnes-a-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Sidney Barnes: A Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: I recently conducted a wide-ranging and lively interview with Sidney Barnes; the result of that is an in-depth feature running soon in <\/em>Record Collector Magazine. In the meantime, this shorter feature will whet your appetite. — bk<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"Born in a West Virginia mining town, Sidney Barnes eventually moved with his family to New York City \u201cso that I could be closer to what was going on in the music business,\u201d he says. His group the Serenaders cut some singles but didn’t find much success. He did get an audition with Motown Records head Berry Gordy, who signed Barnes to a staff songwriting and producer position.<\/p>\n

By the middle of the 1960s, Barnes had moved to Detroit, where he worked with George Clinton on several recordings. He eventually signed with Chess Records, and Marshall Chess recruited Barnes into the multiracial Rotary Connection, billed as a \u201cpsychedelic soul\u201d band. In addition to Barnes on lead vocals and songwriting, the group included a Chess secretary, Minnie Riperton, a singer possessed of a five-octave vocal range.<\/p>\n

Initially a studio project (\u201cit wasn’t a group,\u201d Barnes says. \u201cIt was just a bunch of people”), Rotary Connection was ambitious and experimental. \u201cWe cut the first album, and it was a success,\u201d Barnes says. \u201cSo the music group had to go out and promote it.\u201d But the group didn’t do well live. \u201cWe> did what was supposed to be the last appearance, and then we were going to disband. So Minnie and I made it happen; next thing I knew, we were opening for Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the early ’70s, Barnes decided to work behind the scenes, co-writing the Funkadelic smash \u201cI Bet You\u201d and other songs. \u201cI liked singing, but I didn’t like appearing in front of people and traveling that much,\u201d he says. In 2001 Barnes got an invitation to visit England, where \u2013 to his great surprise \u2013 his early singles were hailed as \u201cNorthern soul\u201d classics. \u201cThey knew everything about me and everything I’d done,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was an incredible feeling; I’d never had that happen before. It was like I was James Brown!\u201d<\/p>\n

Back home \u2013 where he found himself less well-known \u2013 Barnes decided it was time to get a day job and settle down. \u201cI realized that I wanted to get married,\u201d he says. \u201cI’m a nice guy; no reason to be wandering around in the jungle naked.\u201d So he went online and \u201cmet a nice beautiful lady.\u201d She lived in Asheville, and when Barnes asked her to marry, she replied, \u201cIf you want to be with me, you’ve got to move to Asheville.\u201d Barnes happily agreed.<\/p>\n

Sidney Barnes has remained busy musically. He’s currently working with longtime friend George Clinton on a historical film with the working title Rhythm and Blues<\/i>. Barnes’ current show features an evening of jazz standards, with famed accompanist Richard Shulman. \u201cAt this point I don’t have to prove anything,\u201d he says. \u201cI’m kind of glad I never had any million sellers, because that puts a lot of pressure on an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: I recently conducted a wide-ranging and lively interview with Sidney Barnes; the result of that is an in-depth feature running soon in Record Collector Magazine. In the meantime, this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2614,31,41,42,51,57,60,62],"tags":[3262,3248],"class_list":["post-13587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-disco","category-funk","category-interview","category-jazz","category-pop","category-psych","category-rb","category-rawk","tag-rotary-connection","tag-sidney-barnes","cat-9-id","cat-2614-id","cat-31-id","cat-41-id","cat-42-id","cat-51-id","cat-57-id","cat-60-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13587"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13591,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13587\/revisions\/13591"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}