– Charlie’s Blog –
by Charlie Barnett | Jan 2, 2021 | Charlie's Blog, Home Page, News
I think about my mother a lot these days. She was a farm girl from Maine with a very no-nonsense approach to life. Once, when I was just starting out in music, I complained to her that I didn’t have enough work. She thought a bit and responded, “When we had downtime on the farm, we would go out to the shed and sharpen all the tools.”
I know that for a lot of people, especially those with small children, there has been precious little downtime since the pandemic began. Others, though, have had the opposite challenge: not enough work to fill the days. For me, it helps to keep my mom’s story in mind. When there’s no work to do, I practice piano. I practice guitar. I write music that nobody asked for. It doesn’t solve every problem, but it helps keep my creative tools sharp.
Hopefully sometime in 2021, after everyone has been vaccinated, we musicians can emerge, blinking, from our woodsheds and get back to the business of making music together. I wish you strength and health as you sharpen your tools until then.
by Charlie Barnett | Nov 20, 2020 | Charlie's Blog, News
We in my jazz band, Chaise Lounge, have been huddled on our bar stools and dreaming about the gigs we wish we could be playing. Luckily, right after our Christmas shows last year, we jumped into the studio and recorded all of our newest holiday songs. We finished most of the work in February, right before everything shut down. All that was left to record were the background vocals from the DMC (the Disinterested Men’s Chorus), which we guys were able to lay down remotely, each in his own quiet house.
Ace engineer Ken Schubert at Cue Recording Studios was able to take all the various tracks, put them together in a martini shaker, and voila! – a really cool new Chaise Lounge Christmas album, our second. Out Under the Sky features a mix of fresh originals like “Trimmin’ the Tree” along with our versions of traditional numbers. Our take on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Soul of a Man” features me on slide guitar and saxophonist Jeff Gray with a searing tenor solo. The CD is being pressed now and will drop on October 12. If you’re in a rush, you can already buy the digital version at our online store.
by Charlie Barnett | Oct 25, 2020 | Charlie's Blog, News
Everything we do right now is colored by our present circumstances. Sometimes, it works out well. I was recently commissioned by the Cantate Chamber Singers and their redoubtable conductor, Victoria Gau, to write a choral work that reflects the current moment. The text for the piece, I Hold Your Name, was commissioned from the poet Adrianna Smith. It was my first opportunity to work with a poet in such an interactive way. Her original libretto was beautiful, and if I asked for an alternate word that might include, say, more long vowels, she was right on top of it. My hope is that I fashioned the music in such a way that all of her lines are clear and understandable. The goal is to have some sort of performance in the spring. If a choir can feel safe singing a public performance, then we’ll know that we are somewhere close to normalcy.
by Charlie Barnett | Sep 16, 2020 | Charlie's Blog, News, Reviews
So here’s an unexpected development: My new solo album is on the FAI Folk Chart for August! “All By His Own Self” is #17 on the album chart; two songs from the album are on the song chart (“Hold Still” at #16 and “Corinna, Corinna” at #22); and I am #24 on the “Top Artists” chart.
If you’d like to hear selections or buy the album, you can find it at my online store.
by Charlie Barnett | Aug 9, 2020 | Charlie's Blog, News, Theatre
I guess we are are in scramble mode, trying to figure out how best to use our creative energy during this Covid time. I started a new musical in March with two book-writers; Richard Lasser from Seattle and Robert P. Young from Detroit. It is called When We Get There. It stems from a story I wrote nearly ten years ago, but has been changed and massaged into a new and wonderful piece of theatre by a lot of brilliant work by Robert and Richard. Basically it is a story of four people who drive from New Jersey to march in Selma in what turned out to be “Bloody Sunday” in 1965. We had a few terrific actors join us for a Zoom table read last week. We were fortunate to have Broadway veterans Allison Briner-Dardenne read the part of Rose. Q. Smith played Mary. Erick Pinnick read Terrance and Safiya Harris (pictured) played Dawn. 
We learned a ton about our small but mighty show. Once there is theatre again, this show will be ready!
by Charlie Barnett | Jul 15, 2020 | Charlie's Blog, News
Director Jonathan Gruber recently finished a feature-length documentary that I had a great time scoring. The film, Upheaval, tells the story of the late Israeli politician Menachem Begin — it’s a tough walk through the minefields of Israeli politics and history. Jonathan is such a skilled filmmaker that he makes this scorching subject look easy to tackle. The music, of course, all had to be made using the instruments I can play and record at home, along with synth elements. Once a score is recorded, I usually sit down with the director to review the film scene by scene, but of course we couldn’t do that in person right now. Instead, we shared my screen over Zoom, and I am happy to report that is possibly the very best use of the Zoom platform.
We learned a ton about our small but mighty show. Once there is theatre again, this show will be ready!