Photo: Barry with Big Mon at Belcove Inn 1995
Recently we were sent a series of provocative blogs by banjo player and former California resident Barry Willis. A bit of online research got us in touch with him, and we learned a bit of his history. Barry lived for a few years in the South Bay area during the mid-1970s and occasionally came up to Paul’s Saloon in San Francisco to check out that vibrant scene. But soon his true vocation called him away and by 1976 he was bush piloting in Alaska, later flying for United Airlines, and all the while playing Bluegrass, hosting a BG radio show, and amassing an impressive series of interviews with the founding fathers of the genre. A 600-page book, America’s Music: Bluegrass. A History of Bluegrass Music in the Words of Its Pioneers, followed in 1997. Barry, now retired from flying and living in Hawaii, has been writing a monthly blog based on those interviews, and has given us the right to be the first in line to publish them. Stay tuned: the initial blog, Why is Bluegrass so Controversial?, will be published next week.