Barry Chern
Gig Seeker Pro

Barry Chern

Columbus, Ohio, United States

Columbus, Ohio, United States
Band Blues Roots

Calendar

This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

Press


This band has no press

Discography

Still working on that hot first release.

Photos

Bio

Barry Chern has been studying and performing American roots music for several decades, since his
early teens. While some may have been raised by wolves, you could say Barry was raised by a record
player. His major focus is the music of the early blues pioneers such as Charlie Patton,
Mississippi John Hurt and Sleepy John Estes, and Old-time country songs from recordings by
musicians such as Charley Poole, Riley Puckett and Blind Alfred Reed. His repertoire also includes
excursions into more recent blues and country styles, old pop songs, and some unique originals.

Barry Chern's performance features powerful bare-fingered acoustic guitar and heart-felt vocals,
and he also plays mandolin, harmonica, piano and, occasionally, some clarinet. He embraces,
through deep listening, the entire spectrum of American musical history and transmutes it, often with much original re-composition on the absorbed sources.

Barry has performed solo since the mid '60's, with intermittant excursions into varied group
formats. In high school there was a brief early attempt at an electric blues band, followed by the
longer lived No Exit Jug Band. In the '70's he often fronted loose groups of musicians from many
disciplines under the name Barry and the Cherniaks. There were some side-tracks into recreational
rock & roll (How Could You Boys, The Cockroaches), an acoustic trio with fiddle
and bass called The FoolHarmonic, and currently a duo with Cliff Starbuck from the
popular jam band Ekoostik Hookah.

In 1996-97 Barry Chern programmed and appeared at the Roots Cabaret at Columbus Music Hall, a
monthly concert series featuring traditional music which he created to provide a venue for music
that was otherwise not often heard in Columbus. Other recent area appearances have included the
Central Ohio Folk Festival, Borders Bookstore, The Columbus Arts Festival, The Worthington Folklife
Festival, The Community Festival, Stache's, various retirement homes, and a number of on-air
concerts on Public Radio station WCBE. He has been the opening act for performers including Loudon
Wainright III, Michael Hurley, Pierce Pettis, Ruth and Kane, J. J. Cale, and John Stewart. He is the winner of the solo/duo category of the Columbus Blues Alliance's 2004 Blues Challenge and was
one of the nominees in the Best Blues/R&B Instrumentalist category in the 1995 Columbus Music
Awards. He also plays old-time string band music at the Ohio Village of the Historical Society and with the group Turkeys in
the Straw.

Barry further shares his knowledge of history, theory and techniques by giving private music lessons.

Chern is also a fine-art printmaker, whose lithographs have had widespread exhibitions and honors.

Band Members