Jeff Barbra

"Everytime I get a CD with a Jeff Barbra & Sarah Pirkle song on it, it always winds up being my favorite song." - John Starling

"As usual, Jeff's songs and vocals are stellar on this new record."
- Lloyd Maines

"Jeff and I have been friends for a long time now, even though we don't see each other very often we always stay in touch through music. Jeff sent me some new songs recently to listen to that will be on his new CD project. There is one song in particular that really grabbed my attention and pulled me in towards the speakers it's called " My God" I think this song shows for once and all that Jeff is a fine songwriter and an equally strong messenger with his emotional vocals." LARRY SHELL, Co-Writer, "Murder On Music Row." Nashville, TN - Larry Shell

Jeff Barbra's music is real, Just the way it should be. Great Country songs and Great Country singers are few and far between these day's. First Time I heard Jeff I became a Fan and you will too!!" KEN MELLONS, Artist/Writer, Nashville, TN - Ken Mellons

"'Blame It On Vern'... What a song."
Vern Gosdin- Nashville, TN - Vern Gosdin

"It don't look like progress to me:" Jay Clark and Jeff Barbra, Aug. 1, 2007, Writer's Block LIVE Concert Series.


These guys go together like white bread and a big, sliced, heirloom 'mater.


Between the easy banter and working the audience, Jay Clark and Jeff Barbara were so comfortable at last week's Writers' Block concert that they turned the Knoxville Museum of Art's listening room into their living room for an hour and a half. Clark and Barbara took turns singing, writers-in-the-round-style, rather than backing one another, as the nearly full house was treated to a celebration of the little things that make life bearable, if not always beautiful. Simple sentiments, artfully revealed: a baby's smile; seeing God in a 100-year-old tree; longing for the mountains of East Tennessee. The joys and sorrows that converge around a bottle. The poetic justice that a buzzard can drop on a horizon-uglifying mountaintop McMansion.


Barbara opened up the evening with "Shine a Little Light on Me," a tribute to coal miners, a gesture then reciprocated by Jay Clark's "Progress," from his sophomore (2006) album of the same name. Clark dedicated the song to his coal-mining, Peabody wage-slaving grandfather from western Kentucky "who was a good Southern Democrat—when there WAS such a thing!"


Sad songs were plentiful. The evening was nearly a tribute to

that underdog's George Jones—Vern Gosdin—whose tremulous croon was impersonated to perfection by Barbara a couple of times throughout the evening.


"I wanna be happy," yelled a woman in the crowd. "We'll be done at 8," Clark shot back.


Clark, who recently moved to Alabama after returning briefly to the Knoxville area from Oklahoma, is a semi-official member of RobinElla and the CC Stringband. He has multiple degrees in wildlife studies yet remains committed to composing "new" country music according to his own honest vision. Which could be just as truthfully applied to Jeff Barbara, usually associated musically with his wife, Sarah Pirkle. The award-winning pair hosted and produced the "Behind the Barn" concert series on WDVX for several years. Barbara's brand new CD is titled, "Country Music For Country People."

- Jack Rentfro

Jeff Barbra's “Shine a Little Light on Me” is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard. I spent most of my life in the dark , he sings. I go back into the dark tomorrow, Lord/ Just shine a little light on me . His voice is has the downhome wisdom of just about every countrified baritone since Jim Reeves and Eddy Arnold brought their countrypolitan croons to Nashville back in the '50s.

You might recognize his voice from his days as a radio deejay on WDVX; for five years he hosted the “Behind the Barn” concert series. In 2000, he and his wife, Sarah Pirkle, took top honors in the Merlefest Songwriting Contest. The songs are beautifully uncomplicated, a refreshing reprieve from overproduced musical abracadabra. It is, after all, country music for country folk. ( Kevin Crowe )

- Kevin Crowe - The Metropulse