Barry "loved ballads, mostly American ones, but hadn't had a place to sing them for years."

That is the great gift the Mudcat, Max, FSGW, all have made possible.

Barry was a rare soul, and I loved every bit of him I ran into, from the first moment we met. That song he wrote was the first I ever heard from him, bellowed across the room in the first-ever flesh and blood gathering of Mudcat folks graciously invited by the FSGW… 10 years ago? 11? I can hear those first notes, echoing.

Though we only met once a year at Getaways, Barry in his gentle way encouraged me to sing as loudly as he could tell I wanted to : ) and I have learned so much from him. His singing introduced me to the music he loved (shanties and other work songs, prison songs), which I came to love as well, and in his unassuming way, he is certainly responsible for spreading very important parts of our distinctly American heritage in many directions.

He was also great fun, great silliness. "Devil-May-Care" for sure. Does anyone else remember the late-night bench-moving shanties sung in the freezing upstairs room @ Ramblewood?!

More than anyone else at the Mudcat, when I read Barry's posts I could hear his distinctive voice, out loud: always passionate and caring, sometimes full of righteous indignation, sometimes tongue-in-cheek. He had profound intelligence in and of unconventional places. Heart-wisdom, hard-earned, no bullshit.

I believe when he survived the liver-drama, his soul said "*@!# it, we're all-in for whatever's left! Eat it up!" That's the spirit I saw a few weeks ago, and I didn't want to recognize that a person can't go on the way he did that weekend, but I bet he knew.

We thought we lost him once. It was a coda, he had, and he seemed to have used it fully!

Justine, Gabriel, Natalie, thanks for sharing your Barry with us, and please accept my deepest condolences on your loss.

Dani