About This:
10 Songs 8 Spoken Word Tracks featuring excerpts from Dawn on Dickerson Rd. Press Release The Happy Handyman Tribute CD, Chronicling the work of Pat Barber, behind-the-scene player in the History of Top 40 Music. Thanksgiving weekend, 2008, a group of Top 40 recording artists gathered to record songs benefitting Oxford House Inc. The two Christmas songs are being released this season on Pat Barber’s Happy Handyman Tribute CD. Oxford has opened over 1200 men and women’s transitional living homes nationwide. They just opened a home in Sedona, AZ. For fundraising efforts, Pat Barber, Horizon award winning songwriter and part time Sedona resident, gave the publishing profits for two Christmas Songs to Oxford. “I was camping south of Sedona,” says Pat. “It was snowing. Ranchers had brought their cattle down from the high country. The sky was lit up. The words just came, ’Cactus Christmas tree, mighty prickly…’ Sedona gave me the song. I thought I’d give it back and throw in another one hoping Oxford could someday open both a men’s and women’s halfway house here.” The songs are co-produced by Jack Sundrud (Poco bassist/hit songwriter) and the legendary Bill Halverson (Cream, Clapton, Hendrix, CSNY’s Déjà vu). They set up a recording session and invited a few other legends to sit in. There’s Billy Sanford (guitarist on the original Roy Orbison recording, Pretty Woman) and Russ Pahl (Country Diva Gretchen Wilson’s steel player, you can hear him every Monday night football game on the song I’m here for the Party!). Other artists featured on the CD are from classic rock bands, Poco, Orleans, Pure Prairie League and Black Crows. Co-producer Jack Sundrud was asked how he could round up such a great cast of players on a Holiday weekend. He said “They’re great songs for a good cause. It was easy. Cactus Christmas and Wrapped in You could easily become Christmas standards.” In addition to the studio versions of Pat’s songs, HH Tribute features song demos and excerpts from Pat’s book, Dawn on Dickerson Road, and some discussion about Pat’s projects (Jack Sundrud, Shawn Colvin, and Emmylou Harris, recorded live at the Bluebird Café in Nashville and backstage at the Telluride Bluegrass festival). Pat’s hammer busted more doors open for him in Music City than his guitar. After flunking his first audition at what Vince Gill calls “the center of the songwriting universe,” Bluebird Café, the owner hired him to remodel the restroom and hang out for free. “It was songwriting school for me.” Pat recalls. “Often, I got to listen to a songwriter’s first performance of what would later become one of the world’s greatest songs. Songs that were true, right out a songwriter’s life became my favorites. I quit trying to write hits and started telling my story. Then I started getting cuts.” “In a recent Country Music History book, Amy is quoted. “The laconic wit in his songs definitely sets him apart in Music City.” Kurland supported Pat’s work opening halfway and 12step clubhouses (Woodbine) in Nashville and together, they became the first to broadcast open mics on the Internet, 1997. Live at the Bluebird Cafe later ran five seasons on the Turner South Network. In Peter Bogdonovich’s movie about the Cafe, The thing Called Love (River Phoenix’s last movie, Sandra Bullock’s first) Pat was given a small role playing himself as a wanna-be-hit-songwriter. “They cut my big part in order to keep it PG.” Pat laments. The CD and mp3s are on sale at HappyHandyman.net.