Russ Barenberg (born 1950) is a flatpicker and composer known for melody over speed. He co-founded Country Cooking at Cornell University in 1970, spent the 1980s in the Boston folk scene, and moved to Nashville in 1986. His trio with Jerry Douglas and Edgar Meyer won the IBMA Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year award in 1994 for Skip, Hop & Wobble. He has played in the house band of the BBC’s Transatlantic Sessions since 1995.
Why Barenberg matters
Barenberg writes tunes that pickers want to learn and plays them with a tone that sounds like a voice. Where most flatpickers of his era chased Tony Rice, he stayed with Clarence White’s clean lines and Doc Watson’s touch, then wrote new music on top of them. His tunes such as The Drummers of England and Big Bug Shuffle gave jammers and teachers fresh material, and his teaching has shaped players on both sides of the Atlantic.
Life and career
Barenberg was born on October 8, 1950. He grew up in Chester County, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia, and started guitar at 13 with lessons from Alan Miller. At Cornell University he met banjo player Pete Wernick in 1968, and in 1970 he joined Country Cooking, a band that recorded two bluegrass instrumental albums before it broke up in 1975.
After a short run on electric guitar with the jazz rock band Carried Away, he formed Heartlands in New York in 1977. That band backed his first solo album, Cowboy Calypso, released in 1979. He moved to Boston in 1979, joined Fiddle Fever, taught at the Music Emporium in Cambridge, and played contra dances in the early 1980s. His second solo album, Behind the Melodies, came out in 1983.
Barenberg moved to Nashville in 1986 for studio work. Moving Pictures followed in 1988. From 1989 to 2001 he worked in a trio with dobro player Jerry Douglas and bassist Edgar Meyer, and their 1993 Sugar Hill album Skip, Hop & Wobble won the IBMA award for Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year in 1994. In 1995 he joined the house band of the Transatlantic Sessions, the BBC series that pairs American and Celtic players, and he has appeared in three of its filmed series. He also played on the Homecoming soundtrack in 1996 and on Steve Martin’s The Crow in 2008.
His album When at Last came out on Compass in 2007, his first solo record in almost twenty years. Its track Little Monk earned a Grammy nomination for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 2008. He lives in Nashville and teaches at camps in the United States and Europe.
Playing style
Barenberg flatpicks with a twist. He uses the pick for the main line and adds his other three fingers to fill in rhythm and melody notes, which lets him play chord tones and counter lines a straight flatpicker cannot reach. The result sounds like two guitars on some passages.
Melody drives everything. Writer Jon Weisberger has said few guitarists blend a command of roots traditions with melodic originality the way Barenberg does, or balance muscle with delicacy so well. His tone is warm and even, and he leaves space between phrases.
Influences and legacy
Barenberg’s early models were Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, and Clarence White, and he studied White’s playing in depth. He played beside Pete Wernick, Jerry Douglas, Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan, and Maura O’Connell. On the Transatlantic Sessions he has shared a stage with Aly Bain, Danny Thompson, Bryan Sutton, Aubrey Haynie, and Tim O’Brien. He has written instructional books and recordings and teaches private lessons online, so many pickers know his tunes before they know his name.
Signature tunes and songs
The Drummers of England Big Bug Shuffle Little Monk Cowboy Calypso.
Essential recordings
Cowboy Calypso (1979) Behind the Melodies (1983) Moving Pictures (1988) Skip, Hop & Wobble, with Jerry Douglas and Edgar Meyer (Sugar Hill, 1993) When at Last (Compass, 2007)
Awards and honors
IBMA Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year, Skip, Hop & Wobble, with Jerry Douglas and Edgar Meyer (1994) Grammy nomination, Best Country Instrumental Performance, Little Monk (2008)
Watch and listen
Barenberg plays The Drummers of England solo. Watch how his free fingers add notes between the pick strokes.
Barenberg plays Big Bug Shuffle with bassist Danny Thompson on the Transatlantic Sessions in 1996. Listen to how the melody stays clear at speed.
What to learn from Barenberg
Learn The Drummers of England. It is a slow tune with a clear melody, and it teaches phrasing and how a tune can sound full with one guitar. The technique to steal is his hybrid right hand. Hold the pick as usual, then let your middle finger pluck a high string on the offbeat while the pick keeps the melody. Start on a G chord and add one plucked note per bar. Within a week you will have a second voice under your breaks.
Sources
Russ Barenberg, official site About, Russ Barenberg Russ Barenberg, IBMA award recipients Russ Barenberg, Compass Records Russ Barenberg, Wikipedia Russ Barenberg, Cowboy Calypso, Discogs search Skip, Hop & Wobble, Discogs search
Related players
See the guitar players hub and the guitar guide for more flatpickers. Barenberg built on Clarence White and Doc Watson. He plays beside Bryan Sutton on the Transatlantic Sessions, and he came up in the same 1970s wave as Norman Blake and Dan Crary.