Barb Barton House Concert

On a soft focus summer evening in the woods of Michigan, with the trees shushing the wind, the crickets singing background, Barb Barton's music shepherded our spirits for a few hours this weekend.

We sat in cozy chairs with our shoes off as the goldfish hustled to get the best seat in the pond, and the moths fluttered to the upper balcony, stage right high on the window.

A few turns of a tuning key, a couple of soft strums, and the music of Barb Barton drifted into the summer night.

Barb Barton produces smiles, unfolds arms, balances spirits, removes the build-up of hanging out in the world.

I believe that if you're singing, it's not possible to feel bad. Barb takes that to the performance level - it is not possible for anyone to feel bad when she's singing.

A home is the best small venue to experience your favorite musician. People who are invited are there happily, eagerly. It's a mini-festival feeling.

Close up, we're rapt by tuning keys, fingers picking, the light glinting on the silvered neck of the guitars, foot moving softly to the beat. We see faces, smiles. Smiles are catchy. The intimate setting coats your psyche, the music stays in your head and the warmth stays on your heart for days.

I walked slowly out into the night after the concert, said good night to the trees, and the backlit sky, bemused and humbled by the extraordinary musical gift we'd shared, and hummed some of my favorite lyrics all the way home.

Barb Barton

Perfect Sunday afternoon: Barb Barton playing music, good friends and chocolate-covered potato chips.

Barb Barton - http://www.barbbarton.com - is a gift wherever she is, but we were fortunate that she agreed to come to Holly for a private concert.

Home concerts are a booking dream, if your favorite artist[s] are amenable (which Barb is); you can round up some guests, give good directions: and if you've booked Barb, prepare yourself to be transported.

Barb's music is comfortable like a favorite tshirt, warm as a grandmother's hug, and when she's got something serious to say, as powerful as the Great Lakes that kiss our rocky, piney shores good morning and good night.

She described how she writes her poetry and then finds the music to go with; but as she began to strum the beginning bars of "Willow," she told us "this song came from somewhere else."

Somewhere else is where the poetry and the voice of Barb Barton take you. It's a place I love.

What's grand about Michigan is grand about Barb's music. Her guitar strings can reverberate and hum like the big trees in a summer wind, or whistle like shorebirds on the hunt. In her lyrics, you see the moon reflected on our copper rivers; the sun on a bleached log; the drifted snow sweeping a farm field; a morel mushroom keeping quiet company with the ash trees, nestled into autumn's fallen finery.

Hard as I've tried, I still cannot listen to "My Michigan/Letter to Joshua" without some tears.

Treat yourself to her website:

http://www.barbbarton.com

Mosey through the samples from the CDs. And book a concert! Barb's email is on the site. You will be as thrilled and transported as we were on Sunday.

We will be buying the newest CD with "Turtledove" just as soon as it is available, too.

Chocolate-covered potato chips? Get those while you can at Sweet Retreats in Milford, MI. Colleen will show you where they are, if they weren't whisked away already; right after she tells you "welcome."