BARLEY-CORN BRAND

 

 

The Barley-Corn Brand began many years ago, back in the late 1960’s.and early ‘70’s.

 

Inspired by the album ”John Barleycorn Must Die” by the band called Traffic,

 

A local Los Angeles resident and child of the 50’s and 60’s became aware of just who he was.

 

It was a confusing time in this young man’s life but somehow the will of his Lord prevailed against all the evil odds that could have taken his life away in many ways.

 

The 70’s, 80’s and 90’s proved to be the final test of strength and in the end John J. Barley-Corn became a man who had reconciled with his conscience to become an artist.

 

By loving life, he became not a stranger to himself but a walk on player in the grandest play of all plays. The play of life.

 

This is the West Coast of California, USA version of John Barleycorn anyway.

 

But as Traffic’s album says ”There are many other interpretations” of John  Barleycorn.

 

 

ABOUT THE MUSIC and THE ALBUM

 

John Barley-Corn’s music is music that had built up in his mind from the early 70’s and 80’s and 90’s.You could say John is a 20^th Century man but he has made it into the 21’st century and thus is now part of the modern world of this next Century.

 

John, being basically a simple person at heart, needed to release his music from his mind and onto a medium. John could hear every song he realized and was influenced greatly by his heroes of the 20^th century. Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones and Jim Morrison and the Doors and of course singers such as Van Morrison and Eric Burdon,  just to name a few. He was exposed to the 1960’s blues and rock scene in San Francisco and Los Angeles and it all fit for his way of being. He was exposed to Country and the Country rock scene it also fit together with his own music.

 

In the early 1990’s, John met Bill Bergman (billbergmanmusic.com) who is an excellent  saxophone player. Bill has played with The Jack Mack and the Heart Attack Band as well as some very famous and wonderful musicians in the studio and on the road for live gigs.

 

Bill wanted to produce music and John wanted to be produced and so a relationship and partnership to create an album was born.

 

In order to capture the essence of John’s music, Bill worked very hard to create the melodies and sounds with the help of many L.A. musicians including members of the Jack Mack band.. They are listed with the credits.

 

On a song-by-song basis the album was constructed over a period of five years. Another two years were to be taken up with the Barley-Corn Brand trademark.

 

The album was released at the 30^th anniversary at the Summer of Love celebration in Golden Gate Park(1997). It wasn’t much but it was a beginning.

 

Following that event, John made it over to Sacramento to the distributor for Tower Records for the Western United States.

 

John was accepted and left about 200 C.D.’s to be sold throughout the West and California. He also got a sign for the Sunset Strip Tower store painted and a listening booth at Tower.

 

Later the album was put online for a short time with Mp3.

 

2007 is the 40^th anniversary of the Summer of Love and it should be celebrated with all the love we can give it.

 

So with that said, just remember each song on the Barley-Corn Brand album could hold true today ,  just as it has for all the years it took to conceive, produce and make itself known.

 

John would like to add that if “Love” and “God” are synonymous then it would be fitting to replace all the words that say ”Love” with all the words that say ”God” in the lyrics.

 

Something like a “Free God gives it a way(away)”  Or perhaps “just your God makn’ it right White Man.” Or “Love Gods us all”.

 

But no matter how you conceive the songs, just remember they all came from real life and they all mean something to somebody. Even if that somebody is John J. Barley-Corn.

 

 

The first song on the album is “Free Love”. “Free Love is a song about ideals and a song that says it’s a thin line between “Free Love” giving it (a way) or giving it (away).

They say that it is a thin line between Love and Hate. Well it’s just as thin between giving the gift of love (a way) or (away)

 

Enough said then, just enjoy the song for what it is.

 

 

 

The second song on the album is “Talking American Blues”. The TAB as it can be called, is the tab that is owed to the people who had their whole way of life destroyed in the name of civilization. The American Indian is owed more than the land back. They are owed their entire culture back.

 

The “White Man” is just symbolized by the skin color of the first to infiltrate the Native American on their  soil. Actually we all, no matter what our skin color, are just carrying on the technology.

that is actually keeping us all from living the “simple life”. Not “simple” in any other way than to be living off the land as the native did. Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if the people infiltrating had just taken up the Indians’ style of living?

Or even more important now, what would it take to have this country  go back to living “the simple life”? God only knows and one could only guess. Almost all of us are influenced by technology one-way or another but  the real question we all must ask is “will technology save mankind or destroy mankind”?

 

The third song is “The Sunday Song” is the first of the two, three part songs on the album.

 

It goes through a series of “revelations” to make it the song that it is. It should be listened to from start to finish.

 

The fourth song is the “Lady from South Texas”. It’s about a man living alone down the Mexican desert in his cabin and on her way down to South America (by Harley-Davison motorcycle, she passes thru for a one night visit to this man’s home. She of course must be on her way after a brief stay, as she is on a mission to travel.

 

The fifth, sixth and seventh songs on the album seem to all blend in together in sound but the lyrics change for each song and they all deal with the various failings of relationships between man and woman.

 

Song #8 “The L.A. County Blues” is a testimonial to the life in L.A. and the failure to keep in line with the laws and practices of successful behavior. In the end the inhabitants of Southern  California and L.A. in particular will have to wait and see if that quake and tidal wave will come. It could be tomorrow or it could be hundreds if not thousands of years in the future.

 

Song#9

The first song that was recorded was ”White Lady Blues”. This song was not done with Bergman but rather some of John’s local friends at the time. This song is dedicated to everyone from Robert Downey Jr.  to Keith Urban to Whitney Houston (and all the points in between). This song is put into first person singular for a reason. That reason is because the person afflicted should sing it to themselves. This is song #9 because #9 is the number of change and nothing can change a person faster than this destructive drug.

John gave several of  the first copies of “White lady Blues” to David Crosby to do back when he was just out of jail for possession of the drug in Texas. Obviously David did not want to do the song and John can’t blame him for that. It really had to be done by the songwriter anyway. It takes a lot of guts to sing this one.

 

 

Song#10:Is the second of the three part songs on the album. It may sound like a put-down of organized religion but really, it deals more with the boredom of living in a concrete jungle and instead of turning to nature for God one must turn to a building to worship. It does not matter who’s religion building as most all religions must be held in a building.

 

 But in nature God is found in the ground and the elements and spaces above and on the ground.

 

Either way, a bond with God is what man is looking for and it’s all right as long as you can find peace wherever you seek a higher power. The main thing is to not be hypocritical and worship one way and act another. We must all beware of the turned heart(s) that can change “Welcome” into ”Unwelcome”.

 

To be out on the road and heading for the Mountains of Colorado is a mighty feeling. Knowing that you will one-day be atop the Western World and  “High in the Rockies”.

 

Above all the low-lands that surround them.

ABOUT THE ART OF JOHN J. BARLEY-CORN

 

John J. Barley-Corn is primarily a pen and ink and watercolor artist.

 

His landscapes and his drawings can be described as surrealistic/naturalistic  art.

 

All of these are of a spontaneous nature and reflect the different locations that John has found to be of influences to him during his travels.

 

Traveling around the United States and California in particular has left John with impressions that have been transformed into the surreal /natural  paintings that they are. Although most of his art was done around California landscapes there are a few from around the United States all the way to Key West Florida.

 

John J. Barley-Corn is and always will be a traveler. Be it in mind or body, he will always possess the wanderlust that makes a "rolling stone gather no moss".

 

Movement is one of the keys to freedom and it must be pursued in that fashion.

 

John has gone from the middle of major events on the map to the desolation(s) of nowhere special on the map. But it all serves the purpose.

 

It all makes John J. Barley-Corn the artist that he is and always will be by the grace of God.

 

Each painting reflects an  impression brought on by the energy of the subject being painted.

 

These paintings are a form of communication with the higher source or what may be referred to as "the controlling power" for John Barley-Corn.

 

Enjoy each one for what it is and know that this art and the actual  image that was the model for this art are really one and the same in their own special way, even though no camera can produce these images that are the art of John J. Barley-Corn.