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After stints playing the saxophone and trumpet in his younger years, harmonica presented a greater variety of sounds, and he especially loved the versatility of what he described as little more than a couple of reeds fixed between two metal plates.“ It’ s the instrument which has such a variety of ways you can present one note, unlike any other instrument out there,” he said. Unfortunately, there weren’ t any harmonica-trained teachers around who could instruct him in what he wanted to learn. He embarked upon two years of teaching himself what he could with limited resources, and by age sixteen was playing at a few local clubs.

“ JJ’ s Blues [ in San José ] was the big blues club at the time,” he said. He won free tickets to a blues festival held there and recalled the impact of hearing live blues harmonica for the first time, played by a local great named Gary Smith whom Barrett called“ one of our legendary players in blues.” Utterly captivated, he knew he’ d found his music teacher, if only he could convince Smith to teach him.“ I noticed [ the musicians ] were all going out for fried chicken afterwards, so my goal was to plant myself next to that gate and ask him to give me lessons.”

Smith was reluctant to teach him, but, said Barrett,“ I begged and pleaded and he finally said yes.”

Less than ten lessons later, Barrett said,“ And like a stupid teenager I felt like I learned all I could. Then I continued the journey on my own.” However, he and Smith have continued to collaborate over the past 27 years in numerous ways. Smith helped Barrett book local gigs and arrange jam sessions and has remained a close friend.

Not two years after that, budding harmonica players began to approach Barrett, only eighteen himself, to teach them.“ I had no idea how to teach, but they said it didn’ t matter,” he remembered with a chuckle.

He assumed teaching would be a great way to pay for college without any more of the“ menial ditch digging type jobs,” he was accustomed to. Moreover, teaching others felt like paying forward what he’ d learned from Smith.“ Some of the techniques Gary had shown me I wouldn’ t have figured out on my own or it would have taken a long time.”

He soon built up a stable of private clients and worked part time at music stores, including the former Music Tree in downtown Morgan Hill, which he managed for six years, from 1994 to 2000. Management taught him a lot about the music business, and led him to start teaching local harmonica workshops to fill a growing demand for lessons.

In the process he realized the incredible lack of teaching materials for harmonica on the market. He partly attributed this lack to the fact that“ Blues harmonica has always been an oral tradition: you listen, copy, and try to use it and nothing has been written for that,” he said, but he saw an opportunity. He turned a workshop he spent a year teaching into a book called Building Harmonica Technique that went on to be published by known music publisher, Mel Bay Publications. It would be the first of over 70 books, CDs and DVDs on blues harmonica that he has written or produced, a niche that he can comfortably claim for himself.

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GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN MARCH / APRIL 2017 gmhtoday. com