Barnaby Bright - A Shining Light in the "Bleak Midwinter"

Every so often an artist or group circles in the periphery of my musical consciousness…recommended by peers or supporters…I may hear a snippet of their offerings or perhaps forget to check them out altogether. Such is the case with Barnaby Bright, an indie folk duo comprised of marital team Becky and Nathan Bliss, from Kansas City. As their online bio reveals, Nathan and Becky Bliss have made some cool Americana records, lived in Brooklyn and Nashville, toured coast to coast, run out of money, toured Europe, run out of money again, won high-falutin' prizes for songwriting in New York, generally not argued with each other, built an audience, been named one of Amazon's Top 100 albums of the year, played Lincoln Center & NPR's Mountain Stage, eaten copious amounts of vegetarian food, attracted 19k+ listeners a month on Spotify and opened for Norah Jones & the Lumineers.

My friend, Karin Bauer, has been extolling the virtues of Barnaby Bright for YEARS and I had all but ignored her calls to action to dig into their catalogue. I was wrong to have done so; I had missed out on some true sonic treasures but I’m relieved to say that is no longer the case. My friend and colleague, Sam Wisman, a world class percussionist in his own right, had recently played a livestream show when Barnaby Bright was a guest of Becky’s brother Ben Bliss, a critically acclaimed operatic tenor. Sam asked me to consider interviewing them to help promote the audio re-broadcast of that program “Holiday Bliss” on KKFI.

Still in lockdown, I reached out to Becky Bliss and she graciously agreed to a Zoom session to have a conversation. By the time we met virtually, I felt like we had already been introduced. We have tons of mutual friends and they could not have been more gracious in telling a portion of their story.

As you will hear, I am very interested in why our world class, in many cases classically trained artists like Becky and Nathan, leave the Heartland to pursue their dreams. It is heartwarming and reaffirming to know they can and will come home.