Patterson Barrett is a man about town, that town now being Austin, TX, but past that, he is a man about the country. He has made friends in lots of quarters, and can be spotted on stages all over the place. There is Threadgill's North, for the ongoing Sittin' Singin' and Supper series where he has been jamming with Stonehoney, or just this past week, where he had Gurf Morlix and Slaid Cleaves sit in with him, as he is taking over the stewardship of these shows while Stonehoney is on the road. Then there was the spectacular evening I attended a while back, Patterson had put together a tribute to Gram Parsons outdoors at Threadgill's South. It was a lyrical, 'wrap the music around you' kind of night. Patterson seems to specialize in community building and collaborative effort. It is the thing that makes musicians so attractive to me, that there is a need for union, and a willingness to communicate with one another on that wonderful exploratory level. It has brought him to work with a list that includes Jerry Jeff Walker, Nanci Griffith, Al Kooper and Lou Ann Barton, to name just a few luminaries.
He released his first solo CD in 2007, I Must Be Dreaming: "If you haven't heard of Patterson Barrett you'll wonder why. He's great at everything and he's got a lot of heart. That's what comes through." - Buddy Miller. Or "Hooray! The ever talented Patterson Barrett (longtime friend and mentor) has, at last, got these beautiful songs down for us to hear this "art & heart." - Julie Miller. By the way, Buddy and Julie are each to be found playing on the CD as well!
We invited Patterson on the Music Fog bus in Memphis this past February, and he brought some friends with him, Doc Simons and Julieann Banks. Of course he did!
- Jessie Scott
