Del Barber, Finding His Songwriting Inspiration from the Land

Loved Del Barber’s perf on @CBCRadioQ Friday. What great songs, recorded from inside old grain silos, farm structures, etc. @delbarberino

— Philip Turner (@philipsturner) February 9, 2014

The few songs I’ve heard from Del Barber’s new album Prairieography–which on the video below he describes as a conscious homage to Ian Tyson’s 1987 album, Cowboyography–all sound great. I heard Barber live in 2011, at the much-missed Living Room venue, when he was included in a showcase put on by ManitobaMusic.com. He’s a tall lefthanded guitar player, and he held the room as a solo artist. The new album has a fuller sound, but still lean and acoustic. As he said on CBC Radio’s “Q” yesterday, he sought out old grain silos and abandoned farm buildings to record in. The songs sounded great live on the radio, but I’m equally eager to hear what they sound like on the album. In Shakey, Jimmy McDonough’s obsessively readable biography of Neil Young, I learned of Neil’s great interest in finding unusual places to record. Barber has the same passion for out of the way sound environments.

Of course, Tyson began his career as half of Ian & Sylvia, but after they went their separate ways his career continued to grow. I don’t have “Cowboyography,” but I do own, and treasure his prodigious 19-song collection from 1994, “Old Corrals and Sagebrush & Other Cowboy Culture Classics.” Tyson’s so prolific that none of the songs from “Cowboyography,” two of which were co-written with the legendary Tom Russell, were included in the later anthology. Here’s a 5-minute video of Del Barber talking about the making of “Prairieography”–don’t miss his discussion of the grain silos and their reverb qualities at around the 2:11 mark.