Barry Brower's Website

I was born in London, Ontario, Canada in 1945.  My mother was Canadian, Supervisor of Nurses for the Allegan County, Michigan, Health Department until she retired in 1973.  She was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and grew up on the Saskatchewan and Manitoba prairie, moving from small town to small town as her father received ministerial "calls."  She wrote a book about these experiences: Daughter of the Manse.  My father was raised on a Michigan farm, worked for the Standard Oil Company until his retirement about the same time.  Both are deceased.

I grew up in Wayland, Michigan (pop. 1500) and graduated from Michigan State University in 1967 with a degree in Broadcast Journalism.  After university, I worked briefly for TV/Radio stations in Lansing, Michigan; Berkeley, California; and Stockton, California.

The Vietnam War was happening and I was drafted.  In 1969 I went to Vietnam, working as a journalist and broadcaster for AFVN (the subject of the movie "Good Morning America").  I spent a "long year in Long Binh," as well as Cam Ranh Bay and Hon Tre Island, off Nha Trang, before I was discharged in late 1970.                          

I returned to California, briefly living in the San Francisco Bay area before moving to Arcata.  In San Francisco I became enamored of bluegrass music, and soon decided to learn to play.  In order to purchase a guitar I went down to "Tam Junction" in Mill Valley and stood by the roadside hawking a large number of rock & roll records I owned.  With the proceeds, I went down to a local music store and bought a Guild D-50 guitar and I was on my way. 

                                                                                                                                                                   Tap Dancers, 1954. L-R: Barry, Kathleen (Parrish) Peterson, Jack Nicolai

Over 40 years later I have played in various bluegrass bands as well as numerous other related musical groupings.  In Arcata, it was with Fickle Hill, a popular local group (Dave Johns, Mike "Spumoni" Manetas, Brooks Otis, Gary Grounds, Ro Purser, Jude Power).  We performed frequently at the Jambalaya Club, when it was in its heyday as a venue for local and traveling music groups, as well as at numerous other events.  This was an exciting time for me, and I really learned to play in those years. 

I developed a major interest in environmentalism and entered the Environmental Sciences graduate program at Humboldt State University with an emphasis in Communications.  I worked seasonally for the National Park Service and Forest Service as a Ranger, which continued into the 1980s.  During this period I worked for Grand Teton, Redwood, and North Cascades National Parks, and with the Forest Service as a Wilderness Ranger in the Trinity Alps and Olympic National Forest.  In Arcata I hosted one of the first dedicated bluegrass radio programs west of the Mississippi River, on KXGO-FM.  This began in 1972 and ran until 1975. 

In 1979 I was married and shortly thereafter moved with my wife, Joyce, to Bella Coola, British Columbia where I began working with the provincial Forest Service.  My job was to manage the program for small business operators, among which were called Handloggers, an interesting group of folks who selectively logged tracts of land adjacent to B.C. Coastal inlets.  They used a tugboat, chain saw, and choker line and typically lived in a float camp where they also boomed the logs.                                                              

I had the great fortune and opportunity to make frequent trips throughout the central coastal areas (Smith Inlet to Kimsquit) in a vintage 1934 forestry boat (the Oliver Clark), week-long adventures that were informative and inspiring.  I took many photographs of these expeditions, some of which are displayed in the Photo Gallery.

Bella Coola is a remote valley, with less than 2000 residents, and a compatible music situation was hard to come by, but I managed to put together a little acoustic country/bluegrass/folk trio, the Hills Brothers (left), with Roy Schubert, guitar, and Rob Grant, bass, and we performed occasionally at local events and gatherings. 

In 1984 my wife and I separated and I decided to return to the United States.  I settled in Langley, Washington, moving to a home in Everett in 1989.

I received my Master of Library Science from the University of Washington in 1987 and began work at Everett Community College.  I worked as a Librarian for Western Washington University for nearly 11 years, and then for Whatcom Community College for two years.  I am retired now but working part-time at Everett Community College.

I formed the Friends of Sally Johnson in 1985, playing mandolin with Phil and Vivian Williams and Harley and Shera Bray, all accomplished bluegrass musicians.  We played numerous festivals, clubs, and events in Washington for the next five years.  We performed on ABC's "Home Show" in 1988.

In 1981 my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.  His decline was quick and catastrophic.  A handsome, young-for-his-years, outdoorsy sort was reduced in a few years to a drawn, vacant individual.  He remained that way until 1994, when he died.  I cannot say enough about the devastation of this illness, as severe a case as I've seen.  My mother, who was ten years older spent most of her remaining years attending to him in a Wayland nursing home, and then began having stroke-related dementia of her own.  She died in 1998 in an assisted living facility near me in Everett.

I put together the Grand Ole Ospreys in 1990 with Laurel Bliss, John Clark, Gene Wilson, and Stan Miller, and this lasted for a couple of years.  Banjoist Laura Smith and I also did some performances in the early to mid-90s.  In 1993 I formed The Fossils, whose primary membership was Doug Bright, Belle Chenault, Bill Scott, and myself.  In 2000 we released a CD, which got good reviews: The Fossil Record : Voyager VRCD-0348 .  Three original pieces I wrote were recorded, which you can listen to at my Music page. 

I met my wife, Jen Dunton (left) in 1997.  Jen is from a large, musical Anacortes family and she performs in a group with her sister Bev and mom Gae, the Dunton Sisters, as well as a separate classical music trio.  She and I also have a bluegrass band known as Pearly Blue  (right, below).                       

Beginning in the 1980s I began writing free-lance pieces for various publications, including Bluegrass Unlimited, Raincoast Chronicles, Canadian West, Seattle Weekly, Everett Herald, Habits of Waste Quarterly.  These articles were a mixture of interviews, profiles, and travel pieces.  You can read them at Articles and Music Articles.

From 1985 to 2001 I was one of the hosts of Bluegrass Ramble at KBCS-FM radio in Bellevue, Washington.

I also have pursued an avid interest in photography, some results of which are posted on my Photo Gallery pages.  I won the Everett Herald grand prize for a photograph I took of the Blue Angels at Seafair in the 1990s.   What a great life!

                                                                     Barry's Graduation??