Barra John Announces Fantastic Debut Single ‘Stanley' Out Now
Before Barra John was paid to make music, he played professional football for Hearts, worked as Orlando Bloom’s body double, studied acting at NIDA, tread the boards in theatres across Australia, busked all over Europe, captained yachts in the Caribbean and ran a farm in the French Dordogne. He is a man of intrigue, a traveling troubadour with a head full of songs about his life, philosophy and experience.
Born in Crumlin, Dublin - a breeding ground of Irish professional soccer - Robbie Keane, Andy Reid, Joey O’Brien, David Freeman, Stephen Rice – were all around as Barra grew up playing street football. Future universal stars Conor McGregor and Katie Taylor were familiar to him around Crumlin as he floated around listening to music, reading literature and dreaming of landing a professional deal. At just fifteen years of age, he was offered a contract with Glasgow Celtic, he eventually signed for Hearts. Living in digs in Edinburgh and a tad lonely, he picked up the guitar, teaching himself the chord book, honing the craft later with Andy Reid, of Nottingham Forest, Tottenham Hotspur and Republic of Ireland as his teacher.
There were some great football days - scoring against Celtic, playing against Middlesborough with one Paul Gascoigne in the line-up, but plagued by injuries, after five operations, at just 22, Barra retired from competitive football. Shoring up in London, while sleeping in a bus shelter, he was approached by a talent agent, becoming Orlando Bloom’s double. After studying acting for several years at NIDA (Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art), in Sydney - he starred in international advertisements for Toyota and Coca-Cola. It paid the bills, while he treaded the boards in theatres across Australia.
Between productions, he began jumping in his van, playing cover gigs throughout Australia and New Zealand. Singing and playing guitar, he fell in love with the troubadour life - guitar on back, heading into town, playing a gig, heading out of town for another joint - the wanderlust in him, he gave up acting and took to the road. Playing across Europe, busking on streets and in subway tunnels, gigging bars, halls, shebeens and clubs. In bad and ugly seasons, he worked construction.
One winter, snowbound in a cottage in the Pyrenees, he began writing songs, listening to flamenco, classical, Edith Piaf and Serge Gainsbourg. Falling in love with France, he bought a small farm in the Dordogne, growing fruit and vegetables. Content, to write for the drawer, a chance meeting with Mick Cronin, Live Transmission Records put him in touch with Karl Odlum (Gemma Hayes, Nina Hynes, Mic Christopher) who began producing an album worth of Barra John material, some of which feature on the live EP, One Summer Night, recorded at the Greville Arms Hotel, Mullingar.
During the pandemic, Barra John, ever the wandering troubadour, was gigging across Brazil - shoring up in Rio De Janeiro, he wrote ‘Stanley’- “a song about losing a child, before they are born.” Featuring Colm Mac Con Iomaire (The Frames, Kíla), Anna Houston (Mike Scott, Steve Wickham, No Crows) and recorded by Karl Odlum, it is a wonderful Welleresque slice of Dublin balladry, a calling card marking the arrival of a powerful fresh voice in folk. Evocative of lives poignantly not lived, it is reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway’s six-word masterpiece – “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
The Paul Gallagher directed video for Stanley is coming very soon.
