Exploring Nashville's 90s Country Music Scene with Singer- Songwriter John Berry's Personal Stories and Resilience Journey

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Taking a Walk Nashville.

00:00:02
Speaker 2: Hi everyone, It's Sarah Harrelson, your host of Taking a Walk Nashville. I want to know if you've been in Nashville. Where have you been taking a walk? Reach out to me, let me know where you've been going, what concerts you've seen in Nashville. You can DM me at taking a Walk Nashville on Instagram or reach out to us through taking a Walk Nashville dot com. Today, I am taking you on a journey back to the nineties in Nashville and country music. I am sitting here with John Barry walking over to the Omni Hotel in downtown Nashville where we're having this conversation. You may know him for his rich voice and emotional songwriting. His number one hit, Your Love Amazes Me, what number one on the Billboard chart in nineteen ninety four. He has other hits such as Standing on the Edge of Goodbye. I think about all the time. I love these songs, and today we talk about what he was going through during that period of time recording Your Love Amazes Me. Sit down with me and John Barry as we have this conversation today.

00:01:20
Speaker 3: Welcome to Taking a Walk Nashville with your hosts singer songwriter Sarah Harrelson.

00:01:25
Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, This is Sarah Harrelson, your host of Taking a Walk Nashville, and today's guest on Taking a Walk Nashville is Grammy Leinning country music artist John Barry. One of the most recognizable voices in nineties country music. John first rose to national prominence in the early nineties with his rich tenor voice and emotional ballads. Over the course of his career, he's delivered multiple hit singles, including Your Love Amazes Me, Standing on the Edge of Goodbye, kiss Me in the Car, and I Think About It All the Time. He's also continued thanking to tour across the country, both with his band and special duo performances with his wife Robin on the Christmas with John Berry Tour. His latest release, Live from the Country Music Cruise, captures the magic of John's live performances and brings fans right into the room for some of the most iconic songs. John, Thank you so much for being with me on Taking a Walk Nashville, Disega, thank you so your latest project. As I mentioned, Live from the Country Music Cruise, This captures your live show in a cruise ship setting. What made you want to release an album from this specific setting.

00:02:40
Speaker 3: Well, we've done the country Creuse a number of times and they came to us as pass time and say, hey, we've been which I didn't know. So they've been recording these things and have put albums out these other artists and asked if we'd like to do it. I said sure. It red a lot of fun and.

00:03:01
Speaker 4: We had some friends that were on the ship. We had.

00:03:05
Speaker 3: Jimmy Fortune was on the show, was on the ship with us, and we got him to come sing a song with me.

00:03:11
Speaker 4: We did both of us.

00:03:13
Speaker 3: Jimmy and I are both huge John Denver fans, and he had sung this song, Annie song by John Neiverer for years. I've done it my show almost my entire career. This was my favorite John never song. So I got him to go up and sing it with me. So that was cool, and that's on the album. And then a song I recorded called I Will if you Will Patty Loveless Patty. She sang on it with me and John Jarvis wrote that song. Jarn Jarvis was on the ship and he played piano on the recording. That was a top fifteen song for me for Top twenty.

00:03:49
Speaker 1: Well, I believe. I believe Chris Blair from the Listening Room hosted the Country Cruise. We just had him on taking a walk Nashville. But for people who haven't experienced the Country Music crew, what is it like performing in this environment? But they're a different environ.

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Speaker 4: It's a lot of fun.

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Speaker 3: I mean, of course on the cruise, there's so many artists and you see them all over the ship, and you see him in the dining rooms, you see them on the pool decks.

00:04:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're everywhere.

00:04:16
Speaker 3: And we're walking through the towns of the Port Calls.

00:04:19
Speaker 4: You see him downtown, so you see a lot of people.

00:04:21
Speaker 3: It's a lot of fun, and everybody's pretty laid back and there's not a whole lot of egos out there.

00:04:26
Speaker 4: It's just a lot of fun.

00:04:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a festival in a cruise ship setting very cool. Yeah, people should definitely check out Your Life from the Country Music Cruise album. And you also just celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of Standing on the Edge of Goodbye. What do you remember about recording and writing the song and realizing how special it was.

00:04:46
Speaker 4: It's a little crazy.

00:04:47
Speaker 3: Oh, I remember writing the chorus, I was on tours back on tire, and I had this chorus and the band and I we worked it up and we played it and then we played it soundcheck one day, and then the next day at soundchat the crew asked, hey, play that sack.

00:05:05
Speaker 4: We'll played it again, and then every day soundcheck they want to hear it. So all we had was a chorus.

00:05:09
Speaker 3: So we just played it over and over a few times and I couldn't finish the songs. I just had his bluff and I got together with Stuart Harris, who wrote No One Else on Earth for one on a jug and an hour and a half later we had.

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Speaker 4: It was done.

00:05:23
Speaker 3: It was my first song that I had a hand in writing that was a number one record for me. But it was, but I don't remember recording as weird as is.

00:05:35
Speaker 4: I got real sick.

00:05:37
Speaker 3: We recorded that album about this time of year in nineteen ninety four, because the debut album has already it was already out. But you Love Amazes Me on It Kissed Me and they call it all that was already out. So we were working on Standing on the Edge album and I and I was really sick.

00:05:54
Speaker 4: I had to have brain surgery and matter fad. It's crazy. It's like haalme Art movie, you know.

00:06:01
Speaker 3: I mean, I had my son born. I was the meanest person on the planet. We didn't realize that Battles is sick with That's a lot. We didn't know what was mount.

00:06:12
Speaker 4: I had a kilo.

00:06:13
Speaker 3: Assystem of third venturable in my brain that turned me into very evil person. Ended up having brain surgery on May tenth and ninety four the same day you Love Amazes Me with my first number one.

00:06:25
Speaker 4: Record, Wow.

00:06:26
Speaker 3: Sometime during all that we recorded the song stand on the Edge of I don't remember Wow. I remember I vaguely remember being at Emerald Sound Studios recording.

00:06:38
Speaker 4: But crazy, isn't it?

00:06:40
Speaker 1: That is wild? Yeah, definitely a lot of things happening all at once then. But yeah, I mean, it's such a beautiful song. And your vocals turned out so beautifully on that song. And as you mentioned, this also marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Faces album. When you go back and revisit that era of your music, what stands out to you the most about that time and country music.

00:07:06
Speaker 3: Well, I think that I love the sound of the records that came out during that time, the producers that made to produce those records and my producer, Chuck Howard, there's there's something about those records that even today they still sound great. Yeah, you know, a sonically sound great, the arrangements sound great. You know, Chuck Hart did a great child of my records. There is he purposely wanted to do some sounded classic, you know, just he's had great textures of great sounds, nothing too gimmicky and writing that kind of stuffer.

00:07:42
Speaker 4: So that was pretty cool.

00:07:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, especially the production on that album and your songs that can be so crossover from country too, especially with a lot of the ballads. So it is beautifully done. And you know, we talked about your cruise tour and your album. You also have so many tour dates coming up this year with your band, and you also perform a lot of shows with your wife, Robin. How does the dynamic change between a show with your band and doing a duo show with your wife.

00:08:15
Speaker 3: Well, with the band, we we just have a great it's a great band and we just we just put it on, you know, yeah, just have a lot of as as much energy as we can't for an old man.

00:08:26
Speaker 4: And uh uh.

00:08:27
Speaker 3: And then and my wife sings in the band too, so it's great. She's great and does a great y'all, brings a lot of energy in and then when it's just me and her, we we just we tell lots of stories and she talks way too much and tells way too many stories, she said, retelling and uh, we have a lot of fun.

00:08:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's so great to hear the story behind the song too, So I love that. And in addition to all these shows, your Christmas with John Barry tour it's become a tradition for many fans. How did this tour for began?

00:09:01
Speaker 3: Well, it all started with when Rob and I got married in nineteen eighty eight. She grew up going to Green Acres Baptist Church in Athens, Georgia, and of course I joined the church with her and.

00:09:14
Speaker 4: She started going there she was eight years.

00:09:15
Speaker 3: Old, and the pastor, Fred Raoul became a dear, dear friend to me. And Christmas of eighty eight he asked, he said, look, would you think about coming singing the ale Christmas program for us at the church. And I was surprised because I was the guy who played all the bars in tank. Me and my band our goal you know, Athens is a college tank University of Georgia. Our job was to get three hundred college students to war from ten to two and that was and we were really good at but we put together a wonderful program and ended up doing it there for five years. But Old Holy Night was part of that and we close the should wear it each year and I loved it and it was a big.

00:10:04
Speaker 4: Hit with Choose Well.

00:10:07
Speaker 3: My third single came out in January of ninety four, Your Love Amazes Me. I had brain surgery that morning. Telugh way to get a number one record, but a guy's got to do what a guy's got to yet, so we had already scheduled from months before.

00:10:26
Speaker 4: To go in and record a few Christmas songs to see kind of what we had this.

00:10:30
Speaker 3: Chuck had heard about a Christmas shore in Athens, and so were. We set a schedule and it was June eighth of nineteen ninety four. With all the hoopla around my surgery, we forgot about it. Chuck called my wife and said, we've got about this session. I'll cancel, and my wife's wisdom she said, no, don't canceler. John needs to distract you, which I really did, so we went in on June Ah been recorded O Come Emmanuel and Oh Holy Night, and we just captured something really special. Some you couldn't plan, you couldn't make a And if you if you can ever, if you find that old record or hear it on the radio, that reporting that came out on the album in nineteen ninety five Oh Holy Night album, there's something I mean. It was recorded twenty eight days after I had brain surgery.

00:11:29
Speaker 4: Wow, yeah, I mean.

00:11:31
Speaker 1: And I think that's the best thing about events were sessions where you know, you feel like canceling, you're not really sure if you're up for it. Sometimes the best things come out of the sessions or events that you feel like not going to.

00:11:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, and once again, recording had no idea. I don't remember a word of it. I'll remember being there. I listened back to it and I can sort of sense. But if you hear that recording, that old record, listen with new years, knowing that twenty eight days before I'd had gone through that surgery, and see, if you don't hear something real vulnerable because I didn't know what they'd find. And when we were in the studio recording it, it.

00:12:15
Speaker 4: Was like it's so magical. It was so emotional.

00:12:18
Speaker 3: The violinist Connie her violin, wool class violinist her violin kid going out of tune, and Chuck Howard to produce her instracross the headphones. Connie worked doing all with their instrument. She said, well, I was sitting in here listening to John singering.

00:12:33
Speaker 4: A month ago.

00:12:34
Speaker 3: We were praying he would survive much less sing again, she said, the tears are falling off my cheek and landing on my violin. Make it and go out of tain. And that's the kind of stuff you can't wow. The scriptwriter for Homework TV couldn't make that up. Yeah, you know, it's just there was and so twenty five thirty years later he could spend it and still feel it.

00:13:02
Speaker 4: That's a recording.

00:13:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, it definitely makes you extra grateful when you're in the studio recording of songs is now. It's so beautiful. So, John, we're on taking a walk Nashville. So a question I like to ask my guests and for you, what do you think is the most memorable walk in Nashville.

00:13:23
Speaker 2: You have taken?

00:13:25
Speaker 4: Well, two sixteenth Avenue.

00:13:29
Speaker 3: I can still remember walking up Sixteenth Avenue before I ever had a record deal.

00:13:34
Speaker 4: This this would be pretty cool.

00:13:36
Speaker 3: And then the other walk is a Centennial Park in the springtime and.

00:13:42
Speaker 4: Nothing quite as beautiful. It's a that's a great place.

00:13:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, very beautiful. What are your thoughts about how Sixteenth Avenue has changed over the years. A.

00:13:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's not some musical it's condo row and it's just it's the inevitable change of thing because one thing you can count on, does that stays the same?

00:14:03
Speaker 1: Say yeah, But what we can count on is still seeing you on tour. Listeners can find on your website your upcoming show dates and music. John Berry, thank you so much for being on Taking a Walk Nashville today.

00:14:17
Speaker 4: Great good to be with you.

00:14:20
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to Taking a Walk Nashville with Sarah Harrelson.

00:14:24
Speaker 1: Please check out our other shows produced by Buzznight Media Productions, Comedy Save Me and Music Save Me hosted by Lynn Hoffman, and Taking a Walk hosted by Yours Truly Buzznight.

00:14:38
Speaker 2: All shows are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and are part of the iHeart podcast network.