Barry Bales Interview - Gut strings, plywood basses, bluegrass & more

Interview and Band Performance with Barry Bales

Meet Barry Bales! In this video, we welcome our newest tutor to Discover Double Bass, Barry Bales. Known for his work as a member of Alison Krauss and Union Station for over 30 years, as well as for appearing on countless albums with artists such as Dolly Parton, Dwight Yoakam, Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson, and soundtracks including "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou". Barry is a celebrated bluegrass, roots, and country music upright bassist who is the winner of 15 Grammy awards, 23 International Bluegrass Music Association awards, a Country Music Association Award, and two Academy of Country Music awards. He really has done it all and it's an honour to welcome him to Discover Double Bass as our Bluegrass tutor.

Bary and I discuss topics including his use of American Standard upright basses - comparing one with gut strings and another with steels, influential bluegrass bassists, and much more. The video ends with an uptempo performance of the bluegrass classic, Train 45.

Timecodes:

01:30 American Standard Bass 1 and gut strings
10:20 Set up
11:16 Dampening the sound
12:14 Amplifying the bass
13:20 American Standard Bass 2
14:16 Strings
17:44 Performance