From SeattlePI.com, by
P-I reporter Casey McNerthney
Original Article Link
To people outside the music world, Kearney Barton isn't especially well known. But the artists recorded in his Seattle studios certainly are.
Barton was an engineer for Quincy Jones, Ann Wilson, Bonnie Guitar, and garage rock icons The Sonics.
He recorded the The Wailers, The Kingsmen, The Frantics, The Ventures, Little Bill, Stan Boreson, and thousands more.
In 1959, he was an engineer for the Fleetwood's "Mr. Blue" — one of less than a half-dozen songs by Seattle-area artists to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
"He created a sound that is still reverberating today," said Matt Sullivan, Light In The Attic Records founder. "In a lot of ways he was the godfather of the Northwest sound."
That godfather died Tuesday after an illness. He was 80.
Barton and others — including Joe Boles of Seattle, Wiley Griffith of Tacoma and Lyle Thompson of Commercial Recorders — were top engineers who helped form Seattle's sound before the early '90s grunge era. And Barton's collection of tapes showed his range: jazz to classical, grunge to bluegrass, high school bands to radio jingles.
"I don't think the significance of his contribution had really spread around the world as it did in the last decade or so with Norton Records of New York," music historian Peter Blecha said.
The record label specializing in loud rock and roll tracks through 1966 reissued several recordings made in Barton's studios and described him as an engineering genius. Barton's recordings of early Seattle rock bands were better received than his recordings of folk rock and psychedelic sounds in the late 1960s, making him a perfect fit for Norton, Blecha said.
Sonics tracks that Barton recorded have influenced Pearl Jam and E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt, among others, and the Norton-led resurgence helped lead to a Sonics reunion show at the Paramount in Oct. 2008.
After the success of "Wheedle's Groove" — a compilation of influential Seattle funk and soul tracks form 1965-75 — many of those artists gathered at Barton's North Seattle studio to record on the analogue gear he'd used for decades.
Though most studios transitioned to digital recording, Barton was legendary for stacks of tapes he'd recorded with vintage mics.
"They hadn't seen him in decades and were so excited," Sullivan said of artists Robbie Hill, Overton Berry, Ron Buford and others at the reunion recording. "It was an honor to get to record at a place like that, and all of us were really happy to see how it turned out."
Barton's work on early Seattle funk tracks received rave reviews after their re-release a few years ago, which was followed by the 2009 documentary also titled "Wheedle's Groove."
"His studio is just without words to describe it," producer Dynomite D said in a 2009 interview with Light in the Attic. "It's like a time capsule into the recording past, with all the vintage mics and gear it is really something you have to experience."
While it was packed with history, it wasn't very organized. But a few years ago, thousands of his master tapes were donated to the University of Washington, where archivists have been working to alphabetize and digitally archive them.
For years, Barton told of recording Jimi Hendrix with one his early bands. That tape hasn't been found, but there's hope that maybe someday it will surface from the tens of thousands of hours Barton recorded.
Blecha, who has written several music books and was hired by Paul Allen to track down rock and roll artifacts for Experience Music Project, is helping with the preservation.
On Wednesday, he recalled the first local music exhibit he created for the Seattle Public Library in 1983. It was Barton who loaned Blecha the coolest parts — vintage microphones, photos and the reel-to-reel tape partially unraveled in the display case.
"I think there was a universal sense of kindness and generosity," he said of Barton. "He had a calmness about him and a sense of humor that made everyone who ever recorded for him have fond memories."
P-I reporter Casey McNerthney can be reached at (206) 448-8220 or
Follow him on Twitter as @mcnerthney.
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