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Performance Info

Mike Barris performs at the Stone Pony, Asbury Park, N.J.

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Acts

Mike Barris performs at clubs, festivals and events primarily in the New Jersey-New York City region as a roots and swing-blues guitarist-singer, songwriter and arranger.

A trained musician, he works in a variety of contexts.

•Solo, in the mode of Leon Redbone, playing pre-war jazz and blues and original songs on concert stages and at clubs.

•In a duo with an upright bassist, performing a mixture of straight-ahead jazz, original songs, blues, rockabilly, Cajun and bluegrass, mostly at restaurants and smaller venues.

•Leading a trio, Mike Barris & Delta Sunrise, including upright bass and percussion (snare, hi-hat and bongos) doing an eclectic amalgam of jazz, blues, original songs, Cajun and Western swing. Primary venues: clubs, festivals and events.

•In larger groups, consisting of the trio augmented by addition of more stringed instruments, harmonica, sax and trumpet, playing basically the repertoire of Delta Sunrise and the duo.

Click to learn how to order Swingbilly Blues

MIKE BARRIS & DELTA SUNRISE: SWINGBILLY BLUES
Venues
CLUBS AND RESTAURANTS
- The Stone Pony, Asbury Park, NJ (opened for Paul Geremia); - Flying Cloud Folk Club (opened for Ian Robb), Albert’s Hall, Hotel Isabella, Free Times Café, Idler Pub, Fiddlers Green, Toronto; - Armadillo Crossing, Veggie Works, Karma’s, Belmar, NJ;
- Ambassador Hotel, Cornelia Street Café, Café Sine, New York City; - Downtown Café, Olde Union House, Oakland House, Dublin House, Red Bank, NJ; - Old Mill Inn, Spring Lake Heights, NJ;
- Bourbon Street Restaurant, East Brunswick, NJ; - Blue Marlin, Giamano’s, Bradley Beach, NJ; - Beignet’s, Seaside Heights, NJ;
- Brighton Bar, Long Branch, NJ; - Java Joint, Toms River, NJ; - Peninsula Grill, Sea Bright, NJ;
- Metropolitan Café, Cornerstone Café, Freehold, NJ; - Mine Street Coffee House, New Brunswick, NJ. - Krogh’s, Sparta, NJ;
- The Urban Word, Trenton, NJ;
 

 
FESTIVALS
-    Summerfolk, Owen Sound, Ontario (with Paul Geremia, Roy Book Binder, Rory Block, Shawn Colvin);
-  Golden Link Folk Festival, Honeoye Falls, NY (with Bob Franke, Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer);
-  Thomas Homestead Festival, Savona, NY (with Connie Kaldor);
-  Turtle Hill Music Festival, Spencerport, NY (with Garnet Rogers);
-  Ocean County Folk Arts Festival, Lakewood, NJ (with Elaine Silver);
-  Cobourg Waterfront Festival, Cobourg, Ontario (with Barra McNeills).
SONG LIST
SWING & OLD-TIME JAZZ RHYTHM TUNES BALLADS ‘N’ BLUES COUNTRY ROOTS
Steppin’ Out with My Baby Lullaby of the Leaves Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out WESTERN SWING
Hallelujah I Love Her So Home on the Range Summertime No Good for Nothin’ Blues
Lulu’s Back in Town Cha-Cha Boom St. Louis Blues That’s Your Red Wagon
Puttin’ on the Ritz Mercy, Mercy, Mercy Why Don’t You Do Right? New Steel Guitar Rag (original)
Stompin’ at the Savoy Watermelon Man I’m in the Mood For Love

BLUEGRASS
Get Your Kicks on Route 66 Real Heartbreaker Melancholy Baby Back Up and Push
Every Day I Have the Blues Tribute to Doc Watson (original) Baby Won’t You Please Come Home? I’m Goin’ Down to the Racetrack
Lester Leaps In Walkin’ Blues Makin’ Whoopee New River Train
Jambalaya Green Trout (original) Somewhere Over the Rainbow Don’t Let Your Deal Go Down
It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing) I Took My Baby Down the Jersey Shore (original) St. James Infirmary Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar
C-Jam Blues Cajun Boogie (original) Motherless Child Pickin’ Like Crazy (original)
Don’t Get Around Much Anymore JUKEBOX BLUES
All of Me Just Your Fool
Satin Doll Trouble in Mind
Lawd, You Made the Night Too Long See, See Rider
Talkin’ Turnpike Blues (original) That’s All Right, Mama
UPS Baby (original) Flip, Flop and Fly
Take Me Back to Hackensack (original) ROCKABILLY
Mike’s Boogie (original) Just Because
Blues in B-Flat (original) Mind Your Own Business
Grits ‘N’ Gravy (original) Cat Clothes

OLD TIME JAZZ

 Blue Suede Shoes
Take Me Out to the Ball Game Honey Don’t
Any Time
Ain’t She Sweet
Bye Bye Blues
I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter
San Francisco Bay Blues
Glory of Love
Heartaches
When I’m Cleaning Windows (with ukulele)
I’m Leaning on the Lamp-post (with ukulele)
Financial News (original)

GYPSY JAZZ
Back in Nagasaki
Struttin’ on the Boardwalk (original)
Bradley Beach Strut (original)

 Reviews

Tangy music

Delta Sunrise feeds appetites for melodies
By Kelly-Jane Cotter
Music Writer, Asbury Park Press

As cheerful and refreshing as a glass of just-squeezed orange juice, the music of Delta Sunrise will brighten your day and fill you with Vitamin C.

OK, that’s not entirely true, unless you bring a jar of Flintstones chewables to one of the band’s upcoming shows.

Nevertheless, Delta Sunrise sure sounds nutritious, loaded with the multi-grain goodness of country, swing, rockabilly, blues and coffeehouse jazz.

Fronted by the guitarist Mike Barris, Delta Sunrise can tackle "Home on the Range" as well as "Steppin’ Out with My Baby" and come up with versions that Roy Rogers and Tony Bennett would not recognize. The band retains the original melodies, but threads them with unexpected musical stylings. "Steppin’ Out with My Baby," becomes a bluesy campire song, for example.

Barris can be cornier than Kellogg’s, as in "Talkin’ Turnpike Blues," a lively tale of the highway. But there’s something sweet about lyrics that mention tollbooths and blizzards and Exit 11.

Delta Sunrise performs Tuesday at the Brighton Bar in Long Branch and Feb. 7 at Java Joint in Toms River.

To purchase a demo tape, call (732) 222-4237.

Asbury Park (NJ) Press

"….Barris, the guitarslinger who put fun back into the blues, pays homage to music’s swing era with a stunningly eclectic instrumental style that invokes the rhythm of Louis Armstrong, the improvisational extroversion of Lonnie Johnson and the wit of Fats Waller. His recently released recording, "Boogie" Mike Barris, was on a Toronto radio DJ’s Top 20 list for the month of December."

-Oshawa (Ontario) Times

"Boogie Mike Barris shows you what the blues are all about."

-Oshawa This Week

"Mike is a unique and compelling artist. A great guitarist."

-Michael O’Shea, chairman, Golden Link Folk Festival

"Mike’s music is always great."

-Metropolitan Café, Freehold, N.J.

Mike rocks …. A lot of people play here, and they all sound the same. Mike doesn’t sound like them. He sounds like himself."

-VeggieWorks, Belmar, N.J.

"Great stuff."

-Brighton Bar, West End, N.J.

"Mike is a great musician and a great writer."

-Acoustic Musicians Guild, N.J.

"Very fine, authentic swing and blues."

-Owen Sound Summerfolk, Owen Sound, Ontario

"Very talented."

-Mariposa Arts Foundation, Toronto, Ontario

"Barris is the contemporary equivalent of a jazz troubador. Conversant with styles old and new, he has taken the art form and whipped it into
a veritable frothy mixture of subtle harmonies, sweeping melodies and the whispery coolness that denotes music not only played well, but
beloved by its musician."

-Matt Moore, The Associated Press 

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