About the Artist
Barrett Baber is a Nashville songwriter who grew up in Marion, Arkansas, in the Mississippi River Delta just across the water from Memphis. A preacher's kid who moved to town at 35 to chase the dream, he has spent nearly a decade writing for other artists, including the platinum single "Nothing On You" for Cody Johnson and the current top 40 country hit "Fireworks" cut by Kelsey Hart. His new record Crittenden County is his first full-length project in over a decade, named for the Delta county that raised him, and he is rolling it out two songs at a time.
Barrett Baber
About the Episode (Episode 133)
Barrett Baber: Showing Up Even When the Bull Wins
Host Jason English sits down with Barrett Baber right before the first release off Crittenden County, and the conversation lands where Curious Goldfish likes to go: past the album rollout and into the cost of making a life out of songs. Baber is candid about a craft he loves that does not always love him back, and about why he keeps painting on the smile and showing back up.
Key Conversation Points
A record named for the Delta that raised him: Baber built Crittenden County as a sound, not just a title, and chose to release it in "doubles" instead of one single at a time. "What's better than a single cheeseburger man? A double cheeseburger," he says, describing how he curates two songs to play together the way records used to.
The holy part of the writing room: He describes the moment an idea on his phone turns into a finished song with a room full of players. "It's gotta be holy. I mean, it's a holy moment," he says. "It's a drug that gives you a high, for sure."
A line in the sand on AI: Baber uses Suno to reimagine grooves for pitching but never to write a lyric or melody, and his liner notes say the music was made without it. "What's impressive to me is that a person, a human being with a heartbeat sat down and created that art," he says, comparing it to a made in the USA sticker.
There is also a 1999 plane crash he survived at 19, a run to third place on The Voice, and the question of what toughing it out means once you have lived a little. It is a conversation about resilience from a man who has every reason to quit and keeps choosing the other way.