Wild Willy Barrett

Wild Willy Barrett
At the 2003 Cambridge folk festival
Background information
Birth name	Roger John Barrett
Born	(1950-05-30) 30 May 1950 (age 67) Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England
Genres	Folk, Reggae, rock, punk
Occupation(s)	Musician, Woodworker
Instruments	Guitar, vocals, banjo, fiddle, bass, keyboards,
Years active	1968–present
Labels	Transatlantic Logo Polydor Red Eye Records Black Eye Records
Associated acts	John Otway, Stephen Two-Names, Sleeping Dogz
Website	wildwillybarrett.com musiczoo.co.uk

Wild Willy Barrett (born Roger John Barrett – 30 May 1950) is an English experimental musician and multi-instrumentalist, best known for his collaborations with John Otway. His musical style has included folk, blues, psychedelia, pop and punk rock and his live performances are punctuated with his dry humour and onstage wit. He is known for virtuoso fiddle playing, ability with a great number of stringed instruments, and playing slide guitar with a whole raw egg (known as egg-necking). During recent Otway/Barrett performances, he has also introduced the 'wah wah wheelie bin'.

Barrett is also a skilled wood worker and carver and has produced highly unusual furniture over many years.

Barrett comes from Aylesbury. He is credited with supporting guitar, fiddle and vocals in a number of other albums, from Rolf Harris' version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" to playing fiddle, guitar and mandolin for George Hamilton IV. He also played pedal steel guitar on the influential Keith Hudson reggae album entitled Rasta Communication, along with Sly and Robbie.

During the early 1980s, he ran his own record labels; "Black Eye" and "Red Eye", which released music by artists Barrett knew and played with. Amongst them was Eddie Stanton whose songs have been covered extensively by Barrett both live and on record. Before it folded, Black Eye had a number of albums to be released most notably Please Don't Throw Me to the Christians by Stanton – most of the songs from Organic Bondage were derived from those on the album – and "Man of Many Fingers" which would have been Barrett's 3rd solo album.

Then, in the mid-1980s, Barrett started experimenting and recording with a more electronic sound which had been explored in "DK 50/80" and "Birthday Boy" from "Way & Bar". Following his mostly single-based approach at that point he recorded two singles, "Old Joe Clarke" and "Rapping on a Mountain", in 1983 which were both released on Carrere Records. A single called "The Hitchhiker and the Punk" contained a much more textured and layered sound which was created from using in-studio effects and multi-tracking. This culminated, in Barrett's words "By far the most 'off the wall' musical project I have embarked on", in Organic Bondage. He made a wooden record sleeve for the album since he did not have the finances to get a sleeve printed.