Chris Barron is an accomplished guitar player and Grammy-nominated songwriter best known as the lead singer of Spin Doctors. His celebrated solo performances weave songs and storytelling together with humor and humanity—all Chris Barron trademarks. “I think if I heard the guy from the Spin Doctors was doing a solo acoustic show I’d imagine a dude in a funny hat singing a song about a frog or something,” says a grinning Barron. “But while my show is pretty funny, it’s also soulful and poetic and the fact that I’m a very jaunty guitarist might be the thing that surprises people the most.”
Barron has always loved making a song come alive with just a voice and a guitar, and he learned how to do it on street corners, by fountains, and in subways, while still a teenager just trying to make enough for his next meal as a street performer. “I’ve always had this enchantment with the dual ideas of being a badass lead singer/lyricist like Jim Morrison while also being a solitary acoustic singer-songwriter like Bob Dylan or Robert Johnson.”
In a world where many people don’t know what their purpose is, Chris Barron does. “I was put on this earth to pluck a guitar, sing my ass off, and wield the power song to take people out of this world for a while—and in so doing, take myself out of it as well.”
Barron is currently in the studio working on his new solo record with producer Blake Morgan, expected out next year.
