John Barnard

August Newsletter 

"And it seems like I remember 
Her hair was long and brown 
And sometimes she put on lipstick 
When we went into town" 
   - Jeffrey Foucault - 

The phone rang in the hallway. It was a dusty Spring afternoon and the rains had not yet settled the dust blowing off of the cornfields. My mom called me inside. I was leaning against the galvanized tank looking out over the farm watching the first of the newborn calfs play in the holding pen. Sundays on the farm...Tom Russell territory. 
She was…

I was nine years old. It was mid-afternoon on the first of July. It was a crisp South African winters day and I could hear the inhaling and exhaling of the vacuum pump in the dairy parlor. I could see my dad sorting cows in the holding pen. I was walking across the yard with a plate of hot food that Grandma prepared for my Grandfather's brother. After his wifes passing a few years earlier, he acquired a two bedroom, galvanized railway rondawel and Dad and Grandpa helped him put it up on a neat concrete slab…

The trees are now almost completely bare and on some streets the confetti of Fall colours are slowly fading into Winter brown.  

Most of us have been stuck at our homes for the better part of April and May trying to come to terms with the vast variety of changes and trying to figure out the road from now on. A good friend asked me a while ago what my answer would be if someone had to ask what I had done with my government enforced two month sabbatical. It's great question and it got me thinking.  

…

It is the end of another fall day and the start of a new month, a new level of national lockdown and for some reason I could feel a slight vibration in the city. Sapphire blue skies and Cirrus clouds warning of colder weather in the not so distant future.

As I'm writing this my ears are filled with the beautiful new album by John Statz, my heart with longing and regret and my head with gratitude. I am aware of the hardship out there, the distress, frustration and doubt this pandemic brought with it. I am…

A thin line of pink is holding on to sunset blue in the West. Orange clouds and burning autumn sky bringing another day to an end. It's been quiet.  I launched my website a year ago this month and also my first EP called Acoustic. I made it with my buddy Rufus and we recorded it on a hot December afternoon in 2018 with Jaco Naude at Audioculture studios in Pretoria. My, time has flown. Last year this time I was on tour, wrapping up the last few shows of The Vagabonds and Brokenhearted Lovers tour through…