Barry Ollman Songs

Murmuration

In 1965, Elektra Records released an album that caught my eye. It was called The Singer Songwriter Project and it featured a mix of songs by Richard Farina, David Cohen (Blue), Patrick Sky and Bruce Murdoch. This was nothing more than four guys writing, playing and singing their own songs and I bought a copy, listened several times and put it away. I liked it but there was something about the look and design of the cover that really stayed with me.

Fast forward to 2014 when I released my first record of my own songs, What'll It Be?...

I know that a lot of people only became aware of the record due to the fact that it opened with a duet that I was lucky enough to record with my dear friend, Graham Nash, a song of mine called Imogen's Lament.

Before long, I started receiving emails from people in many countries telling me that they really liked that song. One such email jumped out at me... It was from a fellow in Sweden named Peter Holmstedt, a longtime veteran of the music business. He said he saw the youtube video I had made and wondered if I would send him a copy of my CD, which I did. About ten days later I got another email from him telling me that he loved the whole record and wanted to work with me to promote the music in Europe. We spoke and I liked him and his approach to the music biz. I checked him out with a few musician friends and across the board they said he was the real deal. I sent him a few hundred copies of the record and before long I found myself getting a fair amount of airplay in various countries as well as a big bunch of seriously gratifying reviews.

After a few months I received another email from Peter that was addressed to me and three other guys, inviting us to collaborate on a fiftieth anniversary tribute to that very same Singer Songwriter Project by each contributing a number of new and unreleased songs for the compilation. I felt honored to be asked but I had no new material ready to submit. Of course, I said yes anyway. This was the start of my follow up project which you can see here, Hidden Treasures... Singer Songwriters From Home, produced in Sweden by Peter and his label Hemifran.

The other three fellows, as it turns out, are all fine writers and performers and I'm proud to share this virtual stage with them. They are Greg Copeland from Los Angeles, California, Bob Cheevers from Austin, Texas, and Keith Miles from Nashville, Tennessee. None of us had met prior to this project but we all trusted Peter to put together a high quality record that we'd each be glad to be a part of. Our trust was well founded as there is a lot of exeptional songwriting on display here and I only hope that I held up my end of the deal...

As for my songs, once they emerged, I turned to a group of very special musical friends for help in the recording process. I give many thanks to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Garry W. Tallent, Grammy winner Tim O'Brien, maestro David Amram, the great John Fullbright (also a Grammy nominee), Crosby, Stills and Nash keyboardist James Raymond, Etown drummer Christian Teele, fine bassist and longtime musical partner Andrew Bunin, and my engineer, co-producer and musical wizard Dave Beegle.

The record and individual tracks are available at Amazon, Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, Tidal and all the usual outlets.

Meanwhile, here is a video for one of my contributions, a song called Murmuration. I wrote this song after spending an hour or two on you tube watching massive clouds of starlings fly in those remarkable formations known as Murmurations. After recording the song with Garry, Tim, Dave and Christian, I sent a mix to a gentleman in England who kept popping up on youtube with a lot of his own miraculous starling footage. As it turns out, this man, Dylan Winter, is one of the more dedicated and accomplished nature photographers I could have hoped to work with. His site keepturningleft.co.uk is delightful and full of his vibrant and colorful filmmaking, all narrated by him as he chronicles his life sailing around the British Isles. Please visit him there!

Fortunately for me, Winter liked my song and was kind enough to allow me, with the help of Etown videographer Zack Littlefield, to use his stunning footage to make this video. Most of the similar footage you'll find on the web tends to be paired with string quartets playing Pachelbel's Canon and I just couldn't help but feel that those birds must be rocking out up there...

I hope you enjoy it!