Somewhere tonight…….   Someone listens to their favorite song.  Maybe on the radio…. Maybe on satellite….  Maybe on cd or vinyl ….   Odds are barry beckett is playing piano..   He produced my first two albums.   He Taught me!  Inspired me! Made me reach for more. He was one of the first to ever believe in a kid from Knoxville, Tennessee who used to sit out in the back yard in the middle of the night and stare at an open sky…..  Knowing that there was something more….  I loved him…..    I will take barry everywhere!   I always have and I always will.  He taught me to put a smile in everything.   That’s important in life and especially to those of us who have music on our lives.  Who are consumed by it…. My life is consumed by it and Barry Beckett is to blame and I am forever grateful !!!!

Kenny Chesney

Sent from my iPhone

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Thanks for what you wrote……   I am in moline, Illinois tonight…..  Just finished a show and tonight I am so proud to be a music man…..   Barry taught me how along with countless others……  Kenny

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I had the great honor of working with Barry on the Bob Seger record he was producing "The Fire Inside" many years ago.
He was such a great guy and a total pro and I was the weird guy from LA in Nashville before Nashville became what it is today. I remember him taking me in to the hallway of the studio saying "we do things a little slower here so just relax and enjoy". He was referring to the fact that in LA everything was done at a faster pace. I guess I was a little nervous working with legends.
He was a gentleman’s gentleman and one of the very best keyboard player/Producers I have had the pleasure of working with. I learned alot.  He will be missed. God Bless him.

Luke
(Steve Lukather)

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I had the pleasure of working with Barry Becket in 1971 down in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Ahmet Ertegun had just signed Mark Rodney and myself and that’s where he wanted to produce our first album, Off The Shelf. I was 18 years old at the time and had never heard of Muscle Shoals but I am so glad I got to enjoy that experience. Barry was clearly the leader but the rhythm section of Roger Hawkins, David Hood and Jimmy Johnson. They were the perfect choice for Mark and myself. I would sit with Barry and he would chart out the songs for the other guys. I don’t think he’d seen the likes of us before and at one time during writing the charts he looked up and asked, "How do you come up with this stuff?"

Most of the takes we did were first takes including "Can You See Him" which had a four minute jam which sounds as if we’d played it forever. I realize that our record was not nearly as famous as many Barry and the gang played on but his piano part on "Working Man, Blind Man" was made up on the spot as we cut the track and it was great. His parts were subtle but fantastic! I later ran into to him hanging out  at the Troubadour when he was touring with Traffic and he got me some tickets for their Long Beach show which I thought was very cool and they sounded great!

John Batdorf