Country Musician. A pioneering American electric guitarist, he was born into a musical family in Coweta, Oklahoma. He was named after his father, Hurl Lester Barnard, and his uncle Robert who both played fiddle and often performed at barn dances and house parties. When he was 13 or 14, he started accompanying his dad on guitar. Later he began singing and playing the fiddle. When Junior Barnard was 15, he started playing acoustic guitar with bands around Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition, he had his own radio show on KTUL and worked as a staff musician backing up groups such as Patti Page And Her Musical Pages, from Claremore, Oklahoma. But, he is best known for his work with work with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. He is among the first electric guitarists to create a guitar effect that anticipated the later "fuzz tone", where the strength of his picking induced some slight "overdrive" in the low-power amplifiers typical of the times. Bob Wills frequently referred to Junior Barnard as "fat boy", "booger man", and "our floor show". But it wasn't Barnard's 230-pound figure that often compelled dancing couples to stop and listen in disbelief. His hard-hitting electric guitar style, complete with distorted tone, violent bends, and scorching runs - all extremely advanced for the 1930s and 1940s - heralded the techniques and sounds commonly associated with contemporary rock and roll. He had an aggressive, hard-swinging style that was like rock and roll for its time. Tragedy struck during a road trip to find a place to play in Riverdale, a tiny community south of Fresno, California, when Junior Barnard was critically injured in an automobile accident and died at Fresno County General Hospital on April 15, 1951.
Country Musician. A pioneering American electric guitarist, he was born into a musical family in Coweta, Oklahoma. He was named after his father, Hurl Lester Barnard, and his uncle Robert who both played fiddle and often performed at barn dances and house parties. When he was 13 or 14, he started accompanying his dad on guitar. Later he began singing and playing the fiddle. When Junior Barnard was 15, he started playing acoustic guitar with bands around Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition, he had his own radio show on KTUL and worked as a staff musician backing up groups such as Patti Page And Her Musical Pages, from Claremore, Oklahoma. But, he is best known for his work with work with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. He is among the first electric guitarists to create a guitar effect that anticipated the later "fuzz tone", where the strength of his picking induced some slight "overdrive" in the low-power amplifiers typical of the times. Bob Wills frequently referred to Junior Barnard as "fat boy", "booger man", and "our floor show". But it wasn't Barnard's 230-pound figure that often compelled dancing couples to stop and listen in disbelief. His hard-hitting electric guitar style, complete with distorted tone, violent bends, and scorching runs - all extremely advanced for the 1930s and 1940s - heralded the techniques and sounds commonly associated with contemporary rock and roll. He had an aggressive, hard-swinging style that was like rock and roll for its time. Tragedy struck during a road trip to find a place to play in Riverdale, a tiny community south of Fresno, California, when Junior Barnard was critically injured in an automobile accident and died at Fresno County General Hospital on April 15, 1951.
Bio by: Michael
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