RIP songwriter Max D Barnes

Janice Brooks · From: Pleasant Gap Pa

Found word on Dick Shueys sight he died early Sunday morning

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Max D. Barnes may not have released many records, but he left an important mark on contemporary country music. As a songwriter, Barnes composed many familiar songs of the '80s and '90s, receiving 42 songwriter awards in his career. Artists like George Jones ("Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes"), Waylon Jennings ("Drinkin' and Dreamin'"), Conway Twitty ("Red Neckin' Love Makin' Night"), Keith Whitley ("Ten Feet Away"), Randy Travis ("I Won't Need You Anymore [Forever and Always]"), Vern Godsin ("Way Down Deep," "Slow Burnin' Memory"), Pam Tillis ("Don't Tell Me What to Do"), and Vince Gill ("Look at Us") have recorded his songs, as have many others. Although he has had a couple of minor hits himself (most notably "Allegheny Lady" in the mid-'70s), his true legacy lies in his songs, not his records.
Barnes grew up in Iowa, receiving his first guitar from his sister Ruthie Steele at age 11. Shortly afterward, his parents were divorced. He moved to Omaha, NE, with his mother and two younger brothers. At 16, he dropped out of school and began singing in a local nightclub. During this time, he formed a band called the Golden Rockets, which featured his future wife, Patsy, as lead singer. Max and Patsy quit playing clubs after the birth of their son, Patrick. At first, Max worked for an Omaha concrete company, but the family soon moved to Long Beach, CA, where he was the foreman at a lamp factory. After a while, he quit, spending his summers in Omaha and his winters singing in California. By 1962, he saved up enough money to buy a nightclub near Lake Okiboji, IA, but he sold it after eight months. Again, the Barnes family moved back to Omaha, where Max spent nine years driving as a truck driver.

Barnes' musical career didn't really begin until 1971, when he recorded a single for Jed, "Ribbons of Steel"/"Hello Honky Tonk." He followed it with "You Gotta Be Putting Me On"/"Growing Old With Grace," which was released on Willex. Following some words of encouragement from songwriter Kent Westberry, Barnes moved to Nashville in 1973. Barnes became a staff writer for Roz-Tense Music, which led to Charley Pride recording two of his songs. Soon, he moved to Gary S. Paxman Music, then to Danor Music. While he was with Danor, Barnes wrote nearly 30 songs recorded by other artists, including several hit singles; on one occasion, he had five of his songs on the charts simultaneously. He also co-wrote many songs with Troy Seals, one of the co-owners of the publishing company. Sadly, tragedy befell the Barnes family, as the eldest son, Patrick, died in a car accident in 1975. Max wrote about the incident on "Chiseled in Stone," which was co-written with Vern Gosdin, who had a hit with the song in 1989.

In 1976, Barnes signed a publishing deal with Screen Gems EMI, which helped him secure a recording contract with Polydor. Released the following year, Rough Around the Edges spawned the minor hit "Allegheny Lady," which scraped the bottom of the charts. If he didn't have hits with his own records, he did have hits with his songs, as Conway Twitty brought several of Barnes' songs to the charts, including the Loretta Lynn duets "I Can't Love You Enough" and "From Seven Till Ten," and the solo "Don't Take It Away," which hit number one.

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Janice "Busgal" Brooks
ICQ 44729047

Theresa Galbraith · From: Goodlettsville,Tn. USA

I'm totally shocked!
Gregg and I knew him as a friend and one of the best songwriters.
God bless him & his family.

Gregg & Theresa Galbraith

David Cobb · From: Chanute, Kansas, USA

Wow. He will be greatly missed.

[This message was edited by David Cobb on 11 January 2004 at 08:20 PM.]

John LeMaster · From: North Florida

Sad to hear of the death of Max D. Barnes. The info that Janice gave is more than I had previously known about him. Over the past couple few years, though, I have noticed his name on several great songs.

Two of the best examples are on the Ray Price album "Time".

(My Heart Won't Let Me Love)"No One But You" has the classic feel of a Ray Price walking-bass hit. Buddy Emmons plays a classic BE steel intro and turnaround on this one.

The title cut, "Time" was also written by Mr. Barnes. The song eloquently says what we all know to be true, and it says it so well,IMHO, as in:

"Time is a monster, that lives in our clocks.
It's heartless and shows no remorse"

and in this line:

"Time waits for no one,
EVERYONE runs out of time".

My condolences to the family and friends. What a great writer he was.

John L.

Janice Brooks · From: Pleasant Gap Pa

By PETER COOPER
Staff Writer

'Max was one of the greats,' Merle Haggard says

The writer of masterful country music ballads including Chiseled In Stone, Look At Us and Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes, Max Duane Barnes died early yesterday morning at Baptist Hospital of complications from pneumonia. He was 67.

''Max was one of the greats,'' said Merle Haggard, who recorded and co-wrote numerous songs with Mr. Barnes. ''He's in that category with Hank Cochran and Harlan Howard. I guess everybody else moves up a notch now. If there's any hereafter — any justice about it — we can rest assured that he's among friends.''

Mr. Barnes' simply structured, deeply empathetic songs landed him in the Nashville Songwriters Association International Hall of Fame in 1992. He won song of the year awards from the Country Music Association for Chiseled In Stone and Look At Us, and Chiseled In Stone was nominated for a Grammy.

Many of Mr. Barnes' greatest works were collaborations, as he blended easily with old-guard legends such as Harlan Howard, with contemporaries such as Troy Seals and Vern Gosdin and with younger musicians such as Vince Gill.

''What a great learning experience for a young songwriter to sit down with one of the true great country songwriters of all time,'' said Gill, whose soaring vocal helped the co-penned Look At Us become a Top 5 country hit in 1991. ''I'll never forget when I went to Max with my idea for Look At Us. It was a negative song about a relationship. And what great wisdom he showed in turning this song into a positive message about love.''

Born in Hardscratch, Iowa, and raised in Nebraska, Mr. Barnes was the son of a fiddle player. His sister Ruthie taught him to play guitar at 12, and he began emulating the country music he and his nine siblings heard around the house. In his late teens, Mr. Barnes took a shine to the singer in his band, and that singer became his wife, Patsy.

''Patsy was a great singer, and she co-wrote a lot of songs with Max,'' said Mr. Barnes' sister, Ruthie Steele. ''Max wrote a lot of songs about broken relationships, but in his life he only had one love and one wife.''

The couple had three children, and Mr. Barnes initially paid the bills by working as a carpenter, a farmhand and a truck driver. After a halting attempt at a solo career, he moved to Nashville in 1973. His life's great tragedy came two years later when his son Butch, 18, was killed in a car accident.

Conway Twitty's recordings of Don't Take It Away and Redneckin', Love Makin' Night signaled Mr. Barnes' ascension into the ranks of successful Nashville songwriters, although two turn-of-the-'80s solo albums did not prove commercially viable.

By the mid-'80s, Mr. Barnes was seeing considerable success with George Jones' cut of Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes, Randy Travis' version of Storms Of Life and Keith Whitley's take on Ten Feet Away. Jones was a major influence on Mr. Barnes, so the singing legend's decision to cut Shoes was cause for celebration.

''I was visiting relatives when Max called us and played it over the phone,'' Steele said. ''When we heard George Jones singing, it was such an incredible moment. We'd listen and cry, then pass the phone so the next person could hear.''

Chiseled In Stone, Gosdin's career-defining hit, was born when Mr. Barnes told Gosdin about seeing son Butch's name carved on a gravestone. ''You don't know about lonely, 'til it's chiseled in stone,'' went the chilling song the pair wrote that day.

''(Producer) Bob Montgomery called me into his office and said, 'I want to play you something,' '' music journalist Robert K. Oermann said. ''He played me Chiseled In Stone, and I broke down in tears.''

Chiseled's genesis was somber, but its aftermath was joyful. Entrenched as one of Nashville's premier songwriters, Mr. Barnes continued writing hits and watched his other son, Max T. Barnes, emerge as a songwriter.

Mr. Barnes found time and money enough to enjoy some hobbies — collecting classic cars and riding motorcycles were two of them. Mr. Barnes also enjoyed personal and professional relationships with men he'd looked up to as heroes, including Jones and Haggard.

''The 'heart' songs, he was really good at,'' Jones said. ''He could write a song, I tell you.''

Mr. Barnes' survivors include his wife, Patsy Barnes; daughter, Genevieve Kephart; and son, Max T. Barnes.

Visitation will be 2-5 p.m. and 6-9 p.m. Wednesday at the Hendersonville Memory Gardens Funeral Home, 353 Johnny Cash Parkway in Hendersonville. Funeral services will be Thursday at 11 a.m. at Our Lady of the Lake Church, 1729 Stop 30 Road in Hendersonville. Burial will follow at Hendersonville Memory Gardens.

Peter Cooper writes about music for The Tennessean. He can be reached at 259-8220, or by e-mail at pcooper@tennessean.com.

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Janice "Busgal" Brooks
ICQ 44729047

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