Billy Barber

Figuring out which of the many pieces of music that this artist helped create has been heard the most times and by the largest audience is quite simple: that would have to be the original theme from the television soap opera All My Children. Fusion jazz fans who don't watch daytime television -- if there are any such creatures -- might be shocked to find out this theme was plucked from an album entitled This Is a Recording by the band Flim & the BB's. Barber contributes mightily to most of the recordings by this outfit, both as a composer and player. The band's name is based on the presence of several players whose initials are the same as the notorious "toy" rifle ammunition; drummer Bill Berg is another. The keyboardist is himself the son of pianist, composer, and saxophonist William C. Barber, also sometimes credited as Bill Barber Sr.. Both father and son jam on a delightful Flim & the BB's track entitled "Fathers and Sons," naturally, also featuring the other musically talented parents of bandmembers Jimmy "Flim" Johnson and Dick Oatts. The Barber family musical tradition also has continued on into a third generation; Billy Barber has created a series of recordings with a family band known as the Barbers, featuring two of his children. Barber's mother was also a pianist and singer; the son may have begun studying orchestration and songwriting just to have a niche of his own. As a writer, Barber's often-sentimental tunes such as "Little Things" have been covered by Ray Charles and the Oak Ridge Boys. Soap operas are not the only vehicle for his background music, which has also been heard on Jane Fonda's children's videos, the "American Chronicles" series, "Face the Nation," and "The Splendid Table" on National Public Radio. Flim & the BB's have been twice nominated...