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Barry G (Barry Gellert)

I play the guitar and sing; I love playing the guitar because it is so much fun, but it took a lot of patience and practice before I could play songs. I wish I had an orange guitar; maybe I'll get one for my birthday next year! Hey! I just had a great idea. I'm going to write a song about wanting an orange guitar for my birthday. Someone is bound to get me one if they hear the song... right? I'll let you know how it turns out.

I began teaching myself to play the guitar at the age of eleven. My early guitar heroes were guitarists like James Burton, who backed up Elvis in the 1970's, and bluesman, BB King. Later, I was influenced by Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin. Now I am influenced by my fans and my twins, Matthew and Brooke. Brooke was a jumper in our video, "Jumping to Conclusions" and Matthew inspired the song, "Hello Moon". I always wanted to be a singer, but was too shy to sing in front of people. I would hide my mouth in a pillow and sing and sing. My mother was a professional singer who performed in the tri-state area, and my grandmother sang live on the radio in the 1940's. Finally, at the age of nineteen, I decided to start singing and performing with my own band and performed in NYC and all along the east coast.

The first music I ever heard was the music of The Beatles. The Beatles inspired me to start writing my own songs, and I started slipping them into the sets my band would play whenever I performed. The Who were also a major influence on my writing and guitar playing. I love teaching music to children of all ages, especially the guitar, bass, banjo and mandolin. My favorite color is orange because it reminds me of the sun and moon, and my favorite ice cream (which is actually orange sherbert with vanilla ice cream in the middle, frozen on a stick!) I also love playing basketball, and basketballs are orange too.