Barry D.           
born to play


The wind of the Spirit blows wherever it pleases. You can hear the sound it makes, but you can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going. Barry D. was eight years old when that wind blew across his fingers, and he began to play worship songs he had never learned for the tiny congregation of Liberty City Church of God of Prophecy, where his grandmother, Meddie P. Bannister, served as pastor.

Formal instruction followed quickly, for a wise man combines discipline with inspiration. Barry D. was too young to be classified as a “wise man,” but he had a “wise mom” who stood in the gap for him and taught him the life skills he would need to succeed in an unforgiving world.

“My mother taught me the value of good, old-fashioned hard work,” Barry D. declares. “She was a woman raising nine children on her own on a bus driver’s income. We were not well off, to say the least. But she showed me by her own example that all things are possible, that you can do whatever God calls you to do—but it requires hard work.”

A genuine child prodigy, Barry D. progressed quickly from lessons, to practice, to rehearsal, to production. Before long, the small fingers of this young boy found their groove, producing a sound so unique that people began to listen and wonder, “Where did that music come from?” Before his fourteenth birthday, he had already written, financed and produced his first demo album.

Discipline and inspiration combined to blow open the doors for Barry D. to attend Florida’s prestigious New World School for the Arts, and his discipline propelled him to the top of his class. After making a name for himself in Miami, Barry D. moved half a continent away to the world-renowned Berklee School of Music in Boston. It was there that he learned to merge the theoretical with the practical. It was also a wake-up call for the prodigiously talented young man, because for the first time he found himself surrounded by a class full of musicians whose innate abilities equaled his own.

“Prior to attending college I had good teachers, but not great teachers,” Barry D. confesses. “The truth is, my technique was not up to the standards of some of my classmates. I began to practice like there was no tomorrow, and after the first year, the school approached me about a scholarship, which was pretty much unheard of for existing students.”

The combined diligence and inspiration that had propelled Barry D. through his younger days molded him into the quintessential sideman in Boston’s burgeoning jazz and R&B scene. After graduating, he tackled some of New York’s hottest music halls, who soon became intimately acquainted with the rising star’s mesmerizing music that tickled the imagination with elements of light jazz, R&B, pop, rock and gospel. He shared the stage with such superstars as Phil Collins, Natalie Grant, Jaci Velasquez, Sister Sledge and Helen Baylor; recorded with industry giants like R. Kelly, David Foster and Donna Summer; and wrote songs for such popular recording artists as gospel legend Marvin Sapp. Major labels pursued him for his scintillating ability on the piano. Off-Broadway theater companies wanted him for his cinematic musical sensibilities. And after an appearance in a national TV commercial, Barry was courted by one of New York’s hottest talent agencies, hoping to represent him.

 “There were some very lucrative offers, and it was quite tempting. But I knew it was not a career that I was supposed to pursue.”

“When I sit down to play, the music takes on many dimensions,” he explains. “Especially with this new album, Born to Play, I’m telling the story of my life—my hardships, my pain, my triumphs and victories. It is a conversation I am having with God, and I am inviting the people who hear the music to enter into that conversation as well.”

That conversation takes on many forms, and Barry D. has learned that while he may be the instigator, he is not the one his audience is talking to. And many times his music inspires a remarkable range of conversations.

“The conversation can take on as many forms as the Spirit wants,” he says. “He uses our testimony, spoken and unspoken. When I play the song, ‘I Want To Know What Love Is,’ I’m really telling my story. In this life, I’ve seen heartache and pain. I don’t know if I can face it again. Can’t stop now, I’ve traveled so far to change this lonely life. That’s my story. I didn’t have a typical family. I grew up without knowing the love of a father. I was lonely. I wanted to know what love is. I found it through Christ. That’s my testimony.”

Barry D. has put his own unique twist on the Dove Award-winning Song of the Year, “God of Wonders.” “He is holy,” Barry declares. “When you grasp hold of that truth, you can’t do anything other than just stand in awe of Him and cry, ‘You are holy! You are holy!’ That is my ultimate praise song.

While Barry D. is not afraid to take other artists’ material and make it uniquely his own, he is just as adept at crafting fresh expressions of worship, ex nihilo. Such was the case with “Fresh Wind,” a song he wrote to remind himself of his constant need to live in the moment.

“Sometimes I feel like I get stuck on yesterday’s glory, yesterday’s success, even yesterday’s anointing,” Barry confesses. “But yesterday is gone. I need a fresh anointing. I need a fresh dose of God’s presence today. I wrote ‘Fresh Wind’ based on that need. You may not hear that in the melody. God might speak something completely different to you. If He does, I hope you carry on your own conversation. That’s what this music is all about.”