The good folks at Spectropop have created a webpage dedicated to the career of Ron Barrett, a friend of Richard Berry. Here’s a nice little excerpt:
Ron Barrett was a colleague of H.B. Barnum and Richard Berry, Phil Spector and Jack Nitzsche, Bobby Darin and Sonny Bono but, sadly, he is rather less well-known. If he had spent as much time promoting his name as he did to creating music it could have been a different story. If you have a love of music from rock’s ‘Golden Age’ then lurking in your collection are records in which he had an uncredited hand. As vocalist, musician, producer, writer or record label founder he was an active participant in the Meadowlarks’ “Heaven And Paradise”, the Duals’ “Stick Shift” and Merry Clayton’s “It’s In His Kiss”; three records that admirably display his credentials and diversity of talent.
This is a great web article that discusses his underrated career in music. There’s a lot of interesting connections with Richard Berry. His sister, Fanita Barrett, was a member of the Dreamers, which recorded many records with Richard. He produced a few singles with Dorothy Berry, Richard’s first wife. Ron even recorded his own version of LOUIE LOUIE, featuring Richard on the keyboards.
What’s great is that Ron is still alive, involved with music with his Star Revue company.
Check it out:
http://www.spectropop.com/RonBarrett/index.htm