New York, NY (Top40 Charts / Barry Ollman) Colorado music industry veteran Barry Ollman has released his debut album What'll It Be?, a collection of ten original songs released on his own Blue Colorado
Music imprint. While this may be his first record, Ollman has been making music all his life and collaborates here with a number of talented friends. What'll It Be? features fine performances from two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Graham Nash, recent inductee Garry Tallent of Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band, Composer and Jazz Master
David Amram, Nick and Helen Forster (Hot Rize and Etown), Rad Lorkovic, Dave Beegle, Christian Teele, and others.
What'll It Be? is available now: https://www.barryollman.com/
Throughout, the album weaves together songs with a common theme that reflect Ollman's joy and gratitude for life. "I feel such an appreciation for the beauty and subtlety of life and that's something I try to capture in my music. We only get so much time here and I don't want to take it for granted..."
The gravity of that message became startlingly clear in the period after Ollman had finished recording in 2012 when he suffered an unexpected and nearly fatal cardiac arrest. While in recovery, he put the project on hold to focus on his health, and it wasn't until nine months later that he decided to listen to the record again. "I needed to see if I still liked the music and if I'd even be able to relate to it after all I'd been through. One quiet afternoon, I put on some headphones and found myself feeling very moved by these songs."
Throughout the recording process, Ollman leaned on his longtime friend, Crosby,
Stills & Nash founder and vocalist Graham Nash's keen ear, for advice and input. After sharing a rough mix of "Imogen's Lament" - a song Ollman wrote, loosely based on his impressions of one of the great photographers of the 20th Century, Imogen Cunningham - Nash, an accomplished photographer himself, suggested he duet with Barry. "Graham told me not to finish the record until he'd sung on it!" Together, they sing of a true artist, who watches with some reticence as the art form that she mastered over a long lifetime approaches a period of great and unimaginable change.
It's followed by the track "Painting the West," a song inspired by the vivid colors and imagery of the Arizona desert, as well as a 1936 oil painting by Woody Guthrie of his impressions of
Santa Fe, New Mexico for which Ollman and his wife are the current custodians. Ollman has also become well known as a collector of rare letters and autograph material and has put together the largest collection of Folk Legend Woody Guthrie's papers and artworks in private hands.
Another Guthrie-inspired track is "See Ya in Okemah," written for Woody's hometown, which hosts an annual music festival on his birthday each July. On this memorable track, Ollman enlists his friend, legendary Composer
David Amram to lend his whimsical and joyous penny whistles.
While it may have taken decades to reach the point of making a record, it's a process that Ollman doesn't take lightly, and that level of thought and care shines throughout the entirety of What'll it Be?
"Music can be such a powerful vehicle for communicating ideas and emotions, both large and small. Of course, human beings have been sharing their stories in song for thousands of years. These are some of my stories..."
