Barry Ginsbarg – No Regrets – StringDancer

Guitarist, Composer and StringDancer.com Co-Founder Barry Ginsbarg

santa_barbara_barry — Barry Ginsbarg chilling in
Santa Barbara, CA (late 90s)

Maté (pronounced “mah-TAY”) is a popular South American beverage. My good friend and StringDancer co-founder Barry Ginsbarg enjoyed sipping it on his many travels down that way, and one day decided to compose an instrumental guitar piece in honor of his favorite south-of-the-border libation. Pass The Maté was later released on Barry’s 1996 CD, Intuition, the second CD project I produced for him.

During the recording sessions, we were in my studio in Bakersfield, California, had the MIDI tracks and Barry’s foundational guitar track in the can, and it came time to lay down a nylon-string lead guitar. Barry was working through the piece and I offered to show him a few licks he could add to the track to spiff it up a bit. BG agreed.

Well, the duende began to flow, and I was having a good time improvising on Barry’s infectious chord changes, coming up more with several different variations on his theme, when Barry’s eyes glazed over and he said, “Foster, that’ll take me too long to learn. Why don’t you just play the lead on this one?”.

So I did. Of all three album projects Barry and I did together in the 90s, this is the only track on which I got to play lead guitar. The tune means a lot to me today.

Barry had an incredible ear for composing simple, melodic and elegant fingerstyle guitar pieces that were very inviting to the ear and soothing to the soul. He also played a little mandolin and blew a pretty mean harp when he was in the mood. His musical talent and his affable personality explains the success he enjoyed with his growing legion of fans and friends in the southern California area.

My buddy Barry died in 2001 as a result of head trauma and a three-month coma following a skiing accident. He had just turned 41. His most recent CD (ironically titled No Regrets) was doing well for him and his fan-base was expanding rapidly. He was taking some down time at the ski slope before tackling another intense round of gigs. His passing shocked and dismayed everyone who knew and loved this unique, adventurous individual.

I will always miss my friend. I wish I could just call him up on the phone and talk guitars as we did in the old days. But I have reams of memories of our many exploits during those hot and dusty days in California. I remember Barry fondly… and I look forward to jamming with him when we meet again in Heaven.

Pass The Maté — by Barry Ginsbarg
featuring Jeff Foster, lead guitar
Pass The Maté by Barry Ginsbarg feat. Jeff Foster

The Music of Barry Ginsbarg

Barry’s music will always live on here at StringDancer. Now long out of print, his three CDs will not fall into the dustbin of independent music history so long as StringDancer’s online. His music is presented here for your enjoyment… and for me, as a musical memorial to a fallen comrade.

The name of the website he and I dreamed up and created together, StringDancer, was Barry’s idea (see track 1 of Intuition). He passionately loved the guitar and making music for people, and I’m honored to have shared so many good times with him, and to know we were the very best of friends.

You can stream the CDs of Barry Ginsbarg below. These streams are full-length CD presentations in 128k, MP3 format. Playlists are provided.

Notice: Use of Barry’s music on this page is with the approval of the
Estate of Barry Ginsbarg and the Ginsbarg family, which is much appreciated.