One of the many talented acts that will be appearing at the "Fall into Arts" Festival on Saturday, Sept. 7, will be that of Dave Para and Cathy Barton, performers in what is described on their web site as "Hand-Me-Down Music."
Both children of the folk revival, Para and Barton, both credit their older sisters for their interest in folk music beginning in the early 1960's. Although, folk singers of the past have had an influence on their music, the life they now lead in rural Missouri has focused their interest.
Barton is the youngest of three children that was born into a military family and has lived in many places before settling in Columbia, Mo. It was in Hawaii that she first became interested in folk music and learned how to play the ukulele in classes held at her school. A lifelong appreciation of the native culture also grew after she began visiting the Polynesian Cultural Center.
After relocating to Columbia, she attended junior high, high school and college there. In high school, she learned how to play the banjo and in her senior year she won a school-wide talent show at Hickman High School for playing "Dueling Banjos." Encouraged in her interest of folklore by her humanities instructor at Stephens College, she graduated with a master's degree at Western Kentucky University. Having attended many of the workshops at the Ozark Folk Center in Mountain View, Ark., she has worked there with folklorist Bill McNeil and has toured with Jimmy Driftwood and the Rackensack Folklore Society.
While in Mountain View, she worked summers at a gift shop and a dinner theater owned by Ramona Jones. Through this friendship, Barton found her way to Nashville, Tenn., where she met the famed musician, Roy Acuff and his band members, "Bashful Brother Oswald" Pete Kirby and fiddle legend Howdy Forrester.
Although she has performed on the "Grand Ole Opry" and "Nashville Now," it was the jam sessions she had with the old time country legends that were the most memorable.
Barton has won the Tennessee Old-Time Banjo Championship twice over the years and is recognized as a master of the "frailing banjo style." Acuff often described her as his favorite banjo player because it reminded him of the earlier days in country music.
Barton has also been credited with the growing interest in the hammered dulcimer in the Midwest, being the first to play it in the mid-1970's at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kan., thus providing a number of players who play it at the present time the chance to hear it for the first time.
Growing up, Dave Para had always been interested in folk music. While he was a student in Columbia, Mo., he lived at and helped manage the Chez Coffeehouse which was a focal point for 30 years in folk music in Central Missouri. While in the coffeehouse's employ, he began playing accompaniment for several well known fiddlers including master and champion Taylor McBaine, as well as performing in local string bands such as the Little Dixie Hoss-Hair Pullers. While doing this, he was able to develop a distinctive back-up guitar style. It was here that he met his wife, Cathy.
While attending the University of Missouri, Para studied journalism and after his marriage to Barton he worked at a number of newspaper jobs in Western Kentucky and Central Missouri, including his last, as editor of the Boonville Daily News. Upon leaving the newspaper, he and Barton stayed in Boonville and have embarked upon a life of music together.
Together, in 1986, they collaborated on a school assembly program for young audiences in Kansas City, Mo., which highlighted Missouri artists and musicians. Five years later, in 1991, they started the Big Muddy Folk Festival, later on producing two albums of Civil War music from Trans-Mississippi West. These albums gained the two wide respect among historians of the Civil War, putting them in demand for seminars and other performances in the state.
Currently, the folk duo live in Boonville in a Greek-revival house built in 1859 by an early photographer of the area. Other interests include studying Native American culture for Barton and Para enjoys home brewing.
* Information for this article was sourced from bartonpara.com