Kevin Barker is a man of many talents, not least among them his easy mastery of the Telecaster. For the past decade, he’s been a sideman in the bands of new folk luminaries like Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and Vetiver and, under the guise of Currituck Co., has released a number of solo albums full of haunting finger-picked guitar reminiscent of the work of John Fahey and Robbie Basho. Barker’s work in film includes the documentary The Family Jams, which follows Banhart, Newsom and Vetiver on their 2004 tour, and his narrative short Five Fingers, which was featured at the 2009 San Francisco Asian-American Film Festival. We sat down with Kevin on a bright winter morning, in his apartment in the sleepy Kensington neighborhood of Brooklyn, where we discussed the relationship between his work in music and film, the Manson “Family Jams”, and the process of writing and recording his beautiful new album You & Me, out on January 19th on Gnomonsong. Kevin was kind enough to play “Amber,” a song from the new record that conjured up a golden cloud of ’70s soft rock and post-psychedelic folk, as American as a “purple mountain range.” Thanks, Kevin.
Video by Clinton Krute with assistance from Richard J. Goldstein.
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