Barry Bales

Barry Bales. . Acoustic bass player Barry Bales is the longest-serving member of bluegrass star Alison Krauss’ band, Union Station. He has also worked as a session musician, record producer and songwriter. His co-written song “Nobody to Blame” won the Academy of Country Music (ACM) Song of the Year award in 2016. , Barry Turner Bales was born in Kingsport on August 23, 1969, and grew up in nearby Colonial Heights. His father, who worked for Eastman Kodak, was an amateur musician who often played after supper, introducing Bales to classic country and bluegrass music., Bales played banjo and guitar, and took lessons from James Alan Shelton (who later worked with Ralph Stanley), before discovering his preference for the acoustic bass. He participated in Saturday morning jam sessions at the Guitar Shop on Market Street in Kingsport. In the fall of 1987, he enrolled at East Tennessee State University (ETSU). Although his major was engineering technology, he was an early enrollee in ETSU’s Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Country Music program. He first recorded in 1987 with the ETSU band, Boys in the Band., Coursework took a back seat to music after Bales, together with Adam Steffey and Tim Stafford, formed the bluegrass group Dusty Miller. On the bluegrass festival circuit, they met and jammed with Alison Krauss, and, in June 1990, she hired them for Union Station. They toured, often as many as 300 days a year, and recorded prolifically. Bales was on Krauss’ fifth album, Every Time You Say Goodbye, and most subsequent records., In addition to this work with Union Station, Bales became an in-demand session musician in Nashville. He has appeared on albums by Dolly Parton, Dwight Yoakam, Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson and others. In the early 1990s’, he moved to the Nashville area, but he later returned to east Tennessee., In 2000, Bales appeared in the movie and on the soundtrack of “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”. In the movie he played one of the fictional Soggy Bottom Boys, and on the soundtrack he played on four of the 19 featured songs. The album reached the top of the Billboard Pop and Country album charts, sold more than 8 million copies, and greatly popularized traditional American music. Bales was also a participant in the touring revue and movie “Down from the Mountain,” which featured artists who had performed in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”., To date, Bales’ greatest success as a songwriter came when “Nobody to Blame,” a song he’d co-written with Chris Stapleton and Ronnie Bowman, was featured on Stapleton’s first solo album Traveller. A Billboard No. 1 Pop and Country album, Traveller has sold more than 4 million copies. Bales’ awards include 15 Grammys; 23 international Bluegrass Music Association awards, including four Bass Player of the Year trophies; one Country Music Association award; and two Academy of Country Music awards., In 1998, Bales married Aliceson Osborne, and, due to a more manageable performing schedule, they now run Bales Farms in Mosheim, Tennessee. They pasture-raise animals, selling meat and eggs directly to restaurants and consumers., Bales accepts the Academy of Country Music Award for Country Music Song of the Year in 2016 with co-writers Chris Stapleton and Ronnie Bowman for their song “Nobody to Blame”.