After years of covering other artists’ music, a local musician is getting the chance to play and share his own tunes.
Guitarist and singer Barry Searle, an eighth-generation resident of Southampton, recently celebrated the release of “The Awakening,” his first album of originals. The album was inspired by the likes of The Band and Merle Haggard, and other Americana, country and bluegrass artists.
As a live performer who’s been active since the 1970s, Searle played covers for decades before this album came together.
“You have to play to what the crowd wants, and they don’t necessarily always want to listen to your homemade music,” he said. “But you feel like you have something you want to say artistically, too.”
“Back then, there weren’t the right venues for playing original material. It was all people who came who wanted to dance to something they could sing along with,” said Peter Rzasa, a pedal steel guitarist and member of Searle’s Wolf Hill Band. “Nowadays, you’ve got a lot of wineries, a lot of breweries and people come to listen, and it’s more conducive to doing originals.”
While the line-dancing craze of the 1990s offered a natural opening to pivot toward writing and performing original music, Searle couldn’t bring himself to leave the band he was playing with, Broken Spoke.
“We were getting a lot of work,” he said. “I didn’t have the heart to step away from that.”
Over the years, as a performer in different bands, Searle would sneak some of his original songs into a set.
“I just got to the point where, after all these years, there was this collection of them,” he said. “And I wanted to get them all in one place and just get them out there.”
It also helped that his fans and followers encouraged him about the original songs, and he also nearly placed his song, “In The US of A,” on an album by the band Asleep at the Wheel a few years ago, he said, which was additional motivation to continue with his songwriting.
“Some Nashville people also were interested, but only to the point of [a] ‘close, but no cigar,’ type of thing. In fact, that’s what one of them wrote me back once!” he laughed.
The album features 13 tracks. “Pretty much every song has some message, and there’s an inspiration for it,” Searle said. “Some of them just land in your lap … and it’s all there. That’s rare, but those are the special ones.”
The aforementioned song, “In The US of A,” was inspired by a cross-country motorcycle trip Searle took and the sights he saw along the way. “There’s no politics in that one at all,” he said. “It’s all about the natural beauty.”
The album’s titular track, “The Awakening,” is about the consequences of greed: “Go on and follow your leaders / Even though they don’t heed us / ‘Cause it’s every man for himself / As you come racing past / Just save your own ass / Don’t think of anybody else.” Searle wrote it in the 70s, but feels it remains relevant.
“I feel like, today, with what’s going on, it’s as true as ever,” he said.
“Apple Valley” is about the way that development has distanced people from nature: “Don’t let the names fool you / ‘Cause they don’t mean a thing / ‘Green Meadow’ and ‘Apple Valley’ have / Such a pleasant ring / There ain’t no apple trees to be found / I wonder who we have to thank / The only green growing around here now / Is all sitting in some bank.”
However, one track, “Bernie’s Bounce,” is entirely instrumental. “Frankly, I think of myself as a guitar player first and a singer second,” Searle said. “I always looked at singing as being like a necessary evil in order to be able to play guitar.”
The song takes its name from the late Bernie Schranz, a local guitarist who gave Searle guitar lessons as a child. Schranz taught Searle an early form of what would become the track. “Years later, I took that and I added to it, so it’s like a co-written thing,” Searle said.
Though recorded in 2023, a series of setbacks delayed the album’s release. In 2024 — what Searle called “the year that was supposed to be our big push” — he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. After a year of seeking treatment, his brother passed away in 2025, and handling his final affairs “basically chewed up the whole year,” he said.
Releasing the album now is “a little unorthodox, I realize,” he said, but he feels 2026 is finally the right time. When Searle spoke to the Gazette, he was just days away from his album launch concert with the Wolf Hill Band at the Marigold Theater in Easthampton on Sunday, April 26.
“The recordings are fine, but there’s a way better energy when you’re doing it live,” Searle said. “The spontaneity and the inspiration all congeal in one time, in one place, so we’re looking forward to it.”
“The Awakening” is available on most major streaming platforms. For more information about Barry Searle, visit barrysearle.com.
