Joining Barnes for the Man on Fire sessions were John Paul Jones (yep, the Led Zeppelin guy), stellar jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, drummer to the stars Matt Chamberlain, and Dave Matthews, who played keyboard, added some vocals, and released the album on this ATO Records label. Barnes has impressive technical skills, but it's his melodic touch and his ability to fuse a traditional instrumental style with various other musical languages that makes the difference, and his collaborators clearly admire his sense of musical freedom.
(It's worth noting they cut two albums for Quarterstick Records, an offshoot of the iconic indie/punk label Touch & Go, and three for the respected bluegrass imprint Sugar Hill.) Decades later, Barnes isn't repeating himself, but he's still respecting his own vision that takes bluegrass as a starting place rather than a destination, and 2020's Man on Fire reveals he's still a first-rate picker with an imagination to match. Danny Barnes first found an audience outside of Texas in the '90s with his group the Bad Livers, a trio that had one foot in bluegrass and the other landing in any number of other places.
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