Standard-Examiner staff?lbrady@standard.net?

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f you are a fan of Westerns and western music, it is likely you know Bill Barwick’s voice — even if you don’t know that you do. ?

He is the spokesman and voiceover artist for Encore’s Westerns movie channel. You might recognize his rumbling baritone catchphrase, “Where the legends live.” ?But what he loves to do best is play and sing, and he is coming for a solo acoustic performance at Ogden’s Ice Sheet this week, which will feature his stories about the West, his take on classic trail tunes, and western songs he penned himself. ?This is not Barwick’s first visit to Ogden. He has been here in past years to play with the West Haven-based Stampede for that band’s Christmas fundraiser concert for the Red Cross. ?”I think I’ve got a pretty good following there, and am hoping to build more of one,” he said, calling from home in Denver.?

Western music?

You can call Barwick’s music a lot of things, but one thing he’d rather you didn’t call it is country.?”There is no such thing as country western music,” said Barwick. “I try to hit this hard in my performances, because some folks don’t know the difference. But those of us who sing western music don’t like being called country singers. A western song is a romantic tale about a man and his horse — stories of wind and clouds and sky. Especially here lately, country music is a whiny, romantic tale about a man and somebody else’s horse.”?Barwick first took up an instrument in third grade. It was a trumpet. His father was a tremendous fan of big-band music. His first concert, when he was about 12, was the Benny Goodman Orchestra. ?”I found it fascinating that these guys traveled around and played music for a living,” he said. “I was just born to it, I think. I tried out for football and track and things like that, but was never an athlete. I was a musician at heart.”?His voice changed in sixth grade, and he started singing in earnest. On the advice of the adults around him, he tried college, studying to be a music teacher. But even then, he never quit playing coffeehouses and the like. First, it was on weekends, but there came a time when he was making his gigs, but not his classes. So he dropped out and, as there was a draft on that was going to take him soon anyway, he went to into the Army. ?”When I got back from overseas, I knew I needed to do something with myself, and so I went to broadcasting school. I did that for 25 years. I was also playing music — paying my tuition and rent with it, wherever someone would hire me. One day a buddy asked me why I never put out an album, and I said, ‘Money, I guess.’ “?His friend loaned him the money and Barwick made his first album in 1992. ?

A life beyond?

When asked what impact he’d like to make with his music, Barwick said he’d like one of this songs to live beyond him. ?”I don’t have children. I have songs. So if one of mine is one that lives beyond my life cycle, I was a success.” ?He has already some successes in this lifetime, including, in 2010, having his song “Just Lucky I Guess” nominated for song of the year by the Western Music Association.?”I have a friend who is, among other things, a talented poet — and a horse packer, a licensed guide. And he has a poem called ‘Just One More Day.’ And I was thinking about it one day, and about being grateful for things in my life, and wrote that song. I would be mighty happy if that one went on after I was gone. ?”Now, I am on the path I think I’m intended to walk. … I was given skills, I was given a small amount of talent, I was given a small amount of memory, and, hopefully, the ability to get across what things looked like and felt like. As long as I don’t stray from this path I am supposed to be on, I’ll be fine.”