By ROB DUGUAY The COVID-19 pandemic has left a lot of people alone with their thoughts. Over the past 12 months, some folks have taken the time to reflect on their lives while also thinking about the next steps to take when this whole thing is over and
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The COVID-19 pandemic has left a lot of people alone with their thoughts. Over the past 12 months, some folks have taken the time to reflect on their lives while also thinking about the next steps to take when this whole thing is over and done with.
It’s also a good time to be grateful for what you’ve got, because if this experience has taught us anything, it’s that you can lose everything in an instant.
East Providence singer-songwriter Beth Barron put these thoughts into song with the single “I’m Alive,” and a music video for it was made available to stream on Vimeo on March 12. Cranston-based film director Brett Davey was behind the camera for the making of the video, which was shot in various parts of eastern New England.
Barron and I recently had a conversation about her introduction to music, social media playing a role in meeting Davey, shooting at the first place she ever performed at by herself, and another single she’ll be releasing this summer.
ROB DUGUAY: What initially inspired you to pick up an acoustic guitar and start writing your own music? Do you come from a musical family in East Providence or did you pick up the craft at a later age?
BETH BARRON: I actually started by playing classical piano for about 12 years.
RD: Wow.
BB: Yeah, I took lessons, and honestly the teacher wasn’t that big a fan of singing and I always wanted to sing because people told me I had a very good voice. My dad is a fantastic musician, but he’ll never tell you that. I started writing my own music around eight years ago and I picked up the guitar because I thought my voice sounded gritty, but it actually brought my dad and I closer together. That was a really cool thing, and I always played Bob Dylan songs because I was insecure about sharing my original music but I figured I could make my own rendition of Bob Dylan sound good.
RD: How were you able to link up with Brett Davey for the making of the video, and what was the experience like working with him?
BB: With social media last year during the pandemic, I was doing a lot of live shows while touching base with a lot of people in the community. I’m really good friends with Michael Panico, and I had a show on a porch happening during the summer. Brett came to support and we finally met in person. He always kind of supported what I did along with other people in the community, and he reached out to me after I released the single for “I’m Alive” about wanting to do a video. I was very grateful that he asked and we jumped right to it. He was fantastic to work with. I was so nervous the day before that I was overwhelmed with excitement, gratitude, and I wasn’t too sure where to go.
I knew that I kind of wanted to do it in Warren and the East Bay because I grew up in the area, especially at The Galactic Theatre on 440 Main St., because that’s where my first ever solo show was. The first time I ever performed my own original music was there, so it’s kind of like home base for me. Brett was so cool with being open to anything, I was really grateful for that.
RD: Like you said, there’s a lot of shots in the music video from around the East Bay. You’re singing in a snow-covered field at one point, there are shots of a mill building and other places. Where is the mill building located and where’s the field? Were you at a farm somewhere after a snowfall?
BB: It’s such a cool shot and it was actually taken at Burr’s Hill Park in Warren right near Warren Town Beach. There’s also this big shell in the park where they’ve done live shows during the summer.
RD: Yeah, it’s kind of like an amphitheatre.
BB: Yes, and I thought it would be so powerful to have a shot of me performing there. It was really cool because at The Galactic Theatre there were a couple people there and I asked everyone if it was OK to have Brett filming me singing there. It was kind of the first time they had any sort of live music there in a while, which was cool.
Then at the mill building, her name is Jade Gotauco and it’s her mill building in New Bedford. She’s an artist who does scrimshaw, which is a really cool process. Her and her boyfriend, Steve Teixiera, are in the shot, and it was done at her artist loft that she just opened up last month. I was so grateful that she was open to having us do some filming there.
RD: Did you write “I’m Alive” during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, or is this an older song? Self-affirmation and self-reflection seem to be consistent themes with the lyrics.
BB: I was writing little by little, which started during the pandemic, and I finished it when the warmer weather hit, which was around June. It was this moment of a lot of self-reflection along with how the pandemic got worse before it got better while having to sit with yourself. I was being brutally honest about all the emotions I was feeling and I wrote them down paragraph by paragraph. I looked in the mirror one afternoon and it was probably one of the first times I could say that I loved everything I saw. With the good, the bad and everything else, it’s about finally being honest about it, and the only way I could put it out is with my songwriting. With “I’m Alive,” I still discover new things about it when I listen to it, which is really cool.
RD: Some of the best songs are like that, where you listen to it again and you discover something different about it that you didn’t notice beforehand. I love when that happens.
BB: Yeah, it’s very humbling.
RD: It’s so great. With the music video out, can we expect an EP or a full-length album to follow it up?
BB: I’m actually working with Newcastle Sound in Barrington. Randy Hunicke is the best over there, and you can expect another single to be coming out in a couple of months. I’ve been so humbled with this whole experience and I’m looking forward to releasing the next one. The video for “I’m Alive” is available on Vimeo. The song can be heard on SoundCloud, Spotify, Amazon Music and music streaming platforms.
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