Bill Barwick

Bill Barwick is an award-winning American Western music singer-songwriter, guitarist, and voiceover artist based in Colorado.

Early life

Barwick was originally from North Carolina, and started making music at the age of eight. He lived for a time in Hampton, New Hampshire. As a teenage trumpet player, he attended the Summer Youth Music School program at the University of New Hampshire, where he lived, worked, and played for two weeks exclusively with other musicians. He has said of that experience:

I don't know where my life would have gone if I hadn't met people who loved music as much as I did. I also learned there were people more talented than me, better at their instruments, who worked harder, who practiced more. The only way I would get better, I realized, was to work at it. I learned diligence and a practice ethic.

He moved west to Denver in the 1970s and has lived there ever since.

Musical career

Barwick has been a weekly regular at Denver's historic Buckhorn Exchange since 1984. For over 20 years, he has been a major part of the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas, one of the country's largest acoustic music events. He has appeared at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri, as well as at venues from Anchorage to Boston. He has been called "a poet, a seer, a romantic and a realist, whose music is strictly Western to boot."

He has recorded ten CDs on his own independent record label.

Voiceover career

Barwick's deep voice has been heard in hundreds of narrations, advertisements, infomercials, and public service announcements. It is one of modern media's most recognized voices. As the official spokesperson for the Encore Westerns channel, Barwick has been heard worldwide via satellite and cable TV. His long list of voice clients has included Village Inn, Western Rural Electric, and Wyoming Tourism. He also voiced a life-sized animatronic buffalo head in a store at Denver International Airport. The head was soon taken out of service, however; while the retail staff loved the recorded voice, they couldn't stand hearing it over and over again as customers entered the store.

Awards

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum presented him with a Western Heritage Wrangler Award for his 2012 album The Usual Suspects. Other awards for him or his songs include:

• Western Music Association – 2009 Male Performer of the Year (finalist, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014); Entertainer of the Year Finalist, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014; Album of the Year Finalist, 2010.
• Academy of Western Artists – Will Rogers Award, Male Vocalist of the Year, 2005 (finalist, 2009); Western Music Album/CD of the Year finalist, 2007; Song of the Year Finalist, 2007.
• Power Source Magazine – #1 Record, 2006, "There Ain't No Quit"

• "Awards and Credits". billbarwick.com. Retrieved 2015-01-24. 

Personal life

Like his heroes Roy Rogers and Don Edwards, Barwick openly admits that he did not grow up on a ranch. Though he doesn't even live on one now, he does live the "cowboy way" — as a man who lives with accountability and integrity and who is always prepared and always keeps his word. He travels light, and has never put a horse away wet.