Barry J. Fontenot is a Louisiana-born, Chicago-based soul musician with a love of pushing boundaries and a flair for the dramatic. Raised in the “Deep Soul” and “Delta Blues” musical traditions, Barry’s vocal style brings to mind the strong, rich tenor notes of legendary singers such as Sam Cooke and Otis Redding. In his original compositions, however, Barry reveals the eclectic influences that have followed him throughout his musical journey—he strives, in his own words, to “write em’ like Jazz songs, play em’ like Rock songs, and sing em’ like Soul songs.”
Originally a Classical Tenor specializing in choral music, Barry decided to return to his musical roots in 2013, forming a Soul Band called “Barry Fontenot and the Hurricanes,” which performed mostly covers of the great Motown performers who had so inspired him in his youth. In 2014, while drunk and bleeding in Mexico, Barry wrote his first original song, “Desiree.” While the circumstances surrounding the song’s writing were less than glamourous, as Barry himself often explains (at-length) on stage, the experience of writing and performing original music was one that affected him to the extent that he now performs primarily his own songs, and has written upwards of three hours of performance material.
Upon moving to Chicago, Barry founded a small, flexible musical collective called “Vox Kakumeika,” which serves as his backing band and production team, and includes instrumentalists specializing in guitar, sitar, trombone, saxophone, and more. With this flexibility, Barry tailors his performance to the situation, playing with as many as seven other musicians, or as few as himself and his favorite guitar, Gladys.
