![]() I go check my mail one day and there's this envelope from BMI in there…I opened that check, and there was a check in there with my name on it for an amount more than my house had cost on the day I bought it. I didn't know who George Strait was… I thought, “Well, if he does any good with this, maybe he'll send me, like, 500 bucks.” George Strait wants to record one of your songs." But I didn't know what that meant. And here comes this call from - at the time I'd never heard of him, but it was Erv Woolsey and he left a message. ![]() I was making about 40 bucks a day selling oranges off of a Farm road for a couple of seasons and things were getting really tight. I'm just about to lose my house down in Texas because the band had broken up. He took five cassettes with him and mistakenly had mine in that stack of five.ĪB: God comes in, the angels start moving things around, and it got into Erv Woolsey's hands. Every year (Butler) would make a trip to Nashville and meet with different people, and Erv Woolsey (Strait’s manager) was one of them. ![]() He knew chords I couldn't even dream of and turned it into this beautiful ballad and captured the emotion that I thought the lyric had.Įrnie Lobello took (the tape)to a fellow named Bill Butler… five songs I had written. And he arranged that song to what it is today. We went out to his house, he had a little band there. But you couldn't say either one was his primary instrument. He played keyboard and played great steel guitar. He is one of the finest musicians I've ever known. We cut a little demo on it and an amazing musician, a fella that was married to (country singer) Barbara Fairchild. I did a little tape of it, and a friend of mine, Ernie Lobello, heard it and said, "Let's get a demo on that." Bart, I didn't even know what demo meant. And so I wrote this, I think it was a pretty passionate song called "Baby Blue," but I wrote it with the three chords that I knew. I think playing other people's hits.you play enough of them that many years, you kind of get a flu. I mean, it was an amazing time in my life, and it went on for almost 20 years. But I had all of this input from people on the road that had stories and life that they were living. So I carried an acoustic with me, and I was really lame on it. But I love this James Taylor, Carole King, Cat Stevens stuff that was going on. Bart, I was so naive and ignorant.I'm just an idiot off the street in a rock and roll band, playing cover music across the country. ![]() How long before that had you written this song? Were you co-writing (at the time), and why did you write it by yourself?Īaron Barker: I was not co-writing. In 1988, Strait recorded his first of many Barker compositions, “Baby Blue.” It topped the charts and ushered in a long career for Barker, now a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.īarker told the remarkable story behind the song to Bart Herbison of Nashville Songwriters Association International.īart Herbison: This thing was released in April of ‘88. Somehow, a Texas musician who had never heard of George Strait got his (rejected) demo in the hands of Strait’s manager. In fact, Barker had gotten a luckier break than any sweepstakes winner. When songwriter Aaron Barker showed his mother and stepdad his first royalty check, his stepdad thought it was a fake from Publishers Clearing House. Watch Video: Story Behind the Song: George Strait's 'Baby Blue' ![]()
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