Six-stringer Barrigar earns standing O at Sammys

All the acts showcased at the 2010 Syracuse Area Music Awards show Oct. 8 at OnCenter performed with electric instruments and digital synthesizers as a computerized light show beamed motorized spots around the auditorium.

All except one.

Toward the end of the three-and-a-half-hour show, guitarist Loren Barrigar strode to center stage with nothing but his Australian-made Maton acoustic. And, man, he made those six strings sing!

“Why isn’t this guy famous?” asked a bearded man sitting next to me in the audience.

I explained that, as a child, Barrigar took a shot in Nashville but returned to Central New York where the music business is – shall we say – a bit less frazzling and frenetic. Now living in Elbridge with his wife, Mary, and their kids, Barrigar is recognized as one of Upstate’s best finger-style guitarists. A co-founder of the Guitar League here, he won a 2009 Sammy award for his disc “Dance with Me.”

Barrigar’s 15-minute set of fine-tuned finger-picking Friday deservedly earned the only standing ovation of the 2010 Sammys’ star-studded evening as he played tunes such as “Dance with Me and “Cannonball Rag.”

“I try to play these things from my heart every night,” Barrigar has said.

There’s a lesson there: modern music needs more heart and less effects.

From Fury to Maniacs

Other acts who impressed the Sammys’ crowd of about 500 on Friday included the oxymoronically named metal trio Silent Fury, energetic indie pop-rockers White Picket Fence, the soulful Miss E and Dovetail Joint, the blues-bending Chris Terra Band, the gutsy girl rocker Kim Monroe and the perennially impressive guitarist Mark Doyle with his British Invasion tribute band, The Maniacs, featuring irrepressible vocalist Jack Lipton.

They all played great, but the solo Barrigar was the only act to bring the audience to its feet.

Hall of Famers

Sammys emcee Dave Frisina from TK99 engineered a big improvement at the Sammys Hall of Fame ceremony Oct. 7 Upstairs at the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. The longtime host of Soundcheck provided a 60-song disc of songs by CNY artists. Last year, the HOF gig was noticeably music-less.

This year’s HOF inductees are educator, bandleader and trombonist Steve Frank, Fritz’s Polka Band, the late Lost Horizon clubowner Greg Italiano, radio executive Ed Levine and Galaxy Communications and drummer Jeff Tortora. Songwriter-keyboardist Duane Hitchings, who was raised on a farm outside Syracuse and went on to co-write tunes such as “Young Turks” with Rod Stewart, is the Sammys 2010 Lifetime Achievement recipient.

2010 Syracuse Area Music Award-Winners

Best country CD: Chris Taylor and the Custom Taylor Band.

Best jazz CD: E.S.P.

Best recordings other styles CD: Society for New Music.

Best hip-hop/Rap CD: Anormous and Rsource.

Best R&B CD: Erika Lovette.

Best pop CD: White Picket Fence.

Best blues CD: Mark Doyle & The Maniacs.

Best alternative/new rock/metal CD: 4 Point 0.

Best rock CD: Merit.

Best Americana CD: Joe Whiting.

Brian Bourke Award for best new artist: Catastrophe Me!