Barry McCabe

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Christmas is a great time to unwind and take it easy for a few days and the New Year is a great opportunity to hit the reset button. Here's hoping you'll manage to do both.

Barry was back in the studio recently, together with Ralph, and they recorded a new acoustic song but we'll tell you more about that in the new year.

Barry's music is now available in China via his distribution deal with CD Baby. This allows his songs to be placed on streaming platforms in China, the world’s largest music marketplace. This means his music can now be heard by hundreds of millions of streaming subscribers in China.

CD Baby has partnered with the Tencent Group to bring Barry's songs to 3 major music platforms in Mainland China. As part of their policy of always looking for new opportunities to distribute, CD Baby is very excited to announce they’re now delivering their catalogue of streaming-eligible tracks to the following three music streaming services, all powered by Tencent:

QQMusic — a music streaming and download service that currently has over 400m monthly active users in China.

KuGou — currently the largest streaming service in China.

Kuwo — the fourth largest music streaming service in China.

The modern music industry is global. Not only has the internet accelerated the exchange of artistic ideas, leading to all kinds of international collaborations and interesting genre crossovers, it’s also intensified consumer demand for music beyond their own borders.

“Making our members’ music available in the world’s largest market for streaming subscribers offers tremendous potential for independent and emerging artists to be heard and to connect with fans,” says CD Baby CEO Tracy Maddux.

This would seem unbelievable to musicians even a decade ago, that with a little bit of effort you’re as likely today to find listeners on the other side of the world as you are to find fans streaming your music down the street. No matter how you reaching out to the world — through playlist strategies, social media, audio ads on streaming platforms, banner ads on major music websites, creative music videos, or something else — it’s crucial that the music be available in all the places potential fans prefer. That’s why CD Baby's partnership with Tencent is so exciting; the three services listed above account for an estimated 84% of the domestic music streaming market in Mainland China.

“China and other markets with lots of potential listeners, high mobile phone usage, low cost bandwidth, and leading streaming platforms present our members with opportunities to connect with literally hundreds of millions of potential new fans,” says Maddux. “Tencent is a leader in China and throughout Asia.”

As we get ready to close out another year and wind things down as we head into the holiday period, we would like to thank you all for your continued support throughout the year. I know we say it every year but we still mean it; your support means the world to us.

Music can be a faithful friend in good times and bad, happy days as well as sad. A big hello to all of you who discovered Barry's music for the first time this year. We hope it will bring you lots and lots of listening pleasure.

Barry's music was featured recently on an NPR radio program on KQBM. The tracks "Lonely Road" and "In The Dead Of Night" were featured. The host is James Fox.

Barry was interviewed by Louise Dunphy for her "Celtic Crossings" program on 93.9 & 101.5FM, The River. That show goes out at 7am on Sundays. Louise is also the promoter who booked Barry's acoustic tour in the US when he toured there with Danny Vlaspoel.

Some very exciting news regarding Barry's "Troubadour" album. First, let's explain what JPF is and what this is all about.

JPF stands for Just Plain Folks, an organisation founded by Brian Whitney in 1999. "Just Plain Folks is a community of over 51,500 Songwriters, Recording Artists and Music Industry Professionals - and host to the world's largest independent music awards. Our organization was created to provide a network of cooperation and inclusion for musicians."

2017 Just Plain Folks Music Awards Nominations

"After 18 months of screening 17,400 albums and 240,000 songs, the judges have chosen nominees for both Albums and Songs in over 70 genres of music. The competition was very high and the talent levels were top notch and many worthy songs and albums still didn't make the cut."

You can find the nominees listed here

Barry's song "The Peace Within" (the Troubadour version) has been nominated in the "Traditional Folk Song" category and the Troubadour DVD has been nominated in the Video category.

At this moment, the awards show date is slated for 11th November but that can still change. The show will be (somewhere) in L.A. (USA).

Note: JPF's definition of Trad. Folk: This is a bit misleading for purists. These are original songs, done in a more traditional production style than New Folk. Most of the lyrical content tells stories or laments the human condition and circumstances we all face.