Listeners have already gotten a taste of Barbara Bailey Hutchison’s voice: She’s the pitch-perfect sound
of several McDonald’s commercials.
Singing jingles promoting hamburgers or Hallmark greeting cards or Sears is just a small part of a career
that dates back her dorm room at Michigan State.
Then an art major, Hutchison would play her guitar and sing for herself. She’d started singing publicly
in junior high.
Her roommate was insistent she get back on stage. The dorm had a coffeehouse. Hutchison remembers here
saying: "Come on down and you’re going to play."
"I believe music chooses you more than you choose it."
So she set aside her art career as she played more and more. Hutchison hit the college circuit, and was a
four-time winner of campus entertainer award. She also played the White House.
In a recent telephone interview, she said the biggest crowd she ever played for was here in Bowling
Green.
In October, 1994, she opened for comedian Rita Rudner at Anderson Arena, playing for 7,500.
Hutchison will be back in the neighborhood to play in the Pemberville Opera House Saturday at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $10 at Beeker’s General Store or by calling Carol Bailey at 419-287-4848.
The show will mark the 15th anniversary of the restoration of the opera house.
Hutchison has played a lot of these historic halls, she said. "I just love the older theaters and
opera houses," she said. "It feels like there’s so much history there." A community that
supports such projects are "my people."
As a performer, she said, "it’s about entertaining and connecting with the crowd. That’s the most
important thing for me and music sure is a great way to do that."
She does that with a mix of originals and work from her fellow songwriters. "I have lots of
songwriter friends. If I find a wonderful song written by someone else that has something to say, I’ll
add it to my repertoire," she said.
Often she discovers songs that are more humorous than what she writes.
She recorded her first album in the mid-1970s, when she’d accumulated a enough songs to go together.
Those songs, though, seldom make it into a show unless someone requests it. And then she said it’s a
matter of remembering it.
Beside she’s interested more in songs about family, the state of the world, "what I’m experiencing
now."
That includes returning to visual arts. She’s done papermaking workshops for children, and is now
expanding that to painting workshops.
Those "have completely snowballed," she said. She’s also painting for herself. "I’m going
to take on painting again."
She tends to draw and use watercolor, since those travel better.
Working with children in visual arts complements her work singing for kids.
For her the art and music all come from the same place inside of her. "I name paintings after lines
in songs."
