Barbara Healy began her music experience growing up in a talented musical family in Los Angeles. As a young girl, her parents took her to clubs and concerts and her father played his old 78 records to teach her about the blues. Barbara's first guitar lessons were from Bernie Pearl, whose brother Eddie operated the famous Ashgrove Club.
Barbara sang in college, making her first recording in the San Francisco bay area with a blues band. After moving to Oregon and starting a family, she performed in front of audiences in Southern Oregon, forming the band Hot Sauce, and caught the attention of musicians in Eugene and Portland. After being invited to sit in with players such as James Cotton, Bill Rhodes, and the band New Shoes, Barbara took her show on the road and renamed her band the Allnighterz. On her nights off, it was common to see her sit in with the likes of Paul Delay, Robert Cray, Curtis Salgado, and Lloyd Jones. Musical dignitaries such as the Neville Brothers, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Matt Guitar Murphy would stop by to catch her act. In fact, several would sit in with her band. She sang with Mary Wells and the Temptations, Joan Baez, and traveled with former Tower of Power singer, Ellis Hall.
Barbara took a break during the 1990's to raise her four children by herself, gigging occasionally and continued to write music. In the late 90's she started The Barbara Healy Band, incorporating more jazz influences into a blues repertoire. Barbara released her first CD "Mama Told Me Not To Look" in 1998 and performed at the Eugene Celebration, the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland and the Corvallis Fall Festival, as well as numerous clubs in the Pacific Northwest.
Ever restless to create something new, Barbara released her second CD in 2003 with Tim Danforth called "Lullabies for a Troubled Planet", an acoustic project with a strong folky blues influence. She wrote the songs in response to the changing political landscape and to reflect major changes in her personal life.
After a scary bout with cancer in 2004, Barbara decided to get back to her first love, Rhythm & Blues. With renewed passion and a new band, she opened for Sonny Landreth at the Eugene Celebration. She continues to appear in numerous venues with some of the Northwest's finest players. She has performed at events such as Umpqua Valley Arts Festival in Roseburg, Oregon, Art in the Vineyard and the Roots and Blues Festival in Eugene, the Springfield Filbert Festival, and the Chowder Blues and Brews Festival in Florence, Oregon.
This year, she released a third CD, "Share the Love". All three of her CD's contain her own original material and continue to get extensive airplay in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
In addition to her parents, Barbara's biggest musical influences were "all the soul singers, especially Otis Redding". She heartily agrees with Leonard Bernstein who said, "Any music played with conviction is good music".