Larry Barkemeyer (Cottage Grove) is a songwriter, guitar player, and founding member of the acoustic Americana band, The Huckleberrys. A Vietnam veteran himself, Barkemeyer uses that experience in his musical work with other veterans.
Bio
Larry Barkemeyer, born and reared in Oregon, is a songwriter, guitar player, and founding member of the acoustic Americana band, The Huckleberrys. He was heavily influenced by his itinerant-logger father’s guitar playing and the old time music of the Pentecostal church his family attended. Barkemeyer, who started playing guitar at fourteen, joined the military after a term of college. During his service in Vietnam, he continued to perform. Upon his return to the US, another Vietnam veteran introduced him to the Eugene-area music scene and often found himself playing with a local group or band on the weekends. His current band, the Huckleberrys, performs songs from “blues to bluegrass,” generally around Cottage Grove and at coffee shops and wineries around the region, and at the Eugene Saturday Market. Barkemeyer’s war years have been extremely important to his musical career, and he also dedicates his skills as a songwriter to writing and performing songs for veterans, based on his own experiences. In the 1970s, he began writing these songs as a therapeutic exercise and for a couple years worked for the veterans-aid organization Pointman, traveling around the country and performing them. He still plays at the Lane County Stand Down, an annual celebration where local veterans are exposed to a variety of exhibits, and programs, many of which are unknown by the average veteran.
