Kathy Barwick of Grass Valley, a bluegrass performer on multiple instruments, a published bluegrass writer, and an instructor, has died after a long battle with kidney cancer. She played guitar, banjo, Dobro, mandolin, and bass after starting with piano lessons at a young age. She was 71 years old.
Kathy was best known to area bluegrass fans as a member of the All Girl Boys, Mountain Laurel, The Avocado Brothers, Mike Justis Band, and later in life as a duet performer with the late Pete Siegfried, although she was in many other bands during a long musical career that began in 1970. She performed at the Good Old Fashioned Bluegrass Festival, the CBA Father’s Day Festival, the Strawberry Music Festival, and at many other festivals and venues in the Sacramento area and throughout Northern California.
Apart from music, she spent her career helping California industries avoid and reduce the use of materials that would eventually become toxic waste, thereby solving an environmental problem before it started. After retirement from the State of California, she retired to Grass Valley.
She was a Sacramento native and a graduate of Foothill High School and Sacramento State University. She was a columnist at Flatpicking Guitar Magazine and an instructor at various music camps and at the Fifth String in Sacramento.
Kathy was very supportive of young female musicians, acting as inspiration and as a mentor. She was always up for a good bluegrass jam at festivals and in the community. She is warmly remembered by her family, friends, and students. She was best known for her bluegrass & folk music, but also played Irish music.
Kathryn Ann Barwick is survived by her husband Jon Fox.
What a pleasure to know this wonderful lady. Lovely lady, lovely music. She will be missed.
I met Kathy at a five day workshop at Sorrento over twenty years ago and we became good friends immediately.
Kathy was generous, kind and patient and in my books, a guitar players guitar player.
We made Wintergrass our annual rendezvous and she loved to host or attend “snooty guitar jams” and anyone who participated knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Kathy was generally most excited about the younger musicians she was mentoring and although I wasn’t a whole lot younger, I was among the fortunate to enjoy her teaching and encouragement.
She was taken too soon and my world of music will never be the same without her.
I will do my best to play in a way she’d approve of and hold her memory dear for the rest of my years.
Condolences to Jon, her family and all privileged to call her their friend.