The Bongos quickly gained favor at New York City music venues as well as at their home venue,
Maxwell's in Hoboken. Signed to the British label
Fetish Records, they were invited to perform at the
Rainbow Theatre in London as part of a concert with other New York bands, a show recorded for the live album
Start Swimming, released on
Stiff Records. A European tour with the
Bush Tetras followed. After a string of independent singles released in the
U.K. were compiled in the U.S. as
Drums Along the Hudson (PVC), and a major U.S. tour with
the B-52s, the group signed with
RCA Records. With the advent of
MTV, they made a commercial impact with the title song of their label debut, the Barone-penned "Numbers With Wings." The song's accompanying video earned the group a nomination at the first MTV
Video Music Awards. Two more albums followed, one for RCA and one for
Island Records, the latter of which was to remain unreleased until 2013. Barone's output as a solo artist has included
chamber pop, orchestral, folk, and narrative singer-songwriter material. He has been called a "gifted pop-rock tunesmith" by
The New York Times. Barone released his first solo album,
Cool Blue Halo (recorded live at
The Bottom Line in New York) in 1987, prior to the Bongos' amicable breakup. Writing in
Rolling Stone,
Anthony DeCurtis praised Barone's "spare, elegant arrangements" and credited him with fashioning "a kind of rock chamber music." While
Trouser Press described the record as "intimate but confused,"
NPR's
Tom Moon, in a more recent assessment, called the album "a plaintive masterpiece," adding:
"Cool Blue Halo feels timeless, and maybe even exotic." Moon also credited Barone's version of
David Bowie's "
The Man Who Sold the World" with influencing
Nirvana's own cover of the song on their 1994 album
MTV Unplugged in New York. Barone toured for the next two years in Europe and the U.S. in support of "Cool Blue Halo," including a U.S. tour with
Suzanne Vega and appearances at the first two Berlin Independence Days music festivals in Berlin, West Germany. Two studio albums followed: the rock-dominated
Primal Dream (
MCA Records) in 1990, and the more acoustic-based
Clouds Over Eden (
Rhino Records), dedicated to his late friend, rock journalist
Nicholas Schaffner, in 1994.
Trouser Press championed the "fine set of yearning love songs" on
Primal Dream, while calling their production and arrangements as a "step backwards" from his debut album. Billy Altman, in
The New York Times, called his next album,
Clouds Over Eden, "unquestionably the most fully realized effort of Barone's career," while
Trouser Press described the album as "wrenching and thoroughly worthwhile" and "the great album fans always imagined [Barone] making." In the mid-1990s, Barone performed and recorded with experimental guitarist
Gary Lucas and his group
Gods and Monsters, in which Barone handled lead vocals and played
Mellotron. In 1995 he recorded
Harry Nilsson's "
I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City," with Lucas on guitar, for the tribute album
For the Love of Harry: Everybody Sings Nilsson (
BMG Records) and produced B-52's frontman
Fred Schneider's version of "
Coconut" for the same project; and performed it with Schneider on ''
Late Night With Conan O'Brien''. In 1996, he partnered with
Phil Ramone and
Larry Rosen's
N2K Records label to become one of the first five artists, each representing a different genre, to make their music available as purchasable digital downloads on the pioneering
Music Boulevard retail site. Amidst the music industry's growing fear of the then-new technology of digital distribution, Barone appeared on
The Wall Street Journal Report television show and other programs to explain and promote legal music downloading as a legitimate method of distribution. In 1997, Barone released
Between Heaven and Cello, a live album recorded primarily at NYC's intimate
Fez nightclub during a series of "Guitar & Cello" shows. In November he performed "
Cello Song" and "
Northern Sky" as part of the concert
Bryter Later: The Music of Nick Drake at
St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn. Also in 1997, Barone partnered with songwriter
Jules Shear to co-host "Writers in the Round - Bluebird Style," a monthly series at
The Bottom Line that featured
Rosanne Cash,
Ron Sexsmith,
Susan Cowsill, and other singer/songwriters; and he performed on ''
Buster's Spanish Rocketship'', the fourth album by
David Johansen's alter ego
Buster Poindexter, released on
Island Records. Barone sang backing vocals on the album, credited as "Richard Barone and the Beautiful Bustiers." and Richard Barone in the studio, circa 2000 Toward the end of the 1990s, Barone began collaborating with producer
Tony Visconti. Nine of the songs they wrote and recorded together over the next few years were released on the album
Glow in 2010. Also during this period, he was invited to sing on sessions Visconti was producing for
David Bowie, including the song "Mother," which would be released in 2021. "Yet Another Midnight," a Barone/Visconti composition from this period, appears on the 2023 retrospective box set
Produced by Tony Visconti on
Demon Records. In 1999 he provided musical direction and orchestrations for the off-Broadway musical
Bright Lights, Big City at the
New York Theatre Workshop, working with
Rent director
Michael Greif. From 1999 to 2004, Barone directed and performed in
The Downtown Messiah, a unique, multi-genre interpretation of
Handel's
baroque oratorio that was broadcast annually in December on over 200
public radio stations nationwide, and combined elements of pop, folk, blues, and jazz. A boxed set of Barone's first three studio albums was released in Europe in 2000 as
The Big Three by Line Records, Germany. In 2001, he contributed a version of "
Showdown" to
Lynne Me Your Ears - A Tribute to Jeff Lynne. He also sang backing vocals on Visconti's version of "Mr. Blue Sky" on the album, along with
Kristeen Young. As a concert producer/director, Barone began to create large-scale concert events, including three all-star tributes to
Peggy Lee at Carnegie Hall, the
Hollywood Bowl, and
Chicago's
Ravinia Festival in 2003 and 2004 in partnership with concert impresario
George Wein. The fully orchestrated concerts spanned Lee's entire career and were staged as a musical biography. Performers included
Bea Arthur,
Nancy Sinatra,
Rita Moreno,
Debbie Harry, and
Shirley Horn. For New York's
Central Park SummerStage in 2004 he created
The Not-so Great American Songbook, a lovingly irreverent revue of guilty-pleasure hits of the 1970s, featuring an eclectic cast that included
Moby and
Justin Vivian Bond. In 2004, Barone interviewed
Quincy Jones for the
PBS documentary
Fever: The Music of Peggy Lee. That year also saw the first release on his own RBM Special Editions label, an anthology of highlights from his back catalog entitled
Collection: An Embarrassment of Richard. He also performed in
The Blood on the Tracks Project in June at
Merkin Hall, a multi-artist tribute to
Bob Dylan's landmark 1974 album on its 30th anniversary. He was accompanied by Tony Visconti on bass,
Vernon Reid on guitar, and
Buddy Cage, who had performed on the original album, on pedal steel. Also that year, Barone joined 1960s folk-rock icon
Donovan for a series of the latter's
Beat Café concert events, including nine performances at New York's
Joe's Pub, singing and reading excerpts from
Allen Ginsberg's
Howl. These appearances were the first of many collaborations with Donovan. Barone increasingly turned his attention to
producing, including a duet between
Liza Minnelli and pianist/vocalist
Johnny Rodgers; a children's album for Jolie Jones (daughter of
Quincy Jones); Fred Schneider's solo album
Just Fred; and others. He also collaborated with Schneider on songs for British pop star
Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Other projects during this time included executive-producing
The Nomi Song DVD (Palm Pictures, 2005), which includes his remix of operatic New Wave countertenor
Klaus Nomi's "Total Eclipse." Barone's songs and collaborations, including several written with singer-songwriter
Jill Sobule, were heard on the TV shows
The West Wing, ''
Dawson's Creek,
Felicity,
and South of Nowhere; as well as in The Nomi Song'' film. In 2006, the original three Bongos reunited in the studio with
Moby to create a re-make and music video of "The Bulrushes," an early Bongos single, for the re-issue of the group's debut album, released by
Cooking Vinyl Records in June 2007. Several Bongos reunion concerts were held, culminating with an outdoor performance at the
Hoboken Arts and Music Festival, during which the band was honored with a Mayoral Proclamation and the
keys to the city. In September 2007, Barone's memoir,
Frontman: Surviving the Rock Star Myth, with cover and interior photos of the author by
Mick Rock, was published by Backbeat/
Hal Leonard Books. In late 2007, he began staging a series of musical readings of
Frontman with excerpts of the book read by television actress
Joyce DeWitt and radio DJ
Vin Scelsa, among others. On his birthday, October 1, 2008, he brought
Frontman: A Musical Reading to the stage at New York's Carnegie Hall as a benefit for public radio station
WFUV, with "Special Guests and Legendary Friends" including Moby, DeWitt,
Lou Reed,
Garth Hudson,
Marshall Crenshaw,
Terre and Suzzy Roche,
Randy Brecker,
Carlos Alomar, and others. In July 2009, Barone entered the recording studio to complete work on the album he began at age 16 for performer Tiny Tim. In addition to production, Barone also arranged multiple songs and played bass and sang backing vocals on the title track. The album, ''
I've Never Seen a Straight Banana - Rare Moments: Volume 1,'' was released in October 2009 on
Collector's Choice Records. In May 2010, Barone produced a concert to benefit
Anthology Film Archives and to honor avant-garde filmmaker/author
Kenneth Anger. Anger performed, along with Lou Reed,
Sonic Youth,
Jonas Mekas, Moby, actors
Ben Foster and
Philip Seymour Hoffman and others. In July that year, Barone collaborated with
Pete Seeger (then 91 years old), producing and performing in "Reclaim the Coast: Gulf Coast Oil Spill Benefit" at City Winery in New York. The next month, he and co-producer Matthew Billy recorded Seeger performing a new song that had been debuted publicly at the show. The song and video, "God's Counting on Me, God's Counting on You," recorded while sailing aboard the
Sloop Clearwater, were released on Election Day, November 6, 2012.
Glow, Barone's fifth solo album, was released in September 2010 on
Bar/None Records. A majority of the songs were co-written with co-producer Tony Visconti. Also working on the project were producers Steve Rosenthal,
Mike Thorne, and
Steve Addabbo; songwriter
Paul Williams, and chief engineer
Leslie Ann Jones at
George Lucas's
Skywalker Ranch, among others. A tour of the U.S. and the U.K. followed in early 2011. In August 2010, Barone was named to the Board of Advisors of
Anthology Film Archives by founder Jonas Mekas, and worked closely with Mekas to produce live fundraising events for the organization. On September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of
9/11, Barone released a re-write of the 1894 song "
The Sidewalks of New York" with updated lyrics that referenced the
World Trade Center attack, co-written and produced by collaborator Matthew Billy. In Fall 2011, Barone made a cameo appearance and performed a song in the film
Mr. Bricks: A Heavy Metal Murder Musical. In December 2011, Barone was appointed a professorship at the
Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at
New York University where he began teaching "Stage Presence: The Art of Performance." On May 4, 2012, for the 25th anniversary of the
Cool Blue Halo album, a reunion concert of all the original musicians was held at City Winery in New York. The concert was filmed and recorded as part of a multi-disc box set released by
DigSin Records. In September 2012, he released the first single from the project, "I Belong To Me." In December, ''I Belong To Me: The 'Cool Blue Halo' Story'' premiered at
Anthology Film Archives, followed by a performance by Barone and musicians from the album. On the occasion of the box set's release, Donovan wrote: "Well-deserved appreciation to Richard on this 25th anniversary release of his album 'Cool Blue Halo.' He displayed the stance early, like the minstrel/actor/playwright of Renaissance London. We met and have shared many a stage together... I have always loved Ricardo's 'Bar-oque and Roll' music. Shine On Ricardo, Shine!" Through his work with Pete Seeger, Barone was asked to contribute a song to the
Occupy This Album project on
Razor & Tie, to benefit the
Occupy Wall Street Movement. The four-disc set, subtitled "99 Songs for the 99%", was released on May 15, 2012. Co-written with Matthew Billy, "Hey, Can I Sleep On Your Futon?" was a new song with contemporary references that was inspired by "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?", a popular song from the
Great Depression. Both the track and music video, produced by film students from
NYU, were included on the original album download. Barone also performed at a series of concerts with other artists on the Occupy album including
Michael Moore,
David Amram, and
Tom Chapin. That same month, the feature documentary about
Anna Nicole Smith,
Addicted to Fame, was released, along with Barone's single "(She's A Real) Live Wire" from the film. He also served as music supervisor for the documentary, directed by
David Giancola. In June 2013, Barone joined forces with
Beach Boys co-founder
Al Jardine and friends to record a version of Pete Seeger's folk anthem "
If I Had A Hammer (The Hammer Song)" for the
ONE Campaign, produced by
Steve Addabbo at the
Shelter Island Sound recording studios in New York. The video was released as ONE Campaign's worldwide protest song project.
Matthew Sweet and
Susanna Hoffs also recorded Barone's song "The Bulrushes" for their 2013 album
Under the Covers, Vol. 3. " in June 2013. On July 31, 2013,
the Bongos performed the final concert at their home club,
Maxwell's, where the original members had also performed the venue's first show. From the stage Richard announced that the group's long-lost album
Phantom Train, recorded in Compass Point, Bahamas in 1986, would finally be released on October 1, 2013 on the re-launched
JEM Records. Barone partnered with
Alejandro Escovedo on March 14, 2014, to produce and co-host the first major tribute to the late Lou Reed at the Paramount Theatre in
Austin, Texas, as part of the
SXSW Music Festival. The three-hour concert included more than 24 acts including
Suzanne Vega,
Lucinda Williams,
Sean Lennon and
Spandau Ballet. The house band included members of
Blondie, the
Patti Smith Group and the
Voidoids. Barone also released a recording of Reed's "
All Tomorrow's Parties" produced by
Chris Seefried with a video by Jonas Mekas, assembled from footage of the early
Velvet Underground at
Andy Warhol's
Factory. In October 2014 Barone launched "A Circle of Songs," a live, monthly musical talk show series at SubCulture, below the
Lynn Redgrave Theater in
Greenwich Village. Guests included
Eric Andersen,
Nellie McKay,
Holly Near, and
Captain Kirk Douglas of
the Roots. As 2015 began, Barone co-produced, with Tony Visconti, a retrospective concert of Visconti's most familiar work, entitled "The TV Show," at New York's City Winery. He also began work on a new album,
Sorrows & Promises: Greenwich Village in the 1960s, composed of songs that emerged from the early days of the Village singer-songwriter scene. The album was curated by music writer/
Columbia Records executive Mitchell Cohen with sessions produced by Steve Addabbo, and featured guest appearances from
Dion,
John Sebastian and
David Amram. A series of musical panel discussions chronicling the music on
Sorrows & Promises, hosted by the
New York Public Library at the historic
Jefferson Market Library branch in Greenwich Village, preceded the album's October 14, 2016, release. In March 2017, Barone brought the
Sorrows & Promises project to
SXSW in Austin, where he hosted a five-and-a-half-hour showcase based on the album. Back in the studio, Barone produced an album for jazz singer
Hilary Kole of songs made famous by
Judy Garland and a various-artists holiday album for the Miranda Music label on which he appears, as well as a second album of recordings made by
Tiny Tim, entitled ''Tiny Tim's America
, released in summer 2016. He also served as executive producer of Tiny,
a musical based on the life of Tiny Tim; and produced a songbook album for composer Tracy Stark, released in October 2016 with performances by Lesley Gore, actress Karen Black, and Nona Hendryx. Barone also contributed liner notes to a vinyl reissue of The Holy Mackerel'', the debut of the 1960s band featuring songwriter
Paul Williams, and to the 2018 reissue of Williams' 1970 solo debut,
Someday Man. in April 2018, Washington D.C. In April 2017, Barone was elected to the board of governors of the New York Chapter of
The Recording Academy (The
Grammys). He would be re-elected for a second term in 2019. In December 2017, he entered the studio to begin producing a tribute for
Dean Martin's Centennial, featuring New Jersey–based group Remember Jones and Martin's daughter,
Deana Martin. In June 2018, Barone would be invited by Martin to perform at the
Friars Club as she was honored with the
Trobairitz title. On March 29, 2018, Barone performed in
The Bowie Songbook, a reinterpretation of
David Bowie's catalogue as part of the
Brooklyn Museum's
David Bowie Is installation. Also in March 2018, he began a new monthly
Village Nights salon series at the Washington Square Hotel in New York. As of 2024 the series is in its fifth season. In April 2018 it was announced that Barone would host and curate
Music + Revolution: Greenwich Village in the 1960s at Central Park SummerStage on August 12 of that year. Performers included
Jesse Colin Young,
Melanie,
José Feliciano,
Maria Muldaur,
John Sebastian, and others. The next week it was announced that Richard had joined the faculty of
The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music and was set to teach Music + Revolution, a 15-week music history course centered around 1960s Greenwich Village. As of 2024, Barone has continued to teach Music + Revolution at The New School, along with directing improvisation and songwriting ensembles at the university. Barone represented the New York Chapter of the Recording Academy for
Grammys on the Hill in Washington D.C., in support of the Music Modernization Act (MMA), an omnibus bill supporting the rights of music creators. He met with
Senator Patrick Leahy, Congressman
David Cicilline, Representative
Joseph Crowley, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, and the office of Senator
Sheldon Whitehouse. Barone also met with New York Representative
Jerrold Nadler, key supporter of the Music Modernization Act. The bill passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and was signed into law on October 11, 2018. In January 2019, Barone accompanied Donovan in Jamaica to record a tribute album to
Harry Belafonte. Barone also photographed Donovan for the cover of the album's first single. A second project with Donovan that year, a tribute to
Brian Jones of the
Rolling Stones, was recorded and filmed in Jones' hometown of
Cheltenham, England on the fiftieth anniversary of his passing. Barone was the musical director of the project, which celebrated the American blues music that inspired the early Stones. In fall 2019, a new guitar effect pedal "The Mambo Sun," a collaboration between Barone and boutique pedal manufacturer Left Coast Workshop, was launched for sale. It was designed to replicate Barone's distinctive double-tracked guitar tone. Joining forces with
Glenn Mercer, guitarist/frontman of
The Feelies, Barone began performing a series of concerts entitled
Hazy Cosmic Jive, a tribute to the mid-1970s experimentation of
David Bowie,
Brian Eno,
Roxy Music,
Marc Bolan and others. In 2020 Barone made a cameo acting appearance, playing himself, in the indie film
The Incoherents directed by Jared Barel. He also appeared in the documentaries
Tiny Tim: King for a Day and ''You Don't Know
Ivan Julian. He also performed "Streets of New York" on Willie Nile Uncovered,'' a tribute to the singer-songwriter, released in August 2020. Barone sang on four tracks on
Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan & T.Rex produced by
Hal Willner, contributing backing vocals to tracks by
Todd Rundgren,
Lucinda Williams,
Kesha, and
Helga Davis. The album was released on September 4, 2020 by
BMG Records. In tribute to another of his inspirations, Barone performed a medley of "Revolution" and "Power to the People" for
JEM Records Celebrates John Lennon, released on the 80th anniversary of Lennon's birth, October 9, 2020. He also contributed an essay about
Pylon for the book included in the comprehensive
Pylon Box vinyl box set released on November 6, 2020, by
New West Records. On January 8, 2021,
David Bowie's cover of
John Lennon's song "Mother," for which Barone had sung harmony vocals with producer Tony Visconti at the original session in 1998, was posthumously released on limited edition vinyl and digital streaming on
Parlophone Records. The single was released to commemorate Bowie's seventy-fourth birthday. In July,
the Bongos'
Beat Hotel - Expanded Edition was released by
RCA Records. Later that month, Barone contributed two tracks to
JEM Records Celebrates Brian Wilson. On January 20, 2022, he began hosting the
Folk Radio show on
WBAI Radio, New York. The program broadcasts live on Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on 99.5 FM, and streamed live on WBAI.org. Barone's second book,
Music + Revolution: Greenwich Village in the 1960s, was published by Backbeat Books/
Rowman & Littlefield on September 15, 2022. A major launch event was held at the
Museum of the City of New York on October 13, 2022. Performers included
Carolyn Hester,
Suzanne Vega, and
David Amram. On September 15, 2023, at the invitation of Tony Visconti, Barone performed at the all-star
Marc Bolan 45th Anniversary Celebration Concert in London at
O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, where Visconti conducted the string section. In October 2023, the Bongos released the Barone-penned "Rock the Christmas Cheer!" holiday single, on RCA Records; the first recording of a new Bongos song since 1986. On November 13, 2023, Barone produced
Mazzoni Center Honors
Stephen Schwartz, an all-star, Broadway-themed gala held at the
Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. That same week, on November 19, 2023, he returned to
Carnegie Hall to present
Music + Revolution at Carnegie Hall, a concert based on the book. The sold-out concert, which featured performances by
Tom Paxton,
Jose Feliciano,
Vernon Reid, The Bongos, and many others, was a benefit for
MusiCares and the
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation. and Richard Barone in
Washington Square Park, NYC, as they appear in the music video for "All Fall Down," September 2024. On September 28, 2024, Barone produced
Bolan Birthday Bash: A Celebration of Marc Bolan & T. Rex in Los Angeles featuring members of
The Bangles and
Cowsills among many others. On November 18, 2024 he produced a tribute to
Star Trek star and social activist
George Takei in Philadelphia, for
Mazzoni Center Honors. See Concert Productions below. Barone's single, "All Fall Down", featuring and co-written by
Darryl "DMC" McDaniels, was released on September 20, 2024 on
Richard Gottehrer's Instant Records label. The song was released in multiple genres, including Rock, Folk, Alt-Country, and Hip-Hop versions. On May 23, 2025, the Bongos' live album
The Shroud of Touring: Live in 1985 was released on CD, followed by the streaming release on September 19th. In June 2025, Barone toured the southern U.S. states of Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee with
Pylon Reenactment Society. In December 2025, Barone lectured for week of classes on the topic of music and politics and performed at
Sapienza University of Rome at the invitation of Professor Marilisa Merolla. In January 2026, it was announced that Barone's duo album, recorded in 1983 with fellow Bongo James Mastro and producer
Mitch Easter,
Nuts & Bolts, was scheduled to be released in April 2026 in an expanded CD edition by Iconoclassic Records. It was also announced in January that Barone's
Village Nights music series would relaunch in March 2026, presented by the
Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, with four events to be held at the historic venue
The Bitter End, each celebrating a specific decade in the history of the Greenwich Village music scene. ==Selected discography==