John Barlow Jarvis   -  Biography

Piano master John Barlow Jarvis had won numerous classical competition awards by the time he was a teenager and signed as a staff songwriter and studio musician at Edwin H. Morris Music by the time he was 14. By age 18, he was already playing piano on hits by Ringo Starr, Diana Ross, Leo Sayer, John Mellancamp, the Miracles, Art Garfunkel, Stephen Bishop (a fellow E.H. Morris writer) and many others.

In 1974, at the age of 20, he joined the Rod Stewart Band, where his honky-tonk licks can still be heard on such classics as "Hot Legs", "Tonight's the Night" and "You're in My Heart." In addition to touring with Stewart, Jarvis continued to be one of the most in-demand recording musicians in Hollywood up until 1982, when he decided to move his family to Nashville.

His studio credits include Vince Gill, Brooks & Dunn, Faith Hill, Shania Twain, George Strait and Reba McEntire. His piano playing appears on both Hank Williams Jr.'s rowdy Monday Night Football segment and Mary Chapin Carpenter's elegant "I Am a Town." He also wrote Gill's "I Still Believe in You," the Judds' "Love Can Build a Bridge," Conway Twitty's "Julia" and Steve Wariner's "Small Town Girl." Trisha Yearwood sang his composition "The Flame" at the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics.

In 1985, Jarvis was approached by MCA to be a flagship artist on the new Master Series label. His first 5 CDs, from 1985 to 1993, reached the Top 10 in the new jazz category. People called So Fa So Good "the best solo piano since Keith Jarrett" and Time picked Whatever Works as one of the 10 best record releases in any category for 1989. CBS News spotlighted Jarvis on its New Year's Eve broadcast of 1989, and Jane Pauley interviewed him for The Today Show in 1990.

In 2003, after a 10-year hiatus, Jarvis issued View From a Southern Porch, featuring fellow A-list studio musicians such as Aubrey Haynie, Bryan Sutton, Eddie Bayers, Mike Henderson and David Hungate.