Biography

“Just like a ship, without a sail…” aptly describes Thomas Barrett in 1960. Booted out of Wendell Phillips High School and mourning his minister father’s passing, he tore out of Chicago for New York in his ’54 Buick Century. Boarding with family in Queens, he sharpened his finger work, manning the piano at Manhattan’s Village Gate before leaving New York to evangelize. In 1968, the prodigal son returned, his bible quite a bit more worn than when he left. Barrett was led quickly to the helm of Mt. Zion Church; attendance soared under his leadership. He picked up his musical pursuit right where he’d left it, composing music and rearranging traditionals for his growing flock. “Nobody Knows,” issued on his Mt. Zion label, is a drastic reworking of the ancient hymn “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.” Though an accomplished arrangement, the recording is rudimentary at best, sounding as if Barrett’s young choir sung from the loft while a live microphone dangled in the basement. Barrett and his Chicago congregation freely exchanged ideas with the potent Afro-centric movement concentrated just a few miles east in Hyde Park. Sun Ra sideman and African Heritage Ensemble leader Phil Cohran, Earth Wind & Fire forerunners Maurice White and Philip Bailey, and the troubled genius Donny Hathaway all spent time on Mt. Zion with Barrett and his congregants, learning and teaching.