Barry Bales

This week on the pod Palmer is joined by Barry Bales!

Barry is a lot of things, as a musician, he has been the bassist for Alison Krauss and Union Station for 30+ years. He is a songwriter and has played with the likes of Vince Gill, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and more. Oh and he is the winner of 15 Grammy Awards!

Barry is a husband and has one son, Marshall who is 15. Barry is a 5th-generation farmer. He and his family own Bales Farm, where they raise grass-fed/grass-finished beef, pasture-raised chicken, pasture-raised pork, and free-range eggs.

Barry and his wife, Aliceson, were kind enough to have us out to the farm to record this episode. We sat outside on one of their porches and talked over a glass of bourbon on a beautiful East Tennessee day.

Barry and Palmer talked about the importance of knowing when and what life lessons to teach our kids and the mediums to use when teaching, about his time as a child growing up on the farm, and the love and admiration he had for his grandfather, and the challenges of managing our own expectations of what we want for our kids. They talked a bit about the music industry and some of the changes Barry has seen during his time in it and spent the last part of the conversation talking about regenerative farming, why they practice it at Bales Farm, and why we need to see changes happening in our farming and food culture.

A big thanks again to Barry for joining the podcast!