EP22 The Fabulous Bill Barrett

What this episode is about

This tribute honors Bill Barrett, a celebrated country music radio personality and voice talent who passed away on August 17, 2022, from cancer. Known for his extensive career in the Pacific Northwest and his significant contributions to country radio, Barrett was a beloved figure and a multiple award winner, demonstrating the impact of local media personalities who prioritize quality of life over national fame.

Key takeaways

• In tribute to Bill Barrett, the voice that could make even a traffic report feel like a country ballad.
• He traded fame for fulfillment, proving sometimes it's not about the market size but the heart of the community.
• Bill Barrett: the kind of improvisational genius who turned 10-minute sessions into 40 minutes of pure magic.
• From Eugene to the Country Music Hall of Fame, talent knows no boundaries—just a lot of great views.
• Pioneering podcast voice talent, Barrett was the rare gem who could bridge radio’s golden era with digital’s infancy.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dan Carlin (Host) · 17 min speaking
• Bill Barrett (Guest) · 4 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Bill Barrett, Tim Fox, Jonathan Winters, Dan Carlin
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Bill Barrett, Dan Carlin, Common Sense, Hardcore History
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Common Sense, Dan Carlin, Cybertech Digisoft
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Dan Carlin, Common Sense, Hardcore History, Jonathan Winters

Notable quotes from "EP22 The Fabulous Bill Barrett"

• And now the show with the most handsome voice Talent working today it's common sense with Bill Barrett hosted by that Dan Carlin guy that voice that you heard just there in the introduction as he set himself was.

  about Dan Carlin · at 0:00

• Family and friends are okay with this but given all that he's done for us it would be ungrateful I think to not celebrate this amazing person and first of all point out that…

  about Bill Barrett · at 1:01

• Barrett thing greater than the sum of its parts and they always had a third person Tracy Berry did it and Tracy Berry's been doing it as of recently and she's fabulous my wife…

  about Tracy Berry · at 3:39

• Him and bear was one of his nicknames right the bear and the fox and Tim Fox like I said the perfect Uber talented foil for Bill's work and then the third person in there I mean he was just awesome and could have been a star anywhere.

  about Tim Fox · at 4:40

• People out there but he must have been one of the very early pioneers and on the Hardcore History show we've always been very straight with the marketing and The Branding and…

  about Hardcore History · at 5:55

• Turn out to be after all Dan Carlin is just a symbol of cyber Tech digisoft cybertech digisoft if it's good we'll buy it and then sell it back to you a buck a show or we'll…

  about Cybertech Digisoft · at 14:56

• In some of the ad-lib statements I mean you know listen to this stuff giving you Common Sense giving you twice giving you more than you can handle Dan Carlin he's a jokester he's a prankster he's a sometimes wannabe wankster he's what.

  about Common Sense · at 17:26

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Bill Barrett — Person · Tribute subject / featured voice talent · 7 mentions · first at 0:05
  The episode is a memorial tribute highlighting Barrett’s voice work for Dan Carlin’s shows and his long radio career in the Pacific Northwest, including his on-air partnership with Tim Fox and a rotating third co-host (incl. Tracy Berry).
• Dan Carlin — Person · Host / narrator · 11 mentions · first at 0:08
  Carlin hosts the episode and delivers the tribute, explaining how Barrett’s announcing and improvisation shaped the tone and branding of 'Common Sense' (and referencing 'Hardcore History').
• Tim Fox — Person · Referenced co-host / collaborator · 3 mentions · first at 3:22
  Presented as Barrett’s key on-air partner—an "uber talented foil"—whose chemistry with Barrett helped drive top ratings; still active per the transcript.
• Tracy Berry — Person · Referenced co-host / collaborator · 1 mention · first at 3:41
  Identified as the recurring third on-air person with Barrett and Fox; described as currently doing the role and "fabulous."
• Jonathan Winters — Person · Referenced comparison (comedic influence/analogy) · 3 mentions · first at 4:01
  Used as a shorthand comparison to describe Barrett’s improvisational genius and comedic riffing style.
  Bear and the Fox as they were called and that's what Bill Barrett was like by the way if you combine like one part Jonathan Winters there was a little bit of Jonathan Winters…

Companies & orgs

• Cybertech Digisoft — Company · Referenced company · 2 mentions · first at 14:21
  Mentioned humorously as a fictional sponsor of the Common Sense podcast, adding to the comedic tone.

Products & tech

• Common Sense — Product · Product focus · 12 mentions · first at 0:02
  A political and current events podcast hosted by Dan Carlin, mentioned as a key product in the discussion.
• Hardcore History — Product · Referenced product · 2 mentions · first at 6:02
  Another podcast by Dan Carlin, mentioned in passing as part of the discussion about his work.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 and now the show with the most handsome voice Talent working today it's common sense with Bill Barrett hosted by that Dan Carlin guy that voice that you heard just there in the introduction as he set himself was Bill Barrett the number one choice that I would have had if somebody had said to me in 2005 when we started podcasting that you could have any sort of big voice announcer in the entire world who would you pick and I would pick Bill Barrett for reasons that will become apparent I think as we talk about him we lost him yesterday August 17th 2022 to cancerous so many of us have lost friends and relatives to that terrible disease and in Bill's case I wanted to do this tribute because of all he's done for us I hope that Bill's family and friends are okay with this um but given all that he's done for us it would be ungrateful I think to not celebrate this amazing person and first of all point out that what you hear when

1:15 you hear bill in any of our shows is a tiny fraction of what Bill does Bill was not a voice announcer as a main gig that was just sort of a little side gig he did Bill was a star in the Pacific Northwest up here and in country music radio bill is a celebrity I mean this is a guy who has gone into the country radio hall of fame he spent almost half a century in radio just in the area that I live in even longer if you include outside that area he's a three-time winner of the country music small Market on-air personality of the year I mean this is a guy that is huge and could have been in New York or Los Angeles or any of the big radio markets had he wanted to but like so many of the media people that end up in places like Eugene Oregon there's a lot of small cities out there that fall into a similar category where you get these media people who should be on their way up to New York or Los

2:21 Angeles or Chicago or one of those places but finds that the quality of life is such that they'll trade the success and the perks that would have come with something like a New York radio gig right the number one media Market in the country which bill could have easily worked in for the overall life satisfaction that comes with working in a place like this the first reporting job I ever had was in Eugene Oregon and we used to joke at the station that we worked at that it was view in lieu of pay but the view was fantastic the view for Bill Barrett was fantastic he was the number one guy forever here and when he went from kugn Radio you know with the number one country show and moved to another station they instantly had the number one country show which showed you it wasn't about song programming programmers decisions on marketing or branding or contests or anything like that it was Bill

3:24 and his co-host Tim Fox who by the way I've known bill for almost 30 years I've known Tim longer he's the First Media person I think outside of the station that I worked in that I met when I came to Oregon and the perfect piece of chemistry that made the whole Bill Barrett thing greater than the sum of its parts and they always had a third person Tracy Berry did it and Tracy Berry's been doing it as of recently and she's fabulous my wife did it for years co-host to Bill Barrett and Tim Fox the bear and the Fox as they were called and that's what Bill Barrett was like by the way if you combine like one part Jonathan Winters there was a little bit of Jonathan Winters and Bill in the sense that he was an improvisational genius and I could schedule a 10-minute recording session with him and 40 minutes later we're still you know riffing off stuff and Bill is giving me stuff that I didn't write for liners

4:17 that just came to him off the top of his head and you'd end up with wonderful stuff and just this wonderful little session with this fabulous personality whose idea of calling somebody a Bad Name by the way sometimes was you know usually was something like knucklehead mixture of like Jonathan Winters and like the big bear from The Jungle Book cartoon blue without the Hipster side of him and bear was one of his uh nicknames right the bear and the fox and Tim Fox like I said the perfect Uber talented foil for Bill's work and then the third person in there I mean he was just awesome and could have been a star anywhere I told Ben at the time if there was or is or will be a Ben The Once and Future producer of this program when we got Bill to agree to do this for us I said we just got the best announcer in the world the number one guy I would have chosen from anywhere thank God he was wonderful and early on

5:18 when we're in 2005 and podcasting is a is an Uber amateur Affair to have somebody that sounded like one of the major broadcast networks bought brought in a big voice to do this set us apart from the get-go from the very get-go I mean Bill he wouldn't make I mean he wouldn't think twice about it because he was really an old radio guy that podcast never really registered uh with him but I mean he must have been one of the first big professional voice announcers ever to appear on a podcast I mean I'm not saying he was the first because I don't know any better and there were other people out there but he must have been one of the very early pioneers and on the Hardcore History show we've always been very straight with the marketing and The Branding and the Imaging as they call it in radio but with common sense which was our political and current events show we always tried to take the edge off what

6:16 was to come um and besides me being loud and talking very fast and having an edge that I would say was passionate but critics might say was angry um I think the self-deprecating sort of marketing and branding and imaging that we did and the uh turning lemons into lemonade you know turning making something like loud angry fast talking people into a plus all that sort of stuff um was meant to offset the downsides of what you were going to get with me what's funny is all the radical stuff from years ago that I used to have to warn the audience about the uh you know the political like midline or median attitudes in places like the United States but maybe the whole world has moved so far that the stuff I was trying to you know sort of cushion the blow for my audience back then in terms of you know what you're about to hear may shock you but don't worry it all seemed pretty darn blase now doesn't it that's how extreme

7:19 Things Are but that has nothing to do with Bill Barrett he helped put this show on the map I think and give us a sense where when listeners might give you a few seconds to see if this was worth listening to any more of this podcast back in the early days of podcasting I mean all you have to do is listen sometimes to the audio quality to know I don't want to listen anymore after 30 seconds bill made you realize right away whoa what what is this and it was because he had a voice that just forced you to sort of prick up your ears and listen let me say at the outset here that what you're about to hear turns out to be a little self-serving it wasn't intentional but what Bill did for us was all of this branding and imaging and marketing and so the only thing of Bill's work the only pieces of Bill's work that I have the rights to rebroadcast or the stuff he did for us and so he's doing such a great job of

8:20 branding and imaging for us there's no way for me to expose you to some of Bill's stuff without it reflecting positively on us and once again I suppose that I am piggybacking on Bill's talent for my own benefit and he'd have some wonderful comeback line if I had said that to him um but let me expose you to a little bit of a guy who's been a part of my and my wife's life for almost 30 years and who we are all especially in this neck of the woods a lot poorer now that he's gone the fabulous Bill Barrett hi this is Bill Dan doesn't have time to solicit so I will I'm the panhandler of podcasting would you make a donation please if not we're going to send somebody to your house you better protect your kneecaps thank yous all very much welcome to Common Sense with Dan Carlin for Russian press one for German press two for any latin-based romance languages press three welcome to the people of France who are listening to or

9:31 their Common Sense we say Vive La France and Viva la Let's see we will intelligence congratulations for thinking outside the bun you Europeans and Pacific Rim people yeah I'm looking at you Australia you people are just as susceptible to guilt as everyone else so put a little shrimp on the Bobby for Dan and Ben because we know where you live in Australia it's a lovely day down under but more important and a nice day to catch up with Dan Carlin

10:08 ego I have all the ingredients to create my masterpiece mix one pot liberal one part conservative yes yes add a dash of libertarian a pinch of radical and a snifter of moderation plus a bucket of pragmatism and behold my new creation neo-prudentism Master we need to find a better name I know how about common sense I was the guy who wrote the copy for Bill except when he improvised which was all the time and he would take what I had written and become the creative Talent equivalent of a force multiplier and make a bunch of sort of drab words on a page sing sometimes literally with everything from accents to celebrity impersonations to characters that only Bill knew where they came from here's an example these Dan Carlin stole a whole idea for Common Sense Show from Russia an old Soviet Union was called communist sins of course we Suttons of Ireland count Dan Carlin as one of our own you see

11:26 dispensing clear-headed analysis in an entertaining fashion is an age-old Irish tradition Dan is one of those unique people he just has an innate ability to see both sides of an issue and then get mad about both of them oh Father I'm so confused don't worry about it son so is he celebrity voice impersonated that's a Sleek dick backwards from sideways we always get there first this uh Common Sense record this uh this uh this uh this Common Sense racket yeah used to be independent yeah it used to be uh independent now that this Dan Cullen guy's gotten it off the ground we're moving in on this territory why not hey why not we're non-partisan right we're practical neoprudentus too and if the host of a podcast needs to like get whacked sometimes or perhaps just tied up in a Cellar maybe that's just common sense maybe not it's a judgment call it's a judgment call Bill's humor was instrumental in setting

12:30 the right tone for the current events political show that we did which was going to be intense and you know all passionate and all that sort of stuff and and when Bill would lead off the entire Affair sort of setting the tone with some humor it was the perfect yin and yang combination and gave a real sense that while we might be very interested and involved in what we were talking about we didn't take ourselves too seriously we had recurring characters that bill kept bringing uh into the opens and then a segment where people would supposedly have written letters to the show and Bill would read them and here the man of a thousand voices would read these supposed letters from all over the planet and they would sound exactly the same like it was a you know American from Middle America check out what I'm talking about here and think of how very different it was to have somebody put a little smile on your face before

13:23 you dove into politics and current events when was the last time you saw those two things mixed together right hey Mrs kayak Khan of karakora Mongolia writes and Mr Vinnie boombots of the Amazon rainforest rights a Mr thing from the Kalahari Desert rights hey guys I love the show one question though how do you all deal with Dan's intensity level on a day-to-day basis it must be a grind yes Mr I can't pronounce your name it is I deal with it by having as little to actually do with Dan as possible and Ben the engineer Ben is just screwed oh do I remember that Dan Collin guy he was a punk a Mr R Nader writes fellas I loved the show until the recent news hit that you were bought by cybertech digisoft I mean with the letter jackets with the hair oh my God my God they're here am I to believe that the billions of dollars that such a giant Corporation can funnel to Dan won't change his independent perspective

14:35 when you're smiling when you're smiling the whole Royals got common sense for crying out loud I wish I could sing like I don't know like Dan Cullen now there's a scary dot well thanks for asking Mr Nader just like our legislature the host of Common Sense is completely uncorruptable whomever that person might turn out to be after all Dan Carlin is just a symbol a symbol of cyber Tech digisoft cybertech digisoft if it's good we'll buy it and then sell it back to you a buck a show or we'll call the cops one thing that bill never got on the show was why I was doing the self-deprecating stuff and he would tease me and sometimes just laugh out loud when he would read the liners that I'd written and he would see the self-deprecating comments I would make and it was it was a way of offsetting um what comes off sometimes maybe as a know-it-all or an arrogance that um in reality I mean I don't think is there

15:36 but Bill didn't think was there he wouldn't he wouldn't have come back with the sort of things he did which well you could listen to his reaction sometimes when he would hear the the ways we would approach The Branding or the Imaging and um and he would always try when he could to slip in something of his own that had a positive thing instead of the sorts of things I used to write for myself well Mr Cowell thanks for pointing out the elephant in the living room if you haven't figured out Dan's got a way too high an opinion of himself you never worked you've never worked with him take it from me he shares more qualities with William Shatner than just his voice way to run yourself down Dan smothering you in mushrooms and onions since 1994. he's Dan Carlin and this is common sense what the hell did that mean didn't care for this episode well you're probably not alone the good news is there are lots of past shows available

16:34 from dancarlin.com Amir 99 Cents will get you an instant download of one of the classic Common Sense shows of the past back when it was worth paying for go to Dan Carlin cut boy you're really back selling your show here if you think something's missing it's probably the Ritalin that's it keep beating yourself up I'm gonna have to come over there and slap you as I said earlier Bill had a Jonathan Winters sort of vibe to him in terms of his ability to just come out with stuff spontaneously and endlessly in turning our you know short little recording sessions into rather you know long enjoyable Affairs and I laughed listening to some of these raw tapes I mean the funny thing is this bill could you know chastise Me For Myself deprecating liners that I wrote but he had no problem having some fun with me in some of the ad-lib statements I mean you know listen to this stuff giving you Common Sense giving you twice

17:34 giving you more than you can handle Dan Carlin he's a jokester he's a prankster he's a sometimes wannabe wankster he's what Dan Cortland I just want to love him and pet him and hug him until he starts talking George I'll give you some hardcore history how about my last prostate exam well thanks for asking Mr Swaggart and even though Dan can be Pious self-righteous and over dramatic and he likes to do a little self-anointing now and then he comes by it naturally no experience necessary living proof of what happens when cousins marry he's Dan Carlin and this is common sense Bill had the ability to talk in a high range all the way to the low range and he called the low range the Red Zone I think that's an NFL reference but I'm not sure but we loved the Red Zone voice and we would have build so often do multiple versions of different things that we wrote in a bunch of different voices but we you know when he got to

18:35 that Red Zone voice that just hit the sweet spot for us I mean listen to some of these examples of Bill going way down in the in the range of something that sounds like an old NFL films production with some classic voice from the 50s or 60s you know in that announcer range that is just so rare it seems like everybody with a political show has a deep voice to intro the material okay let's play okay let's play like the big boys no den Carlin there's a reason it doesn't sound like the old media that's because it's the New Media taking you to non-partisan places you've never been to and leaving you there I say it's a combination of the best at public broadcasting has to offer and NFL football beating the ideas into the turf until something breaks common sense with Dan Carlin I think one of the best barometers of what kind of talent Bill had is to notice that most people who could perform and do what we just listened to

19:53 Bill do would have been content to be some of the best voice work actors and voice over guys in the business and yet for bill this was a side gig this was a little addendum to what he really did was hold Court over the greatest radio success in terms of ratings that uh existed the whole time I was hearing bill bill beat my numbers easily by like double and that's how good of a program he and Tim and and Tracy and my wife had um you know during their Heyday and uh and Tracy and Tim as I said are still doing the working going strong but I mean there's a giant bear-sized hole in uh in all of our lives right now and Bill was a great help in our success and like a lot of other people including his 11 children and many grandchildren um everybody's gonna miss him you wanted any repeats on anything just one thing buddy I'd like you to take it from the top and run through it all again would you gonna miss you

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "EP22 The Fabulous Bill Barrett"?

Dan Carlin (Host), Bill Barrett (Guest).

What is "EP22 The Fabulous Bill Barrett" about?

This tribute honors Bill Barrett, a celebrated country music radio personality and voice talent who passed away on August 17, 2022, from cancer. Known for his extensive career in the Pacific Northwest and his significant contributions to country radio, Barrett was a beloved figure and a multiple award winner, demonstrating the impact of local media personalities who prioritize quality of life…

What is mentioned in this Dan Carlin episode?

8 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Bill Barrett, Dan Carlin, Common Sense, Tim Fox, Tracy Berry, Jonathan Winters. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "EP22 The Fabulous Bill Barrett"?

The episode runs 21 min; the transcript is about 3,456 words in 20 timestamped sections.

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