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Legendary Kansas City blues shouter and recording artist Annette "Cotton Candy" Washington knew what she was talking about when she dubbed her bass player John the Barbarian. While the nickname came about mostly as a result of his aggressive style, it was forever carved in stone when he hooked the hanger of a pair of pants around the neck of a hotel sculpture. For his part, John says simply, "If the name's good enough for Mama, it's good enough for everyone else."

This is John's second career in music. The first was back during the golden years of the power trio, when Jack Bruce, Felix Pappalardi and John Entwhistle were plying their trade. John accidentally stumbled into the new style when he tried to mimic the multiple sounds he heard coming from not only the bass, but other percussion instruments on early Motown hits.

In order to achieve the same sound, John developed a very busy style, and because the percussion instruments were more dominant in the mix than the traditional bass sound, he also played substantially louder than most bassists. According to John, "When I started out, nobody had time for me. Then along came the power trios and all of a sudden I got to play with some unbelievable musicians who were also trying to capture that sound."

The Barbarian's career came to a halt when he decided that nobody would want to watch a 30 year-old man hop around on-stage playing rock n' roll and so he quit playing. He admits it was the dumbest decision he ever made.

Fast forward several years and John joined the movement to transform church music from the tired and boring to something that would excite people and lift their spirits. Once again he found that people enjoyed his style. He soon went searching for other opportunities to express himself musically and found Mama Cotton. The band works mostly in the Midwest but has recently begun touring a wider area, playing festivals and concerts around the country. John also performs with FNB, a side project featuring several members of Cotton's Too Many Men.

Since the beginning, John has been in pursuit of the perfect tone. "I tried every top end amp and speaker combination you could think of," he says, "and nothing ever really stuck with me until I started experimenting with Eden amps and cabs. Eden is phenomenal and I use it exclusively. Nothing else gives me the tone and power that my style demands."

John uses the WP100 Navigator, the WT800, and the WT1550 to power various combinations of his D115XLT, D210XLT, D410XLT and D810XLT speaker cabinets. Some things never change. For John, More will always be More.