Tony Barrell (journalist)

Not to be confused with Tony Barrell (broadcaster).
Not to be confused with Tony Barrow.

Tony Barrell
Tony Barrell in July 2015
Born
Crawley, West Sussex, England
OccupationJournalist
Years active1993–present

Tony Barrell is a British journalist, known for his humour and his exploration of the unusual and the unexplained. He is the author of the 2017 book The Beatles on the Roof.[1][2] Barrell has also written many major features for the Sunday Times, and has contributed to The Times, The Idler, and Cornucopia magazine, among other publications. He has frequently written about celebrities, as well as people with fringe interests and beliefs such as cult members, alien abductees and battle re-enactors. He was born in Crawley in West Sussex.

Barrell has interviewed actors such as Gillian Anderson[3] and Johnny Depp, comedians such as Vic Reeves, Paul Whitehouse, Matt Lucas and David Walliams, artists such as Sir Peter Blake,[4] Marc Quinn, Keith Tyson and Rolf Harris, and musicians and bands such as Jimmy Page,[5] Dido, Joan Baez,[6] Ronnie Wood,[7] Andy Summers,[8] Donovan,[9] Celine Dion, Mike Oldfield,[10] Sandie Shaw,[11] Garbage, Dixie Chicks, the Finn Brothers, The Beautiful South, Alisha's Attic, Phil Manzanera,[12] and Goldfrapp.[13]

Barrell has also written major features on subjects such as the Roswell UFO incident, the twins festival of Twinsburg, Ohio, the re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings, the celebrity lookalike industry, live-action roleplaying, the science of kissing, The Beatles, David Bowie,[14] Monty Python's Flying Circus, Lucian Freud, Charles Saatchi, Harry Houdini, and Screaming Lord Sutch. Barrell has said that he discovered the "underexplored sexual side of Rolf Harris" when he interviewed the entertainer in 2001.

In a Sunday Times Magazine feature in 2002, Barrell said he thought a personal UFO experience in 1976 may have led to his penchant for writing about bizarre subjects and unexplained events. It is possible that the experience, he wrote, "intensified my ability to empathise with people whom many others would dismiss as crackpots. I've been there, bought the T-shirt: I know what it's like to confess to unusual beliefs and to suffer mockery for them”.

For most of 2009, Barrell researched and wrote the Did You Know? page for the Sunday Times Magazine, which included investigations into urban myths, unsung heroes, and fictional characters based on real people. From June 2005 to January 2006, Barrell wrote the Sunday Times Magazine column "Born on the Same Day", which compared and contrasted the lives of famous people with exactly the same birth date – such as Margaret Thatcher and Lenny Bruce, Sylvester Stallone and George W. Bush, Marc Bolan and Rula Lenska, and Michael Jackson and Lenny Henry. Barrell wrote the 2015 book Born To Drum: The Truth About The World's Greatest Drummers,[15][16] and the 2020 book Beatlemania: Four Photographers on the Fab Four, 1963-1965.[17][18] He edited the 2012 book The Miracle: One Musician’s Amazing Struggle For Survival[19] by Shelly Poole, which documents the recovery of Poole's husband, the Texas guitarist Ally McErlaine, from a potentially fatal brain aneurysm. Barrell has also written extensively about photography, and provided the main text for the 2004 book Eyes Wide Open, about the annual Ian Parry photographic award.[20]

  1. ^ The Beatles on the Roof, Omnibus Press, 2017. ISBN 978-1785585784
  2. ^ "The Beatles on the Roof". Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  3. ^ Tony Barrell (18 September 2005). "Agent Scullery". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
  4. ^ Tony Barrell (24 June 2012). "Still top of the pop art". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  5. ^ Tony Barrell (22 August 2010). "Hits and myths". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  6. ^ Tony Barrell (5 March 2006). "Joan Baez". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  7. ^ Tony Barrell (12 June 2004). "If You Go Down To Ron Wood's Today". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
  8. ^ Tony Barrell (18 February 2007). "Time and Place: Andy Summers". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  9. ^ Tony Barrell (3 July 2006). "Donovan and Astrella Celeste". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  10. ^ Tony Barrell (16 June 2002). "Virtuoso Reality". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 3 March 2012.
  11. ^ Tony Barrell (5 June 2005). "Sandie Shaw". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  12. ^ Tony Barrell (18 December 2005). "Phil Manzanera". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  13. ^ Tony Barrell (13 October 2013). "Pictures in Her Lovely Head". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  14. ^ Tony Barrell (27 May 2007). "The true face of pop's greatest chameleon". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  15. ^ Born To Drum: The Truth About The World's Greatest Drummers, from Keith Moon and John Bonham to Sheila E. and Dave Grohl, Dey Street Books (HarperCollins), 2015, ISBN 978-0062307859
  16. ^ Michael Aubrecht. "Book Review: Born to Drum". Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  17. ^ Beatlemania: Four Photographers on the Fab Four, 1963-1965, Iconic Images/ACC Art Books, 2020, ISBN 978-1-78884-086-6
  18. ^ Jack Whatley. "Far Out Meets: Beatles Historian Tony Barrell on the early days of 'Beatlemania'". Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  19. ^ The Miracle: One Musician’s Amazing Struggle For Survival (Kindle Edition), Shelly Poole (Author), Tony Barrell (Editor), Words HQ, 2012. ISBN 978-0-9570896-0-0
  20. ^ Eyes Wide Open: Photography By The Winners Of The Ian Parry Scholarship, The Ian Parry Scholarship, 2004. ISBN 0-9546894-1-0