Barry Edward Beckett was a keyboardist

Keyboardist

A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...

 who worked as a session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

 with several notable artists on their studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

s. He was also a record producer

Record producer

A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...

, most notably of albums by Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

, Dire Straits

Dire Straits

Dire Straits were a British rock band active from 1977 to 1995, composed of Mark Knopfler , his younger brother David Knopfler , John Illsley , and Pick Withers .Dire Straits' sound drew from a variety of musical influences, including jazz, folk, blues, and came closest...

, Joe Cocker

Joe Cocker

John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE is an English rock and blues musician, composer and actor, who came to popularity in the 1960s, and is most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of The Beatles...

, Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, John Prine

John Prine

John Prine is an American country/folk singer-songwriter. He has been active as a recording artist and live performer since the early 1970s.-Biography:...

, McGuinn

Roger McGuinn

James Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...

-Hillman

Chris Hillman

Christopher Hillman was one of the original members of The Byrds which in 1965 included Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, David Crosby, and Michael Clarke....

, The Staple Singers

The Staple Singers

The Staple Singers were an American gospel, soul, and R&B singing group. Roebuck "Pops" Staples , the patriarch of the family, formed the group with his children Cleotha , Pervis , Yvonne , and Mavis...

, Phoebe Snow, Etta James

Etta James

Etta James is an American blues, soul, rhythm and blues , rock and roll, gospel and jazz singer. In the 1950s and 1960s, she had her biggest success as a blues and R&B singer...

, Candi Staton

Candi Staton

Candi Staton is an American soul and gospel singer, best known for her 1970 remake of Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" and her 1976 disco hit "Young Hearts Run Free". In 2007, Staton was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame.-Early years:...

, T. Graham Brown

T. Graham Brown

Anthony "T." Graham Brown is an American country music artist. Active since 1986, Brown has recorded a total of thirteen studio albums, and has charted more than twenty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts...

, Lorrie Morgan

Lorrie Morgan

In 1996 Morgan married Jon Randall, a singer/songwriter now credited with writing the 2004 Brad Paisley/Alison Krauss hit "Whiskey Lullaby"; they divorced three years later in 1999....

, Eddy Raven

Eddy Raven

Edward Garvin Futch is an American country music artist known professionally as Eddy Raven. Known for his Cajun-influenced country music, Raven has been a recording artist since 1962...

, Delbert McClinton

Delbert McClinton

Delbert McClinton is an American blues rock and electric blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, harmonica player, and pianist....

, Frankie Miller

Frankie Miller

Frankie Miller is a Scottish rock singer-songwriter, who had his biggest success in the 1970s. Miller was raised at Colvend Street, Glasgow with his parents, Cathy and Frank, and elder sisters Letty and Anne. Miller attended Sacred Heart Primary school. He was an altar boy in Sacred Heart Chapel...

, Jerry Jeff Walker

Jerry Jeff Walker

Jerry Jeff Walker is an American country music singer and songwriter. He is probably most famous for writing the song "Mr. Bojangles.-Biography:...

, Alabama

Alabama (band)

Alabama is a country music and southern rock band from Fort Payne, Alabama, United States. The band was founded in 1969 by Randy Owen and his cousin Teddy Gentry , soon joined by Jeff Cook...

, Hank Williams, Jr.

Hank Williams, Jr.

Randall Hank Williams , better known as Hank Williams, Jr. and Bocephus, is an American country singer-songwriter and musician. His musical style is often considered a blend of Southern rock, blues, and traditional country...

, Neal McCoy

Neal McCoy

Hubert Neal McGaughey, Jr. is an American country music singer of mixed Irish and Filipino descent. Known professionally as Neal McCoy, he has released ten studio albums on various labels, and has released 34 singles to country radio...

, Confederate Railroad

Confederate Railroad

Confederate Railroad is an American country rock band founded in 1987 in Marietta, Georgia by Danny Shirley , Michael Lamb , Mark Dufresne , Chris McDaniel , Warren "Gates" Nichols and Wayne Secrest...

, Phish

Phish

Phish is an American rock band noted for its musical improvisation, extended jams, and exploration of music across genres. Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983 , the band's four members – Trey Anastasio , Mike Gordon , Jon Fishman , and Page McConnell Phish is an American rock band...

, Tammy Graham

Tammy Graham

-Track listing:#"I Stopped Looking" – 3:07#"Tell Me Again" – 3:23#"When the Blues and My Baby Collide" – 3:17#"More About Love" – 3:28...

, Sonia Dada

Sonia Dada

Sonia Dada is a Chicago-based rock/soul/rhythm and blues band, which tours with anywhere from six to eight members. The band formed in 1990, when founding member Daniel Pritzker heard three future members singing in a subway station...

, Ilse DeLange

Ilse DeLange

Ilse Annoeska de Lange is a Dutch country and pop singer, better known as Ilse DeLange .-Biography:...

, Boz Scaggs

Boz Scaggs

William Royce "Boz" Scaggs is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. He gained fame in the 1970s with several Top 20 hit singles in the United States, along with the #2 album, Silk Degrees. Scaggs continues to write, record music and tour.-Early life and career:Scaggs was born in Canton,...

 and others.

Along with David Hood

David Hood

David Hood , is a bassist from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. He also plays the trombone and is a member of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame....

 and Roger Hawkins

Roger Hawkins

Roger G Hawkins , is an American drummer best known for playing as part of the studio backing band known as The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section of Alabama...

, his bandmates in the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section

The Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, also known as The Swampers, are a group of American soul, R&B, and country studio musicians based in the town of Muscle Shoals, Alabama...

, Beckett took to the road in 1973 in the expanded lineup of Traffic

Traffic (band)

Traffic were an English rock band whose members came from the West Midlands. The group formed in April 1967 by Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason...

. Recordings from this tour can be heard on Traffic's live album On The Road

On the Road (Traffic album)

On The Road is a live album by English rock band Traffic, released in 1973. Recorded live in Germany, it features the Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory lineup plus extra keyboardist Barry Beckett....

.

He was involved in the "Muscle Shoals Sound" as a member of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, and in 1969, one of the founders of the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

Muscle Shoals Sound Studio

The Muscle Shoals Sound Studio was formed in Muscle Shoals, Alabama,in 1969 when musicians Barry Beckett , Roger Hawkins , Jimmy Johnson and David Hood left FAME Studios to create their own studio...

. The Sound studio produced such hits as "Torn Between Two Lovers" (Mary MacGregor

Mary MacGregor

Mary MacGregor is an American singer, best known for singing the 1976 song "Torn Between Two Lovers", which topped the Billboard charts for two weeks.-Career:...

) and "Smoke from a Distant Fire" Sanford-Townsend Band

Sanford-Townsend Band

The Sanford-Townsend Band was a successful rock and roll band in the United States. They are considered a one-hit wonder who scored a hit single in 1977 with "Smoke from a Distant Fire".-History:...

). Beckett moved to Nashville in 1982 to become A & R country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 director for Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

and co-produced Williams, Jr.'s records with Jim Ed Norman. Beckett produced records independently after leaving Warner Bros. Records.

Beckett died of natural causes at his home in Hendersonville.