"Bear Claw Bob" Barraclough started performing music when he was a youngster, and the directions this Canadian songwriter, musician and recording artist's career have taken him are as diverse as his repertoire.
"Stylistically my music doesn't fit snugly into any particular category," Bob says. "There are blues, country, folk, rock and roll and R&B influences from the likes of Muddy Waters, Hank Williams, Ian and Sylvia, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and other artists I listened to along the way. When I write songs I have a hard time buckling down to any one genre, but I always do my best to enjoy the creative process."
Bob came from a musical family (his father sang and played piano, and his mother was a classically-trained pianist and organist). When he was a child, Bob took piano lessons and sang in church choirs. As a teenager, he studied clarinet, tuba and music composition, and played in a high school marching band.
During his college days Bob took up acoustic guitar and jumped on the folk music bandwagon, playing and singing at coffee houses and hootenannies. In 1971, Keeping in step with the times, he bought an electric guitar and co-founded Toronto's hard rock Live Bait Band. Through the 1980's bob performed country, soul and classic rock around cottage country north of the city with a number of bands as a singer, bass and guitar player. In 1999 he founded North Bay's Bear Claw Blues Band, and it was in that era that he adopted his stage name.
In the 21st Century, Bob continues to perform with other musicians and as a solo act. He channels his energies into writing, recording and producing records of original compositions along with covers of his favourite artists' work.