Singer/Songwriter Bernie Barlow's name might not strike a chord, but certainly you've heard her voice gracing live performances with the Moody Blues or lending a distinct charm to countless commercial jingles. The U.K.-born Los Angeles transplant has spent more than three decades carving out a career as a versatile and sought-after musician since she arrived on these shores as a teenager. She captures the essence of those years with heartfelt authenticity on 'Walking Around This Town', her debut album for indie label Blue Élan Records.

"Elvis Presley taught me to sing," she laughs, with nods to Motown and Fleetwood Mac. "I grew up pretending to be him in the mirror. I just thought he was super cool."

Under the direction of six-time Grammy-nominated producer Dave Darling (Stray Cats, the Temptations, Glen Campbell, Tom Waits and labelmate Janiva Magness), the new album, recorded in one week with a live band at the studio Dave’s Room in North Hollywood, offers Barlow’s perspective on her adopted hometown and her own resiliency as a performer. It’s her first album since 2020’s self-released Redeemed, which cracked the Americana charts.

A true vocal chameleon equally adept at lead or background vocals, Barlow proves versatile in any number of genres on the new album. She shows off that incredible range on Walking Around This Town, from the rock ‘n’ roll barn-burner “Million Miles an Hour” and the R&B plaint in “Brave” to the guttural Janis Joplin blues of “Stand in My Way,” the acoustic rhythms of “Enough Time,” the Eagles/Linda Ronstadt country twang of “Stay Right There” and even a vulnerable falsetto on “Sorry.”

“The themes are about aging in the business and life, being a woman, all the different things that come about midlife,” she says. “This was a joy to make. It was like therapy with each other.”

Among the contributors to the album were a groups of top studio musicians, among them co-writer Paul Trudeau and noted blues-rock guitarist Philip Sayce, both of whom Bernie knew from working together with Melissa Etheridge, bassist Paul Bushnell (Tim McGraw, Faith Hill), fiddle player Aubrey Richmond, guitarist John Schroeder (Pomplamoose) and Dave Raven (Shelby Lynne).

“I wrote a total of 30 songs for this record, and picked the best ones for the final version,” she notes.

The highly personal songs include one about “falling in love with someone who’s not good for you” (“Brave”), caring for her ailing mother (“Enough Time,” “Stay Right There”), her own experiences of having an empty nest (“Which Way to Go”) as well as a love song to her husband John Nooney, a TV composer and Montana native, and the show Yellowstone (“Montana Man”).

Walking Around This Town is the culmination of Bernie Barlow’s amazing career which began as a singer for songwriter demos under the auspices of Steve Kipner (“Physical,” “Genie in a Bottle”), whom she credits with “showing her how to use a recording studio. Her demo vocals on several Wilson-Phillips hits led her duo Garden of Joy to getting signed at SBK/EMI by legendary A&R executive Don Rubin in 1993, with a debut album produced by Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette). Another solo album, Golden, was released in 2003. Bernie also spent nearly a decade touring with the Moody Blues as a keyboardist and background vocalist, taking time to have a daughter, Harper.

“I don’t think of it as my voice, but as a distinct musical instrument, a sound, how it interacts with the other players,” she says. “I love to harmonize. That’s what I do best.”

Bernie has toured as a background vocalist for Sarah McLachlan as well as collaborating with Melissa Etheridge, Bob Seger, Joe Cocker and Britney Spears, and has contributed vocals to the scores of movies like Eight Crazy Nights and Sweet Home Alabama as well as TV shows Maybe It’s Me, CSI: Miami and Survivor, among many others.

Bernie plans to do some house dates in the Spring with husband John and former Gov’t Mule bassist Jorgen Carlsson before the full album is released next October.

“I’ve had a lot of great opportunities over my career, and this album is just the latest,” she says. “I realize it’s not often a woman singer my age gets a chance to keep doing this.”