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Keith Barnhart
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| Born | Keith Lee Barnhart (1962-10-06) October 6, 1962 (age 61) |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Plex |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1978–present |
Keith Lee Barnhart (born October 6, 1962) is an American composer, keyboardist, and audio engineer also known by the stage name Plex. Although the majority of his credits are as a session musician on nearly 100 major label albums, most of his career earnings come from composing for television, radio, library music, and popular music.
Barnhart was born and raised in Huntington, West Virginia to adoptive parents. His parents put a piano in his bedroom at age 5 and by age 7 he was performing Beethoven by ear. By the time was 8-years-old, Barnhart was performing in local talent contests. In elementary school, he was part-time accompanist and tuned the guitars and auto-harps for the class. The music teacher, Caroline Gillespie (married to big-band conductor Mel Gillespie) fostered Barnhart's abilities and got him an audition, at the age of 10, to study with Marshall University music professor Paul Jennings who made an exception in taking Barnhart on as a student.[citation needed] For five years Barnhart studied theory, improvisation, and electronic music, and was exposed to a wide variety of progressive music.
At the age of 16, Barnhart dropped out of high school to tour with a funk-band called 110 Degrees In The Shade, but returned to graduate with his class. He would immediately go on to be the musical director of a Neil Diamond-Revue in Arlington, Texas and at the age of 17 went to Nashville to tour with an Elvis impersonator.[citation needed] 1n 1980, he was accepted to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, to study piano and electronic music. He performed lead in the last theatrical play performed there (Tom Stoppard’s Dirty Linens) and quickly rose in ranks within the school. Plex attended twelve semesters, expanding his studies in different fields, was offered a department chair upon his graduation and returned years later for guest lectures. Among his many performances in the Berklee Performance Center was most noticeably the first-ever all-electronic concert given in 1983, where his talents were discovered by fellow student Joe Mardin, who brought Barnhart to Manhattan to meet his father, producer and Atlantic RecordsVPArif Mardin, for the purpose of working on a demo for Chaka Khan's upcoming album I Feel For You. The demo tracks were strong enough on their own to be accepted onto the final album mix. In 1985 he traveled to Montréal, Quebec to produce, program, and arrange the debut album for Marie Denise Pelletier, an artist for he also composed. Immediately after this project Barnhart moved to Manhattan where is career quickly took flight. He would remain there for 15 years.
Barnhart was very active in Manhattan during the late 80s and the 90s; within his first month of arriving, he was recording and touring with Melanie, and penning charts for legendary drummer Steve Ferone. His first recording session was in Steely Dan's Riverside studio. He began his internship in Times Square's Unique Recording Studio where he quickly established himself as the house programmer and keyboardist, and part-time engineer, which peaked as assistant engineering for Quincy Jones on a Roberta Flack track. His quick success allowed Barnhart to work as a freelance composer, remixing Janet Jackson's "The Pleasure Principle" an tracks by Kurtis Mantronik, Herb Alpert, Nu Shooz, Joyce Simms, The Caine Gang, Duran Duran, and Sequal.
Arif Mardin often called upon Barnhart for his services recording with Dionne Warwick, Bette Midler, EQ, and Roberta Flack. Roger Talkov, a Hit Factory engineer, introduced him to Keith Richards, Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, Phil Ramone, Elliot Easton, and Kim Turner (Sting's manager) all of which Plex provide various services.
Barnhart also performed many remixes with producer/ DJ Freddie Bastone for such acts as Yello, Vanessa Williams, Jamiroquai, and Savage Garden. Bastone and Barnhart fused their names to become the act Plexstone that got signed to the indie label Cutting Records, as a dance act that got distributed in South America.
Barnhart also produced the single "Chicago Nights" for the Village People.
Barnhart has received 9 RIAA certified Gold and Platinum albums for his role as keyboardists and synthesizer programmer.
Manhattan's live-music scene was very helpful to many musicians during the 80s-90s. If one could successfully network in the venues and events, then work would most likely be proffered. During this time Plex performed live with Chaka Khan, John Entwistle, Mitch Mitchell, Steve Winwood, Richie Sambora, Billy Squier, Phoebe Snow, All-4-One, along with many of NYC A-list musicians. It was at the famed China Club where Plex caught the interest of David Bowie’s musical director and guitarist Carlos Alomar who quickly pulled him in for the Debbie Gibson world tour. The tour got cut short due to poor record sales and the Gulf War which broke out the same night Plex performed in front of 200,000 fans in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. With Gibson, he also had a performance on The Arsenio Hall Show, and ad work. He played keyboards in two MTV videos: Sweet Sensation's "Sincerely Yours" in the Apollo Theater, and Debbie Gibson's "This So-called Miracle" in a Hollywood studio.
In the early 90s, Barnhart diversified his talents to writing. His work with veteran composer Charles Morrow and production house owner Michael Rubin landed him composing work on the AT&T True Voice campaign along with Whitney Houston, Playtex, Nestles, and Post Cereals.
In 1990, Barnhart began composing ads for Macy's National with producer John Wonderling (Bay City Rollers and Allan Toussaint), a working relationship that lasted over 12 years. Barnhart also was a freelance composer and studio musician for many other commercial productions.
In 1992, Barnhart began composing for music libraries, most notably Aircraft that used his works in hundreds of different productions.[citation needed]
In 2000, Barnhart composed the music for three songs by Lebanese singer-songwriter, Lydia Canaan (known as the first "rock star" of the Middle East).[1][2] The same year, he wrote a single in Canada for Marie Denise Pelletier. Earlier that decade, Barnhart was invited to submit cues from his personal library for syndicated TV shows: America's Most Wanted, Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street, Hunter, and The Commish.
In 2010, Barnhart was the primary composer for the VH-1 show You're Cut Off! which has been renewed for 2011.
By 2013, Barnhart's cues were being used for the show Redneck Island.[citation needed]
In 2003, Barnhart composed feature film bonus material for the movie Tooth Fairy. His songwriting highlight was his co-writing of the hit single "Seems Your Much Too Busy" with R&B singer Angie Stone for her band Vertical Hold, which topped the Billboard R&B aired single chart.
As of the year 2024, Barnhart has been a member of ASCAP for over 30 years, and an erstwhile voting member of NARAS (Grammy Awards) for over a decade. His compositions have grossed nearly $3,000,000 in royalties.[citation needed] He resides in Huntington, West Virginia, and owns the recording studio and music production facility The MusicPlex.[3][4][5][6]
Barnhart has one son, Byron (born 1996)[citation needed] from a previous marriage.
