Dr. Barry Pearson specializes in folklore, African American traditional music, blues, and urban legends. Recognized as a key advocate and documentarian of the blues, he has published four books including Jook Right On: Blues Stories and Story Tellers and Robert Johnson Lost and Found, interviewed hundreds of blues artists, including John Lee Hooker, KoKo Taylor, Dr. Ross, H-Bomb Ferguson, Little Milton and Honey Boy Edwards; written over 195 articles, reviews, programs and recording liner notes. He has been a film, radio and television consultant, a photography exhibit curator and interviewed on subjects ranging from local urban legends to Robert Johnson. In 1993 he was nominated for a Grammy for Best Traditional Album: Roots of Rhythm and Blues: A Tribute to the Robert Johnson Era.

Pearson holds leadership roles including serving as President of The National Council for the Traditional Arts, an organization founded in 1933 and the nation’s oldest producing and presenting organization in America. He is a Contributing Writer for Living Blues: The Magazine of the African American Blues Tradition, the foremost and the oldest blues periodical. He collaborates with organizations including the Smithsonian Institution, The Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Library of Congress. He has produced eleven CDs for Smithsonian Folkways and in 2026 his Classic Blues CD which spans half a century featuring foundational figures in blues history, was selected for their Smithsonian Folkways Vinyl Recordings. 

He also presents and holds workshops at folk festivals around the country and is a performing musician who toured nationally and internationally as part of the Bowling Green Trio with John Cephas and Phil Wiggins for the USIA Arts in America Program throughout Africa, South and Central America, and the Caribbean. He has performed at venues as varied as The Library of Congress, The Chicago Blues Festival and the Folger Shakespeare Library.