Steven Durwood Barbour

Steven Durwood Barbour ("Steve") - accomplished musician, loving husband and father, and dedicated brother and friend--died unexpectedly in his sleep at home in Raleigh on July 15. He was 67. The elder son of Mary Anne and Durwood Barbour, he was born in Raleigh on June 12, 1958. He grew up in the Longview Gardens neighborhood, in which he attended the local elementary school, Aycock Junior High, and Enloe High School, where (among many happy memories) he and the school band would entertain the student body with an annual pops concert on the lawn. He studied music at East Carolina University, where he majored in percussion, strings, and composition. He performed in the East Carolina University Symphony in percussion and cello and rocked the drumline for the proud ECU Marching Pirates. The ECU faculty were so impressed by Steve's abilities that he was the only undergraduate included on the search committee for a new composition professor. It was at ECU that he met the love of his life, Phyllis Blackburn. Phyllis and Steve married in 1980 and shared their strong and abiding love for 45 years. Together they composed their own two masterpieces, daughters Ashley and Claire.

From an early age, Steve proved himself to be a versatile and talented musician, with special ability in cello and drums, under the early tutelage of jazz drummer Chuck Cargill and later with Selma Gokcen for cello. He was the drummer in high school for the band Flight, that made a powerful impression at Raleigh's Battle of the Bands; indeed, when the official vote for best band went to another group, the audience rocked the rafters with chants that Steve's band had been robbed of the prize-at least, that's how his very proud brother Reid remembers it. After college, he formed a duo with Danny Hinton. "Barbour and Hinton" played both locally and regionally at nightlife venues and at countless weddings over the decades.

Over the course of his life, he mastered instruments beyond percussion and cello, including but not limited to guitar, keyboards, and violin. The seemingly boundless range of Steve's musical interests was reflected in the vast collection of vinyl records and CDs that he compiled over the years. Along the way, he worked in some of Raleigh's best record and CD stores, employment that allowed him both to help and to impress customers with his encyclopedic knowledge of music history. In some measure, though, his life as a musician found its greatest significance when he started teaching private lessons, fostering the love of music and nurturing the talents of hundreds of students who were devoted to him.

Although he never fully retired, he began taking fewer students after the pandemic, and he found joy in tending his yard in his Longview Gardens home, biking and walking his dogs Millie and Bella in East Raleigh neighborhoods and connecting with family and friends in late night phone calls. His love of the old neighborhood was an essential part of who he was. He cared about it so profoundly that he sometimes risked his own safety-and the sanity of his loved ones-in what politely might be called his one-man neighborhood watch. He was not afraid to assist and defend neighbors but also complete strangers. Fiercely political, he also cared deeply about the state of the wider world around Raleigh-about the well-being of democracy and social justice-and he was a close student of and impassioned commentator on world affairs. As so many knew well, he took friendship and its obligations more seriously than most. Whether he was phoning a bereaved friend or family member or making carefully selected musical compilations for loved ones (the songs itemized in his elegant handwriting), he embodied the belief that you should not live to regret your failure to contact a person in need.

He had so many plans, including a desire to record a lifetime of musical compositions and to travel with Phyllis. But to his very last day, he relished the remarkable accomplishments of his two brilliant daughters, Ashley and Claire, in their respective fields of medicine and business.

He is predeceased by his parents, Marion Durwood Barbour and Mary Anne Baker Barbour. He is survived by his wife of 45 years, Phyllis Blackburn Barbour, daughters, Dr. Ashley Barbour and Claire Barbour (Michael Mancinelli), and brother, Reid Barbour (Sarah Boyd), along with a large and loving extended family. He was particularly fond of his nieces and nephews: Clio, William, Zach (Hannah), Michael, Gabby (Josh), Kate, Christina (Mark), Kristen (Dave), Wes (April), and TJ.

In his lifetime he had treasured pets: Willie, Bartok, Millie, and (surviving) Bella.

Steve's friends and family treasure his huge heart, relentless capacity for kindness, his keen memory, and his joy, especially in the simple pleasures of life in Raleigh, including walks in the famous and beautiful Oakwood Cemetery in which his ashes will be interred. He left us far too soon: the world won't be the same without his compassion, his gusto for life (manifested even on the joyful way in which he went about his last day on earth), and of course his trademark bandanas and music t-shirts.

In lieu of flowers, friends can make a donation to organizations with missions near and dear to Steve's heart; ACLU, SPCA of Wake County, and Community Music School of Raleigh.

A celebration of life is being planned for late summer (please check back for details).

Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Bryan-Lee Funeral Home, Raleigh. Online condolences may be made at www.bryan-leefuneralhome.com