A beloved CNY guitarist almost cut off his hand. 4 agonizing years later, he’s back onstage, doing what he loves most

May 26, 2023

Loren Barrigar flexed the fingers of his left hand behind his back, where the audience offstage in front of him couldn't see.

"I’m gonna see what I can do with this," he said, leaning towards the mic and positioning his left hand on the frets for the opening notes of "Guitar Boogie."

Barrigar set into the jangling tune at a clip, fingers flying expertly through complex note progressions.

He's not as good as he was before the accident, he’ll tell you.

In 2019, Barrigar was at the top of his game. He was playing about 150 shows a year, had toured with Australian guitar legend Tommy Emmanuel and settled into an in-demand musical partnership with New Zealand guitarist Mark Mazengarb. By 2015 Barrigar had won six Syracuse Area Music Awards (SAMMYs) and was inducted into the SAMMY Hall of Fame.

But in a freak accident on a normal October day, he nearly chopped his left hand off with a chainsaw.

The machinery had jumped off a tree branch towards Barrigar, catching him on the left wrist and hand. He ran to a nearby convenience store for help, too afraid to move his other hand from the bleeding wound to pick up the phone.

Loren Barrigar's injured hand in 2019.Katrina Tulloch

He needed surgery for his damaged tendons, and 20 stitches along his hand. His pinky finger is mostly useless, he said. His other fingers are still stiff.

Three years later, performing at his high school alma mater in Elbridge as part of an educational concert series, Barrigar has reached a kind of zen about it.

"It is what is," he said, in his Upstate New York-raised, Nashville-tinged drawl.

Barrigar slowly started to get back onstage in 2019, first at the Steeple Coffee House in Fayetteville, then at a benefit concert in Syracuse. He was honored with a tribute concert at the 2022 SAMMYs and might get back on the road with Mazengarb at some point, he said.

On Thursday, he was playing at Jordan-Elbridge High School with his newish stage partner, his 20-year-old son, LJ Barrigar. The concert was funded by a CNY Arts grant, and the point was to share his story, play some music and talk about equipment safety and mental positivity.

Music and equipment safety is an unorthodox pairing, but Barrigar said he's been introduced to a handful of people at his recent shows who have been gashed by chainsaw kickbacks. About 36,000 people are treated in hospital emergency rooms every year for chainsaw injuries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"It's such a violent thing," said Barrigar.

"If I could save one person the agony of what I’ve gone through…" he trailed off.

In the immediate aftermath of his injury, he grappled with a dreadful question: What is a guitar player without his fret hand?

He couldn't wallow in that, he said. He decided in the ambulance to accept what came.

For the most part, that's what he's done, he said.

"I mean, you know, I had few dark nights. But over a thousand nights, a few of them? That's a lot of positivity."

Loren Barrigar performed at Jordan-Elbridge High School in Jordan, N.Y., with his son LJ Barrigar on May 25, 2023. Jules Struck | [email protected]

There was little chance that Barrigar wouldn't return to the guitar.

He started playing when he was just four years old, and was the youngest person to play in the Grand Ole Opry at six years old. His family moved from Upstate New York down to Nashville when he was a kid to give his guitar career and their family band a chance.

He studied with Jimmy Atkins, played with George Morgan and Roy Acuff, and did jingles on the side for Kentucky Fried Chicken and Sears, Roebuck and Co.

But the music business is hard on family, said Barrigar, and his parents decided to settle down in Elbridge just as Barrigar was entering high school, in 1974. He liked "J-E," as the kids called it, and team sports. The stability was probably good for him, he said. But guitar was still very much at the center of his world, and before long he had taken up playing with Syracuse legend Joe Whiting.

Barrigar married his high school sweetheart and had three boys. His son, LJ, learned to play guitar from his dad's CDs, then would consult with him on the tricky parts when Barrigar was home from tour.

Loren Barrigar performed at Jordan-Elbridge High School in Jordan, N.Y., with his son LJ Barrigar on May 25, 2023. Jules Struck | [email protected]

Barrigar's career grew. He went on to perform with Stephen Bennett, Richard Smith, John Knowles and Muriel Anderson. He won his first SAMMY in 1993.

In 2009, he started to play with Mazengarb, and after their debut concert at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society in Nashville the next year, the duo were invited to perform in concerts across the U.S. and France.

"Things were going as good as they had ever been for me, you know?" he said.

And then, the accident. In the emergency room, Barrigar tried flexing his fingers. He wondered when he could get a guitar back in his hands.

"I came home and looked at my hand for several months. But there was a guy there, practicing and playing and working on his craft — it was LJ."

While Barrigar was healing, he and LJ came up with a complicated party trick: LJ played the left hand fingerings, and Barrigar reached his arm around his son's shoulder and played the strings with his good hand.

Barrigar had shows booked already, and instead of cancelling them he brought LJ along as his left-hand man.

On a Thursday last month, four years after his injury, Barrigar was back with both hands on his own guitar, but LJ is still by his side.

People tell Barrigar he's as good as he's ever been. But he said that's not exactly true. LJ "covers a lot of ground" in their duets, said Barrigar, and sometimes he has to do partial fingerings where before he would’ve done a full chord.

But it feels as good as ever to stand on stage, said Barrigar. And he's found a lot of joy in recent collaborations with different artists.

Especially with LJ.

"I think some of our shows in the last year since LJ and I are getting more comfortable have been some of my best shows," said Barrigar.

"As long as I’m giving the best I can give on a guitar, people have a sense — they can feel that."

Jules Struck writes about life and culture in and around Syracuse. Contact her anytime at [email protected] or on Instagram at julesstruck.journo.

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