Arthur P. Barnes

Arthur P. Barnes (March 26, 1930 – February 5, 2024) was an American conductor and professor of music at Stanford University. He directed the Leland Stanford Junior University Marching Band from 1963 to 1997.

Equally as offbeat as the band members he directed, Barnes filled in for a tuba player in the 1972 Tournament of Roses Parade, winning a $50 bet with the UCLA band director that he couldn't march the five and a half miles with a sousaphone. After playing the tuba for the duration of the entire parade without sheet music, he quipped, "Hell, I didn't need music. I wrote it." The $50 check is still on the wall of the "Band Shak".

In 2000, after three years with only a part-time director, the Stanford Band raised $1.5 million for an endowed chair in Barnes' name, The Dr. Arthur P. Barnes Endowment for the Stanford Director of Bands, to fund a full-time band director to replace Barnes.

Barnes died on February 5, 2024, at the age of 93.

Arrangements Barnes turned over three hundred popular rock songs into marching band arrangements; these included: "All Right Now", the school's de facto fight song, a version of "Uncle John's Band" used on the Grateful Dead tribute album Stolen Roses, and the Stanford Band's signature arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner".

When he joined the band as its director, the musical style was in line with that of other bands, typical military marching fare. Barnes decided to change things and give Stanford a sound that would set it apart from other bands. He scrapped the Native American themed fight songs that had gone along with Stanford's mascot, the Indian, and sought a new fight song.

Barnes had a tough time convincing the students that a song from British band Free could represent the university, but to this day, students and alumni still jump during "All Right Now", the school's de facto fight song. While "Come Join The Band" has been the official fight song since long before Stanford had a scatter band, the band plays "All Right Now" before every game, after every touchdown or field goal, after every Stanford win (when they play their "Victory Mix"), and as the last song of any set that they perform.