Katreese Barnes: Saturday Night Live musical director known for flair and versatility

A behind-the-scenes talent until ‘SNL’ gave her wider exposure, the Emmy winner also found acclaim for work with the likes of Chaka Khan and Roberta Flack

The musician had little formal training, but could turn her hand to any style of music (Getty)

Katreese Barnes was one of the most successful musicians the general public may never have heard of. She was nominated for a Grammy for her work with Roberta Flack and as musical director for US comedy show Saturday Night Live she twice won the Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.

Barnes, who has died of breast cancer aged 56, was born in Fort Carson, Colorado to Esther and Milton Barnes. Esther was a teacher while Milton was an army sergeant who played the keyboard and moonlighted as a band manager.

Barnes taught herself to read music and play piano at the age of 10. By 15, she was winning competitions as a classical pianist – one of her prizes was to play Bach’s concerto in D Minor as a featured soloist with North Carolina’s Wilmington Orchestra – but though she was precociously talented as a classical musician, Barnes preferred playing R&B with the bands her father managed.

Barnes, Seth Meyers (left) and John Mulaney with their Emmys in 2011 (Getty) (Getty Images)

While she was still in high school, Barnes formed a band called Third Generation with her brother Jerry. The band, which later became Juicy, signed to Arista while Barnes was still a teenager. Juicy released their debut single “Don’t Cha Wanna” in 1982, following it with three albums, with some success. “Sugar Free”, a single from their second album, reached number 13 on the Billboard Black Singles Chart and number 45 in the UK singles chart. However, Juicy disbanded in 1987, after which Barnes recorded and toured with an impressive roster of artists, including Mariah Carey, Sting, Carly Simon and Bette Midler. She wrote for Alicia Keys and Diddy and co-produced Roberta Flack’s Grammy-nominated Roberta and Chaka Khan’s Grammy-winning The Woman I Am.

Though she had little formal training, Barnes could turn her hand to any style of music. That flexibility would come to the fore when she joined the team at Saturday Night Live in 2000. She quickly rose from pianist to become the show’s musical director. She told Allegro magazine: “That’s the kind of show where you have to play a polka all the way to a hip-hop song and everything in between. I had always loved playing anything from musicals to top 40. I even loved to play Scott Joplin, and I didn’t know years later that I would be playing the Scott Joplin piano part for Maya Rudolph in an SNL sketch. It shows how a passion can turn into something useful later.”

For Christmas 2006, Barnes co-wrote with Asa Taccone the music for a spoof rap for Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake, in which two crooners sing about finding the right gift for their girlfriends. The song’s title, “Dick in a Box”, said it all. The song first aired on Saturday Night Live, with the offensive language bleeped out, but an undoctored version was released online and soon went viral, with more than 35 million views. The following September, “Dick in a Box” won Barnes her first Creative Arts Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics. Upon hearing of the win, Timberlake performed the song at a live concert in Tacoma. Four years later, Barnes scored her second Emmy with another Timberlake collaboration when she wrote a jazz-inspired accompaniment to a monologue entitled “I’m Not Gonna Sing Tonight”.

After SNL, Barnes was hired as the musical director of Rosie O’Donnell’s The Rosie Show on OWN, Oprah Winfrey’s network. Barnes worked on 94 nightly episodes before the show was cancelled.

As well as embracing all musical styles, Barnes embraced new digital platforms. She created a livestreamed show called Welcome 2 My House, in which she travelled across the country surprising members of the public by having their favourite artists perform in their homes. The show’s motto was, “We’re going to keep the music alive, one living room at a time.” It had more than 300,000 views per episode.

In 2016 Barnes finally stepped into the spotlight herself with Something to Consider, a five-track EP that brought together Barnes’ skill as an arranger and songwriter. Barnes said of the recording: “I hope people will hear a little bit of all the soulful influences I love in R&B, pop, classical and jazz. Why not bring them together?”

Barnes was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000. She is survived by her brother and her mother. A second brother died in 2016.

Katreese Barnes, musician, born 3 January 1963, died 3 August 2019