Let’s hear it for the unsung heroes.

Highly skilled session musicians rack up plenty of work, but it’s always in the shadows of anonymity, working under someone else’s name, and it can be quite demanding having to formulate something brilliant in the studio on the spur of the moment when the clock’s ticking, and maybe other people are being brilliant around you, and tensions begin to mount while everyone watches you with bated expectation to play the greatest lick ever — riiiiight . . . NOW!

Sometimes it’s nice to have your own gig, one where you can blow off some steam and you’re not beholden to high-priced talent or producers evaluating your every note. And maybe you can sell a few records and make a few bucks while you’re at it.

Welcome to Barefoot Jerry!

Have you ever heard of them? No! Did they have any hits? No! But under the leadership of founder and frontman Wayne Moss, the group released six (six!) albums of Southern-fried rock in the 1970’s with a rotating cast of Nashville’s finest studio musicians. Moss made his bones as a gunslinging guitarist for hire in the 1960’s — most famously playing the main riff on Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman,” contributing to multiple tracks on Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde, and basically playing on every country star’s Nashville recordings — and he, along with a few other studio pros, decided to form a band for fun and profit around 1971.

The cheekily titled “You Can’t Get Off With Your Shoes On” was Barefoot Jerry’s lone “hit,” reaching #109 on the US chart in 1975 (we’re going to discuss charts soon, but all you need to know for now is that anything above 100 landed on the Bubbling Under chart, meaning it was close to making the Hot 100 but remained a little too tepid). This single shows off the band’s downhome, Southern rock charm but also flirts with 70’s jazz fusion and sports a couple of ripping guitar solos.

Are you wearing shoes? Are you sure you want to?