Jimmy Barnes has been a deep-sea fisherman, a Maine guide, a Louisiana oil rigger, a commercial fisherman, a middle school teacher, an employee of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department and a salmon farmer. About two years ago, this 54-year-old Mariaville native gave his life over to music.

His first local hit was a cassette single featuring two Christmas songs, “Lobstah for Santa” and “Downeast Christmas.” Barnes sold 3,000 copies from Damariscotta to Machias. That success in 1998 spurred him to record 10 original songs last year on his first CD, “Fishin’ for a Livin.”

Music has been an important part of Barnes’ life since he got his first guitar as a youngster. It was from the Sears and Roebuck catalog and “fit more like a bass fiddle than a guitar,” recalled Barnes. Like many young men of his generation, Barnes taught himself to play and learned by trial and error with bleeding fingers.

In his days at Ellsworth High School during the 1960s, Barnes played in rock ‘n’ roll bands, then switched to country music when the rock scene grew too commercial and uniform for his taste and talents. Pretty soon, country music went the way of rock, according to Barnes.

“I call it the Wal-Mart theory of music,” he said. “You just put a lot of plastic out there and tell people it’s music. It’s kind of like fast food and if that’s the only choice, you’re going to eat it or, in the case of commercial music, listen to it.

“People in Maine are starved for good local entertainment that doesn’t try to sound like Nashville or L.A. I’m working to keep Maine music in Maine,” he said.

Through his music, Barnes captures the land and sea he knows best and conveys a sense of his place, Down East Maine, the way Jimmy Buffett brings the Florida Keys to life for people who have never traveled south of Boston.

Barnes said he wrote, performed, produced, promotes and fills orders for the CDs and cassettes. He said “Fishin’ for a Livin’ ” has found its way to listeners in 35 states and 10 foreign countries since it was completed last fall.

While Barnes won’t reveal exactly how many CDs and cassettes have been sold, he said most of the first press is gone. The singer-songwriter accomplished that without a Web site. He said word of mouth and grass-roots marketing sold the album.

Seven other musicians, his friends and neighbors, join Barnes on many of the songs. These are the tunes that work best. Barnes’ tinny tenor needs their robust instrumentation and harmonizing vocals to carry it past the ears to the heart.

“The County,” “Bitten by the Shark” and “Fishin’ for a Livin’ ” best capture the hardscrabble ways that can be synonymous with life in northern Maine.

Most of Barnes’ compositions are about survival in a land that is beautiful and hostile. However, two of the songs on the album, “Keeper of the Dream” and “Thinking About You,” are about the hopes and dreams of the people who live in that environment. “Thinking About You” is about Barnes’ longing for warm weather in the dead of winter and his yearly sojourn to Mexico.

“Keeper of the Dream” is about Cindy Blodgett, even though she is not mentioned in the lyrics. Barnes said he intentionally “did not want to make the song too specific. It was the spirit of the game, as well as her spirit, I wanted to capture. People can take that and assign it to their own kids on a soccer team or whatever.”

Barnes said he has at least three or four more albums in him and plans to record one each year. The 2000 release is tentatively titled “Country and Eastern.” It will include the song “Penobscot County Line” that has references to local media icons George Hale, Don Colson and Eddie Driscoll.

“People are starved for local entertainment, but the system’s not set up to deal with it, so you’ve got to bypass [the system],” Barnes insisted. “My album may not be the best mechanically, but it’s the real deal about the real Maine, real feelings and values. It’s all in there. I want people to listen to the songs and find the personal in them.”

To order a copy “Fishin’ for a Livin’,” call Barnes at 537-3892.