An effective chronicler of mid-life turmoil, Paul Brady is a master of the tough acoustic guitar song. Throughout the years, from R&B rocker to folk mainstay and back again to a rock format, he has sailed through the clatter and clamour of intense emotions, domestic and political upheaval and what it means to be a thoughtful ordered person in an apparent world of chaos.
U2's Bono once told this writer that Paul Brady is a person he genuinely admires. "He's put into all that folk contingent," Bono said, "but he's got a much darker energy and intensity. He's a verbal speed-metal folkie! It's all to do with spleen, really. He takes the rose-tinted shite off everything. He's the white knuckle behind the ballad."
If anyone captures that experimental time in the 1960s when the lines and attitudes between traditional Irish and rock music were intersecting (and therefore interesting), it is Strabane-born Brady. Now in his early fifties, Brady's formative years were spent dodging Dublin-based university studies, opting instead for that city's reverberating R&B boom, and playing in highly regarded beat groups, The Kult and Rockhouse. His facility at interpreting traditional music followed in the latter half of the 1960s when he joined The Johnstons, Ireland's premier ballad group of the time.
Dividing their directions by recording and releasing albums of both traditional material and contemporary songs (written by the likes of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, as well as Irish songwriters such as Shay Healy and Jon Ledingham), The Johnstons toured extensively. As the early 1970s came around, however, original members Lucy Johnston and Mick Moloney left for pastures new, leaving Brady and Adrienne Johnston as the torchbearers for a new acoustic folk constituency.
Just when things were looking up (success in the US was but a whisper away, having had a minor American hit with Joni Mitchell's Both Sides Now), the usual record company problems kicked in, leaving the band members floating along until all the air was sucked out of them. Then came Planxty.
Based on his experiences of the touring circuit in the US (which was largely populated with hippie notions of peace and love but which was actually undermined by the stark reality of drug taking), Brady eschewed the fantasy world of rock`n'roll for what he perceived as the genuine world of folk music. He joined Planxty, arguably the finest Irish traditional group of the period, in 1974, but the gig wasn't a long-lasting.
Come late 1975, the band split up, leaving Brady and Andy Irvine to travel down a creative path that was rich with simplicity and purpose. Two albums were released in the latter half of the 1970s that met this aesthetic head on - Brady and Irvine's self-titled debut in 1976 and Welcome Here Kind Stranger in 1978. The latter album was traditional folk recorded in a multi-track studio. It was a format more accommodating to rock music and was, perhaps, a sign of a change of direction.
Come the 1980s, Brady shrugged off his folk influences yet again, not for the first time confusing his fan-base. He embraced rock music with as much nerve and commitment as he has embraced everything else. In conversation with me several years ago, Brady noted that his time in traditional music was a "side road" he travelled on and that he regarded rock music not only as his "mainstream" but also as a "whole ingredient in my head and in my spirit".
Following a lengthy period of transition, wherein Brady had a marked degree of cachet but very little cash, his songs began to be covered by the likes of Dave Edmunds, Roger Chapman, Santana and, most notably, Tina Turner and Bonnie Raitt. In short, his bacon was saved by the welcoming sound of royalty cheques being shoved through his letterbox.
The calculated risk he took to completely move out from the top of the traditional music ladder and step on to the lower end of an other one - the rockier one - is typically courageous of Paul Brady. He stayed around the bottom two rungs of that particular ladder for a lot longer than he thought he would, however, but life has been easier since, and he's glad to say that he hasn't heard a version of one of his songs that he couldn't live with.
Much of Paul Brady's song-writing has been expressions of his own personal changes over the past 20 years. His songs, especially his lyrics, are often the end result of a lot of effort in trying to understand why he feels the way he does at any given time, surely the inevitable and natural response of a true artist.
Does he have an ego? Of course he does. Does he take exception to criticism? More often than not. Has he ever compromised his art? Probably. Does he take a drink or three? Not any more, he doesn't. Is he the best adult original singer/songwriter Ireland has yet produced? Indisputably.
Paul Brady's solo artist back catalogue is now available on Rykodisc. Albums re-released, digitally re-mastered and repackaged are Hard Station, True For You, Back To The Centre, Primitive Dance, Trick Or Treat and Spirits Colliding. Each album includes new sleeve notes by John Kelly. No- body Knows The Best of Paul Brady is released in early September. A new studio album will be released next spring
The Brady Bunch: What They Say About PaulBob Dylan: People get famous too fast these days and it destroys them. Some guys got it down - Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed and Paul Brady. Secret heroes . . .
Bonnie Raitt: John Hiatt . . . Paul Brady . . . it amazes me that these guys can write such amazingly wrenching songs. Men who can see inside women's souls like that are very special people. Paul Brady is one of the guys who can look inside my soul.
Phil Collins: Paul Brady is one of the most underrated writers and singers - a song like Helpless Heart is perfect. I wish I'd written it.
Cover Versions
Roger Chapman - Busted Loose
David Crosby - Helpless Heart
Dolores Keane - The Island
Bonnie Raitt - Luck Of the Draw, Steal Your Heart Away, Not The Only One
Carlos Santana - Night Hunting Time
Tina Turner - Paradise Is Here, Steel Claw
Dan Seals - The Game of Love
Paul Young - Follow On
Paradise Is Here
Maura O'Connell - Crazy Dreams
