‘THE ART OF FEELING BLUE’ 

“There’s a paradox in that I’m a very private person, yet somehow I want, or need, to be in front of people, performing”, says Bob Bradshaw. 

Bradshaw – Irish-born but a US resident for three decades now – is explaining the path he’s taken as a singer-songwriter-guitarist over the course of hundreds of gigs and songs, and, now, ten albums. 

“I seem to be compelled to express myself in song-form”, he says. “I’ve tried other ways to do it. I’m a published short-story writer and a failed novelist. I’ve tried playwriting and poetry writing, but a three- or four-minute song is just the right kind of challenge for me. I’m hoping that each song is a self-contained little world.” 

The latest of those ten albums, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘖𝘧 𝘍𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦, is being released on June 16th – twelve tracks recorded between October 2021 and October 2022, with a core band of Boston musicians: guitarists Andrew Stern and Andy Santospago, bass-player John Sheeran and drummer Mike Connors, as well as frequent collaborators Kris Delmhorst on vocals, James Rohr on keyboards and Chad Manning on fiddle, and other special guests. Dave Westner mixed the album. 

On the blue-and-white album cover we the portrait of a man, but his features are obscured by an open doorway. At the crossing of this threshold is someone with his back to us toting a guitar case. He’s on his way to work, as it were, entering the inner sanctum of the mind. Both of these men are Bradshaw. The illustration, drawings of Bradshaw by artist Bob Maloney, represents the start of Bradshaw’s journey. The songwriting process can take many byways and off-ramps, and over the course of the album Bradshaw will introduce you to a variety of characters, most with aspects of himself in there. 

Bradshaw wrote the title track with Andy Santospago. It all spun out of the opening verse: “I’m something of an expert/In the art of feeling blue/I’ve got a gift for finding hurt/Any excuse will do/For feeling blue.” 

“The grandiosity and humor of that opening line tickled me”, Bradshaw says, “and I wanted to see where it would lead.” It led him to peeling back layers of the blues. “Each verse is set up as ‘I’m an expert, I’m a craftsman, I’m a master.’ It describes me, in a way: full of myself, yet self-deprecating.” 

And there’s a sly nod to Warren Zevon in there as well, with Bradshaw bemoaning “poor pitiful me.” So, while Bradshaw may have been feeling sorry for himself in song, he is aware of the humor involved in the painstaking task of delineating how 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 he is at feeling blue. It reminds me of Nick Drake’s “Poor Boy”. 

“It’s supposed to be smart, and funny, but there’s also emotion”, Bradshaw says. “I think in some ways it’s got a little of the best of everything I do.” 

How much of it is him? “It is personal”, he says, “but I put it at a distance from myself. It’s a matter of the angle, what the perspective is. You’re a character but you’re speaking as yourself, dramatizing. That’s the hard thing about songwriting, I know the tricks of the trade, but what I’m trying to do is surprise myself, catch myself unawares – with the music, the lyrics, the arrangement, the production. To surprise myself and my collaborators.” 

“I’m partial to collaboration”, Bradshaw says, “but every collaboration is different. I like to start off with a riff or a title or a scrap or chord sequence and then try to take it somewhere unexpected, keep things fresh. I also write songs on my own but there’s none of those on 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘖𝘧 𝘍𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦.” His co-writers here are Scoop McGuire, Andy Santospago, Andrew Stern, Tim Gearan and John Sheeran. 

Bradshaw’s music brings to mind something Lou Reed told me years ago about being an adult, about writing and playing rock ‘n’ roll for peers: “I can only hope there are enough grown-up people who want to hear something meaningful along with all the other stuff out there.” 

There’s a comfort level in the music, certainly, but also a layer of turmoil or conflict, both inner- and outer-directed. Consider the album’s first track, ‘Waiting’, a co-write with longtime collaborator Scoop McGuire. Bradshaw likens it to Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’, calling it “a list song” where he’s trying to “find as many ways to say the same thing as possible. Still, ‘Waiting’ is mostly about hooks and riffs, nothing too heavy – nothing poetic or philosophical that might take the listener out of the song.” 

‘I Keep It Hid’ is another “list” song and one more than a few middle-aged men can relate to: being emotionally locked up. “It’s a sad song”, Bradshaw says, “but I’m trying to be funny in the amount of ways I’m saying this guy is locked up. I’ve backed myself into a corner and the bridge says, ‘It doesn’t matter what you’ve buried/If you can’t hide your eyes.’ It’s a Freudian thing where you try to tamp down your emotions. But you can’t really do that. It comes up somewhere else.” 

Some songs aim to create a mood, others to tell a short-story in song, such as ‘Rosa’, written with Andrew Stern, which Bradshaw calls 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘵-𝘯𝘰𝘪𝘳. It’s a compact song in four parts about undocumented men crossing the Mexico/US border, the protagonist envisioning a day when he’ll call for his beloved Rosa to join him. It starts with a tolling bell and a spirited flamenco intro. Then it decelerates into somber-land and the opening lines anticipate the trouble to come: ‘The Coyote grins/And pockets the pay/And so it begins/We’re on our way.’ 

“The final section is just chaos, because words are no longer adequate”, Bradshaw says. Electric guitars and horns are squalling, drums are crashing. “These guys didn’t make it. It’s like a universal cry, a scream, this noise, like an audio version of Picasso’s ‘Guernica’.” He laughs. “I hope that it’s not 𝘵𝘰𝘰 dissonant.” Joining Bradshaw and the band on ‘Rosa’ is Jacob Valenzuela, the trumpet player from the band Calexico. 

Despite the title of the album, Bradshaw says, overall, “there’s not an arc or a theme as such”. It’s not all about feeling blue. “The pattern is, when I have half a dozen decent new songs, I’ll ask my bandmates if they have scraps for a few ballads or a few rockers, and we’ll take it from there. There’ll be a deliberate attempt to make those final songs fit in sonically and narratively with the others. When I knew the album was going to be called 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘖𝘧 𝘍𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦, I had a sense what the next four or five songs should be.” 

What genre of music is it? Bradshaw looks at it this way: “When I started writing and recording in the early 90s, we had a fiddle-player in the band so Folk-Rock seemed to be the appropriate label. I was happy to jump on the Alt-Country bandwagon in the mid- to late-90s because we had added a pedal-steel player. Now I say it’s Americana, and the artists I admire the most – Nick Lowe, John Hiatt, Guy Clark – all seem to fit into that genre.” 

Born in Tipperary, Bradshaw began writing in his early 20s in Dublin, as a journalist and short-story writer. He acted a bit, taught himself guitar, busked on the streets. But he was restless and in 1985 he decided to pursue music full-time, snagging a Summer gig playing in an Irish bar in Lagos, Portugal. He had a return ticket but realized he didn’t really want to go back to Ireland. Then came Hamburg and Munich. Sometimes, he lived in a hostel, sometimes outside, mostly in a sleeping bag on the back stairs of the Munich Olympic Center or in a train station. He went back to Lagos and then there was more of what Bradshaw called his “migratory” lifestyle – traveling north to Germany and Sweden in the Summer, and south to Spain and Portugal in the Winter. 

Money accrued? Minimal. Experience? Plenty. You do these things when you’re young. 

Securing a Green Card in 1989, he flew to New York and found a room in the South Bronx. Among other jobs, he worked as a doorman at the Manhattan building in which Liza Minelli and Howard Cosell lived. He moved to San Francisco, started playing in bars, and formed a cover band, Resident Aliens, with musicians Scoop McGuire and Chad Manning. They got some studio time, began writing and recorded an album of originals, a self-titled disc in 1995. Bradshaw released his first solo album 𝘚𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘈𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘙𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 in 1997 and, a few years later, 𝘌𝘯𝘫𝘰𝘺 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯. 

He left San Francisco in 2003 and took his songs with him to the East Coast. And, he brought with him the woman he’d fallen in love with, his wife, Connie. They moved to Boston, in part because of the vibrant music scene, in part because she wanted to be closer to her folks in Philadelphia. 

In 2006, Bradshaw was accepted at Boston’s 𝘉𝘦𝘳𝘬𝘭𝘦𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘨𝘦 𝘖𝘧 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤, an older guy amidst a sea of wide-eyed twenty-somethings. “I wasn’t a very good player or singer”, he says. “I couldn’t read music and I didn’t expect to get in. But I did a good audition and was admitted. I applied myself. I nearly didn’t make it a few times but I kept at it. I got better. I wanted to do this badly enough that I decided to dedicate my working life to it.” 

Seven more albums – mixing Country, Folk, Rock and Blues – followed: 𝘉𝘢𝘨 𝘖𝘧 𝘒𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 (2008), 𝘏𝘰𝘮𝘦 (2013), 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘞𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 (2015), 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘌𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘦𝘴 (2017), 𝘘𝘶𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘖𝘧 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘴𝘵 (2019) a concept album, and 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘓𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 (2021). 

Bradshaw, who’s now entering his 60s, had recorded the bulk of 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘖𝘧 𝘍𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦 when vicissitude stuck in January 2022: Connie was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. “I lost my mind when she got sick”, he says. He completed a pre-booked week-long tour of Ireland with his band in May – by far the best week of that year – but mostly put music aside and became Connie’s caregiver. She died in August. Bradshaw began to pick up the pieces. 

It's not easy for him to talk about. “This is the hardest thing that’s ever happened to me”, Bradshaw says. “I somehow went back into the studio two months after Connie died and finished up the four or five songs I started with the band in 2021.” 

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘵 𝘖𝘧 𝘍𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦, of course, is dedicated to Connie. 

Bradshaw will continue to play gigs; he’ll continue to write songs. “I’m a lifer”, he says. “Trends don’t really matter. I’m not chasing commercial success. I want to go deeper, not wider.” 

-Jim Sullivan, April 2023

                                                               *

THE GHOST LIGHT - 2021

 

Bob Bradshaw is a storyteller. And like any good storyteller, he possesses the ability to transform himself right before your very eyes, to not only craft a compelling cast of characters, but to inhabit them with complete and utter conviction. Take a listen to Bradshaw’s captivating new album, The Ghost Light, and you’ll find a true chameleon at work. One moment he’s an impulsive daredevil plunging over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel; the next, a sea-weary pirate lured to his death by a choir of sirens. More often than not, though, he’s simply one of us, just an ordinary, everyday soul searching for meaning, hope, and redemption wherever he can find it.  

“I’ve never been the kind of writer who picks up a pen to process his personal life or purge his emotions,” says Bradshaw. “I write to create, to imagine, and every track on this album is its own little world.” 

Recorded over the past year, The Ghost Light is the product of time spent in quarantine, but it’s by no means a pandemic record. The songs here are timeless, drawing on the kind of fundamental humanity that binds us all as they grapple with heartbreak and regret, memory and nostalgia, loneliness and liberation. Bradshaw writes with a vivid eye for detail on the album, offering up a cinematic series of character-driven vignettes that often slip their most profound revelations between the lines, and his performances are subtle and understated to match, fleshed out with lush, evocative arrangements full of color and nuance. The result is a record as open as it is empathetic, a sharp, transportive collection that calls to mind everything from John Hiatt and Guy Clark to Bruce Cockburn and Nick Lowe in its potent mix of folk erudition and rock and roll urgency. 

“When I write, I never want the scaffolding of the songs to be visible,” Bradshaw explains. “I want to tell stories with room for exploration and interpretation. I want people to bring themselves into the songs as much as possible.” 

Born and raised in Cork, Ireland, Bradshaw apprenticed as a journalist as a teenager, but after spending much of his twenties writing a mix of news and short stories (including two stories in the prestigious Irish Press New Irish Writing series), his restless spirit eventually got the better of him, and he struck out on his own to see the world with little more than a backpack and guitar to his name. For the next several years, he drifted across Europe, surviving off his earnings from busking on street corners and performing in bars until 1989, when he landed a green card.  

So Bradshaw found himself in New York City, where he picked up a series of odd jobs (house painter, Liza Minnelli’s doorman) to make ends meet. Like many an immigrant before him, he eventually moved west, settling down in San Francisco for a decade during which he met his wife and formed his first true band, Resident Aliens. 

“That group started out as a cover band,” says Bradshaw, “but when we got offered studio time, we realized pretty quickly that we’d better come up with some original material. That’s how I got tricked into becoming a songwriter.” 

Unsurprisingly, given his history with prose, Bradshaw found he had a knack for writing songs. His was a raw talent, though, instinctual and impulsive, and his desire to harness and hone his skills eventually led him back to the East Coast, where he enrolled at the Berklee College of Music, eventually graduating in 2009. It was there in Boston that Bradshaw launched his prolific solo career, earning widespread praise on both sides of the Atlantic over the course of eight critically acclaimed studio albums. No Depression hailed his tunes as “instant classics,” while The Telegraph UK lauded his writing as “wonderfully atmospheric.” The Patriot Ledger declared, “Bradshaw is an exceptional songwriter”, and Maximum Volume Music wrote: “Like all great songwriters, Bradshaw can mold experiences into something illuminating, and give them universal quality.” Bradshaw became a live fixture in New England, as well, performing at clubs in and around Boston most nights of the week until the COVID-19 pandemic brought things to a grinding halt in the spring of 2020.  

“That’s where I got the idea to call this album The Ghost Light,” explains Bradshaw. “In the theater world, the ghost light is a single bulb that’s left burning to appease the spirits of the absent performers whenever the hall goes dark.”  

With every hall in town dark, Bradshaw found himself writing in a more adventurous, ambitious fashion than before. Where 2019’s Queen Of The West was a concept album built around a single, overarching storyline, the songs Bradshaw penned for The Ghost Light were wide-ranging and eclectic, each one its own self-contained universe. When it came time to record, he worked both in person with his core electric band (guitarists Andrew Stern and Andy Santospago, bassist Ed Lucie, and drummer Mike Connors), and remotely with hired guns like drummer/producer Dave Brophy (Patty Larkin, Eli “Paperboy” Reed), bassist/engineer Dave Westner (Tim Gearan, Peter Wolf)  and bassist Zachariah Hickman (Josh Ritter, Ray LaMontagne), and letting the music guide his decisions at every turn. 

Bradshaw penned the songs here with a variety of collaborators, including his old Resident Aliens bandmate Scoop McGuire and Boston stalwarts Andy Santospago and John Sheeran. “Each track had its own character and demanded its own approach”, he says. 

The tango-inflected “Sideways,” for instance, features Argentinean bandoneon player Francisco Martinez Herrera, while the melancholy “Blue” draws rich emotional depth from (another ex-Resident Alien) Chad Manning’s extraordinary fiddle work, and the shuffling “Gone” gets a lift from James Rohr’s soulful B3. Despite the broad array of sounds and influences at play, the album remains cohesive throughout thanks in part to Bradshaw’s trademark mix of humor and heart, as well as his warm, full-bodied voice, which sits front and center whether he’s singing of heartache (like the waltzing “Come Back Baby” or bittersweet “She’s Gone For Good”), uncertainty (like the searing “21st Century Blues” or gritty “In The Dark”), or hope (like the breezy “Songs On The Radio” or the 60’s-countrypolitan-style “Dream”).   

Ultimately, the album plays like a collection of short works of fiction, each song unique in its form and function yet inextricably linked by a common emotional thread. Every track is an invitation, a doorway to another time and place. The world may have gone dark this past year, but with The Ghost Light, Bob Bradshaw is determined to keep the bulb burning. That’s what storytellers do.

From the Reviews:

Queen Of The West (2019) 

𝑵𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑫𝒐𝒘, 𝑨𝒔 𝑯𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝑯𝒆𝒓𝒆: “Cinematic, dynamic, brilliantly conceived…” 𝑫𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒅 𝑾𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒆, 𝑹𝒏𝑹: “Rich in color and detail, an album of contrasts that nestle harmoniously, ‘Queen of The West’ is hugely impressive, rewarding it’s author’s ambition and this listener’s expectations.” 𝑱𝒐𝒆 𝑲𝒏𝒊𝒑𝒆, 𝑨𝒓𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒆: “… a beautiful and heartening story… an undeniably beautiful experience that has to be heard to be believed.” 𝑭𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝑺𝒄𝒉𝒎𝒂𝒍𝒆, 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒕𝒔 𝑪𝒂𝒇𝒆́: “… a must-have, his new album, Bradshaw is now one of my top ten artists.”𝑱𝒐𝒉𝒏 𝑺𝒐𝒃𝒆𝒍, 𝑩𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒄𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒔: “… a through-conceived album of beautifully composed songs, written by Bradshaw and a few collaborators, richly arranged, played with taste and skill, and unusually deep and memorable.” 𝑺𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝑺𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒉, 𝑩𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒏 𝑰𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒉𝑹𝒆𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓: “… gritty, spacious Americana/country-rock… vivid, incisive writing…” 𝑱𝒂𝒚 𝑴𝒊𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒓, 𝑷𝒂𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒕𝑳𝒆𝒅𝒈𝒆𝒓: “… a cinematic collection of songs, almost a Western-Romance-as-done-by Fellini.” 𝑴𝒊𝒅𝒘𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒅: “We haven’t had something like this that works as effectively since Willie Nelson’s ‘Red Headed Stranger’.” 𝑴𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒆𝒍 𝑴𝒂𝒔𝒖𝒄𝒉, 𝑯𝒐𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒅 𝑶𝒏 𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄: “… very tasteful and multi-layered… the leisurely honky-tonk rhythms of ‘Albuquerque’ mutate seamlessly into the highlight of the album: the John Hiatt-like ‘Every Little Thing’.” 𝑯.𝑹.𝑮𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒏𝒆𝒓, 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒏𝒂 𝑯𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔: “… cinematic in concept and delivery.” 𝑫𝒂𝒏𝒊 𝑯𝒆𝒚𝒗𝒂𝒆𝒓𝒕, 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒕𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆: “… a kind of road movie… an audio novel about a fascinating character, brought to life by Bradshaw with great empathy. Beautiful, beautiful!” 𝑨𝒏𝒅𝒚 𝑴𝒄𝑲𝒂𝒚, 𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄 𝑹𝒊𝒐𝒕: “… an album that impresses with its quality and innovation… ‘1-800-SOSAINT’ is clever, original and masterfully delivered.” 𝑩𝒂𝒃𝒚𝑺𝒖𝒆: “… smart guitar-driven melodic pop with a Western flair… but its that deep focused voice that will keep listeners coming back for more.” 𝑹𝒆𝒎𝒐 𝑹𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍𝒅𝒐𝒏𝒆, 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒆𝒕 𝑪𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒓𝒚: “… inspired, ambitious, high effective roots music… ‘Ruby Black’ reminds one of Los Lobos.” 𝑪𝒊𝒔 𝒗𝒂𝒏 𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒚, 𝑾𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒏 𝑰𝒏 𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄: “The imaginative evocations that adorn recent, excellent albums such as ‘Whatever You Wanted’ and ‘American Echoes’ are further explored.” 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒐 𝑺𝒆𝒓𝒅𝒐𝒏𝒔, 𝑲𝒆𝒚𝒔 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔: “The title track impresses as an instant classic.” 𝑻. 𝑩𝒆𝒃𝒆𝒅𝒐𝒓, 𝑫𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑨𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝑨𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆: “… it’s difficult not to fall in love with Bradshaw’s new album.” 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒕𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆: “Brilliant!” 

American Echoes (2017) 

Writing in 𝑵𝒐 𝑫𝒆𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌 𝑮𝒖𝒕𝒄𝒉 𝒋𝒓 said of ‘American Echoes’: “Some of Bradshaw’s songs are immediate classics in my mind. The kind of songs songwriters and musicians listen to. The kind of songs which become part of your DNA.” 𝑩𝒊𝒍𝒍 𝑩𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒍𝒆𝒚 of the 𝑴𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒐𝒏 𝑹𝒆𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕 wrote: “In a year full of albums that sound like they’ll live forever, Bob Bradshaw has made one of the best.” 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒚 𝑬𝒙𝒑𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 (UK) called it “… a frequently spellbinding blend of country and nuanced rock with a winning lushness in the instrumentation and backing vocals, showcasing a highly original talent.” 𝑱𝒐𝒉𝒏 𝑨𝒎𝒆𝒓 in 𝑹𝒆𝒅 𝑮𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒓 called ‘American Echoes’ a “rich melting pot of collated ideas and signals.” And 𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄 𝑹𝒊𝒐𝒕 said the album is “packed with great lyrical and musical ideas and gets better with repeated plays.” 𝑴𝒂𝒙𝒊𝒎𝒖𝒎 𝑽𝒐𝒍𝒖𝒎𝒆 𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄 wrote: “Like all great songwriters, Bradshaw can mold experiences into something illuminating and give them universal quality. There is something of the dark Tom Waits world about Exotic Dancers Wanted.” “With inspiration pulled from country and folk, bluegrass and blues, a soupcon of jazz and barrel-loads of Americana”, 𝑻𝒐𝒎 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔 of 𝑭𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔 writes, “it’s a collection of songs written with a deep understanding of it’s subjects.” And 𝑴𝒊𝒅𝒘𝒆𝒔𝒕𝑹𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒅 writes: “A first rate recording that raises the songwriting bar, all I can say is Bradshaw has the shining and knows how to capture lightning in a bottle.” 

Whatever You Wanted (2015)

𝑳𝒊𝒔𝒂 𝑻𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒎 𝑷𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒚𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄.𝒄𝒐.𝒖𝒌 – “a wonderfully paced example of how Bradshaw has lifted the sights, sounds and moods of his adopted surroundings and sparkled them with originality.” 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒍, 𝑹𝒆𝒅 𝑳𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒕𝒔, Red Line Roots, “Bradshaw has one of those voices that grabs you when you hear it. It eases you into it  and the gent has a knack for telling a tale that grips you and hooks that sink their teeth into you and leave a residual ghosting in the back of your mind long after hearing it. Like a fine furniture builder or luthier, Bradshaw is a craftsman and he carefully builds his songs with extreme care and detail.” 𝑺𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝑺𝒎𝒊𝒕𝒉, 𝑩𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒏 𝑰𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝑹𝒆𝒑𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒓, “Bradshaw shows a willingness to experiment with and expand of his country-rock/acoustic folk-pop style. His lyric are as economical as ever, conveying emotions and situations with understated eloquence here, sly wit there, and everywhere a long, appraising glance.” Kevin Bourke, Rock N Reel magazine, “an album chock-full of what Guy Clark himself would call keepers.” 

HOME (2013)

Bradshaw's songwriting has “more than enough beauty and inventiveness to lift the coldest heart” (𝑫𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒅 𝑲𝒍𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒓, 𝑴𝒊𝒏𝒐𝒓 7𝒕𝒉.𝒄𝒐𝒎) and has “spare, engaging melodies, catchy hooks and inspired lyrics… however he lays down their content – swift or slow, abrupt or extended, exultant or heart-rending (𝑻𝒐𝒎 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒏𝒌𝒔, 𝑭𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒔 𝑼𝑲). The music is “spare yet abundant…. sometimes suddenly, startlingly nimble” (𝑺𝒆𝒂𝒏 𝑾𝒂𝒍𝒔𝒉, 𝑩𝑰𝑹) and singled out its “quiet symphony of ghostly and evanescent airs” (𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒌 𝑻𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒆𝒓, 𝑭𝑨𝑴𝑬). And 𝑻𝒂𝒙𝒊 𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄 has called Bradshaw “a cross between Ray Davies, Randy Newman and Ryan Adams.”