Sept. 7, 1974: Singer-songwriter John Brady
Many musicians come up through the
Sept. 7, 1974
John Brady Communicates With Songs
You’d figure him for a craftsman. With that set of
coveralls pulled over his broad frame, he looks like a carpenter or maybe a
bricklayer, a guy who builds all day and washes it down with a couple beers.
In some ways John Brady’s craft is tougher. It doesn’t
always leave him with a sense of accomplishment that a fresh wall or cabinet
does. And it doesn’t always give him the money for a couple beers.
“I try to write somethin’ every day,” he says. “Last week I
came up with three songs and all of ‘em I’m doin’. But the week before that –
nothin’. I’ve probably got pieces of 600 songs stuck away upstairs.
* * *
“I REALLY
get into lyrics, you know. I want to tell people things with music. I don’t
think I’m breaking any ground as far as how to save the world and be happy, but
all you can write about is your own life and the lives that touch you.
“All communication that’s worthwhile has to come from that.
I try to communicate it honestly – what I’ve felt.”
He sprinkles his Wednesday and Sunday night sets in the
upper rear level of the Central Park Grill, Main and Fairfield, with
unannounced originals like “Used to Be the President Blues” and its chorus
that’s at once personal and national, whimsical and tragic:
“They don’t believe
in me any more.
There
used to be millions,
Now
I’ve got only four.
When
they got me I got those
Used to
be the President blues.”
Most of his songs are less public and more personal.
“Growing Pains” is about growing up a second time with his son, Sean, who’s
almost four.
“
“Next Fish on the Line” centers on an argument – “Don’t say
you didn’t mean it when you did – Don’t say you would’ve stayed when you went
walkin’ out the door.” And the most-applauded of his tunes, “Fonder of You
Blues,” revolves on the adroit turn of an old phrase:
“If absence makes the
heart grow fonder and blue,
Then I
don’t want to grow fonder of you.”
“I can do 25 or 30 of my own songs when I want to,” he
estimates.
“The other night, there were about a dozen. People a lotta
times are more willing to listen to a song that’s someone else’s, so I don’t
tell them what they’re listening to. It’s become kinda like a game to me.”
* * *
HE SINGS
them all in a voice outlined with gentle melancholy on one side and a throaty
growl on the other. Call it a cross between B. W. Stevenson and Kenny Loggins
and you’d come close.
“I usta do a lot of Neil Young,” he says. “To the point
that people told me I was soundin’ like Neil Young. They wanted more, but it’s
not me. I really don’t know who I sound like any more. I think I sound mostly
like me.”
He picks a Neil Young song only occasionally now, though he
does a bunch of material from Young’s mates, Crosby, Stills and Nash.
The rest of his repertoire comes mostly from a tight circle
of artists – Paul Simon, the Lovin’ Spoonful, Joni Mitchell and the
Youngbloods.
The Central Park Grill gig has been going for nearly a
year.
“Bars are usually hard for me to play,” he observes. “One
of the nicest experiences I’ve had in the past year was for ninth graders at
Kenmore West. I was still doin’ all the music I enjoy and they loved it.”
* * *
HE’S ALSO
done the Beef ‘N Ale and local campuses, along with occasional dates line up by
Dave Glian’s Entertainment Promotions and a couple commercial dates on the
Showboat with fellow folksingers Jeff Goldstein and Jennifer Miller.
“Jeff was workin’ with Dave Glian too and one day we sat in
the office and jammed a bit,” he says. “But commercial’s not what I’m into and
I don’t play as well when I’m not comfortable. Our best nights were in Jeff’s
living room.”
It was during the three years that John was a partner with
another singer, Dave Hansen, in the folk duo Brasen, that he decided to pursue
his music full-time rather than become an English teacher on his degree from
* * *
“I KNEW THAT
music was something I enjoyed more than anything else,” he says.
“I started playin’ harmonica first. I used to do porter
work around my father’s bar when I was 11 or 12 and this guy who usta come in
taught me how to play. Not blues, but chromatic. Stuff like ‘Twelfth Street
Rag.’ He usta be with a big harmonica band in
“I started playin’ drums in high school. I was in a couple
groups and started gettin’ into singin’. You can’t take your drums to the park
and start messin’ around, so I got a cheap guitar. And I’ve still got a cheap
guitar. My good one got ripped off.
“My family background isn’t musical at all. Well, my sister
played the piano. That was it. Sean, he can find a C note and play it. He’s
getting into a little chord organ that I used play around with.”
* * * * *
IN THE PHOTO:
John Brady with his guitar.
* * * * *
FOOTNOTE: John first showed up in this series in July
1970 as half of the duo Brasen. At that point, he was anticipating the birth of
his son. Not long after this article appeared, he joined forces with another first-rate
singer-songwriter, Phil Dillon, for an even more high-powered collaboration.
Dillon and Brady, as a duo and as a band that included
Jay Beckenstein and Jeremy Wall, members of the future Spyro Gyra, became a
leading attraction in clubs like the Bona Vista, the Central Park Grill and the
original Tralfamadore Cafe. Before they broke up in 1977, they recorded an
album with those Spyro Gyra guys and ace drummer Gary Mallaber.
Since then, John has been a stalwart in a succession
of bands, the Black Cat Blues Band, Jelly Jar, Rabbit Jaw and the Marley
Higgins Band, to name a few. He’s made albums, won
If his name seems extra-familiar, it’s because he’s
not the only musical John Brady in town. The other one is the drummer with the
Steam Donkeys.
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