Paul Brady - The Paul Brady Songbook Music From The Rte Series (2003)

Paul Brady

One of Ireland's most successful singer/songwriters who made his career in the early 70's with the landmark Irish folk band, "Planxty", performing this year at the Port Fairy Folk Festival, with some of his memorable songs telling tales of contemporary heros and romantics.
He hails from Northern Ireland, growing up in the 50’s with a good mix of rock n’roll and folk music as early musical influences.

With Planxty traditional music came back into the charts. The band featured an all-star lineup of musicians (Andy Irvine, Liam O'Flynn and Christy Moore) who all went on to have highly successful solo careers. Paul Brady worked with them for some years and during that time was considered to be one of the best singers of traditional song in the country.

Brady and other Planxty band members brought generations of music lovers to Irish music and as solo artists, have continued to work within the tradition as well as developing their own unique musical styles.

Brady’s passionate interpretations of traditional songs brought him into the spotlight but so did his songwriting. His first solo album was released in 1978 and was voted “folk album of the year” by Melody Maker magazine. For Brady this album - “Weclome Here Kind Stranger”, was a huge success. It proved he could write his own material and that audiences were keen to hear his take on contemporary life in Ireland .

He then released “Hard Station” in 1981 - an electric album which confounded the folk purists, but this this album with it’s mix of traditional and R & B, rock and blues, is now regarded as one of the classics of Irish rock.

Brady’s songs have given him huge success - many of them have been picked up by singers like Bonnie Raitt , Tina Turner, Cher, Art Garfunkel, David Crosby and lots more – the list goes on and on. In the late 90’s he had an amazing year when he collaborated with other songwriters and in the space of 2 years, wrote nearly 50 new songs!

He’s constantly touring - singing and playing guitar and piano and has
been back in the limelight in the last three years with the release in 2001 of his CD “The Missing Liberty Tapes” a live recording made in Dublin in 1978 which featured a host of other great Irish musicians including Andy Irvine – who he was working with as a duo at the time.

Later in 2001, Brady performed a record-breaking show at Dublin’s top music venue, Vicar Street where he played 23 sold out shows during October.
Last year saw Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE presenting a
6-part series on Brady and his music, called “The Paul Brady Songbook” which Brady released as a CD and DVD set. Both have been released in the USA and Canada and are also available via his website.

In late 2001 RTE Television approached Paul with the idea of doing a series of six programmes based on his life and music.

With a career stretching back more than thirty years and a catalogue of songs that has touched the hearts and minds of several generations of Irish people at home and abroad, there was a lot of material to work with.

From the 60s, when he played in Soul and Blues bands, through his traditional Irish music period in the 70s, and on into the 80s and 90s as a singer-songwriter, Paul's songs have unconsciously dealt with the complexity of the modern Irish identity, musically, politically, socially, romantically.

Dynamic in performance, solo or with others, and articulate in his reflections on his life and times, the idea was to capture, on film the full Paul Brady experience.

Filmed in Marlay House in Dublin's Rathfarnham over two weeks in August 2002 under the direction of Julian Vignoles, Paul brought together a host of musicians and singers for what turned out to be a fun-filled journey through his songbook, past, present and future.

12 songs from those sessions, all performed live on the day, make up this CD. First shown on Irish television in October/ November 2002, all six programmes featuring more than thirty songs with interview footage are available on video and DVD.

Tracklisting

01 - Oh What A World
02 - The Long Goodbye
03 - I Will Be There (Paul Brady/John O'Lane)
04 - Nobody Knows (Paul Brady)
05 - I Believe in Magic (Paul Brady/Gary Nicholson)
06 - Blue World (Paul Brady)
07 - Crazy Dreams (Paul Brady)
08 - Nothing But the Same Old Story (Paul Brady)
09 - Helpless Heart (Paul Brady)
10 - Follow On (Paul Brady)
11 - The World is What You Make It (Paul Brady)
12 - The Homes of Donegal (Sean McBride arranged by Paul Brady)
13 - The Hawana Way