- Music
- 26 Sep 01
PAUL BRADY’s long association with US legend BONNIE RAITT has been one of his most successful, particularly in terms of enhancing his reputation as a world ranking songwriter
She has recorded several of his songs, including the title track to her Grammy-nominated album Luck Of The Draw and ‘Not The Only One’ from the same album. Brady also supplied the title track to her US number one album Longing In Their Hearts which also included his song, ‘Steal Your Heart Away’. They have continued to work together collaborating on several songs on her most recent album Fundamental and appearing live at each other’s shows.
But Raitt’s ties with Brady go right back to her very early days when she was starting out, as she recalls. “I think it must have been around 1971 when I had just released my first album and Paul was still with The Johnsons,” she remembers. “He opened for me at a show in Tufts University in Boston. Unfortunately I didn’t meet him at the time, he was playing folk music and I was much more into the blues back then.
“Then somewhere in the mid-’80s Hutch Hutchinson, my long time bass-player gave me two of Paul’s albums. Hutch is our resident musical historian and as well as knowing just about everything there is to know about music, he’s something of a Celto-phile. He couldn’t believe that I hadn’t heard about this guy Paul Brady, who was being praised by people like Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler.”
For Raitt, hearing Brady’s songs for the first time was, as she describes it something of a revelation.
“It was truly like finding a long lost friend,” she relates. “In fact it was as much of a thrill for me as the first time I heard John Lee Hooker or Little Feat. I’m primarily an interpreter of songs and I couldn’t believe that I’d found a songwriter who spoke to my soul in the way that Paul did. It wasn’t just the songs. The production, the arrangements and his depth as musician also impressed me greatly. He has just about the best sense of melody of anyone I know, and I don’t say these things lightly.
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“I can clearly remember the first time I heard ‘Luck of the Draw’, which he played for me in New York, and being blown away. He’s also extremely funky which is something a lot of people don’t realise. He definitely has a blues/funk thing running in his genes. And a song like ‘The World Is What You Make It’ shows an affinity with Eastern music.
“I think Irish people should be proud to have such an accomplished artists in their midst.
There’s only one Paul Brady.”