Earlier this year Paul Brady reunited with trad legend Andy Irvine to revisit and tour their seminal recording from 1977. For many of the audience at University Concert Hall, it was a long-awaited reunion that more than delivered. Expect it to top the many Best Gigi of the Year lists for 2017.
“It was a tight show,” Paul agrees.
“We weren’t just there for the nostalgia. We were challenging each other all night.
“What I thought was really nice, was how many young people were at the shows.”
Did that nationwide reunion tour reinvigorate Paul and explain the inclusion of two traditional songs on his new album ‘Unfinished Business’?
“The whole period of the sixties and seventies in traditional music was a big part of my life, had a big impact on me and I have always loved traditional songs and music.
“I went in a different direction because there was so much more music I wanted to explore. It reminded me of how much we loved it. It seemed apt to include it on the album.”
The new album Unfinished Business is a real treat. It is a melting pot of musical styles, 1940s’ jazz, funk, country, rock and traditional folk.
Paul recorded the album at his own pace at his own studios playing almost all of the instruments himself. There are nine new songs and two traditional folk songs.
Paul wrote three songs with New York based Irish poet Paul Muldoon, and five with acclaimed Nashville songwriter and producer Sharon Vaughn and ‘Once In A Lifetime’ with Ralph Murphy.
“When I work with other writers, especially lyricists, I’m always surprised at the music that comes out of me. It’s like the process of co-writing frees me from myself and opens up the sluice gates.”
From the lounge lizard croon of the title track, to the funk stomp and cutting lyrics of ‘Say You Don’t Mean’ to the sunbaked Neil Young haze of ‘Harvest Time’ to the Irish lilt of ‘Lord Thomas And Fair Ellender’ this album sees Brady paint from the broadest musical palette.
Paul Brady is a rare beast – an accomplished musician and a very strong songwriter – who has the craft to play all the instruments, self-record, engineer and produce his own album and succeed in avoiding the pitfall of it all sounding the same, indulgent or uneven.
“I have been a big blotting paper of music all my life. Fortunately I have had the ability to be the music equivalent of multi-lingual. That is what I always felt about music, each style has its own validity and beauty.
“Because I played piano and guitar and various different stringed instruments, I have been able to avoid the whole thing of everything sounding the same.”
“When I get a song it has its own life force and this [Unfinished Business] is a song by song record. Each song to me is a whole world.”
Paul Brady’s songs are “always up for grabs”, as he likes to put it.
Many world class artists have covered his material, Tina Turner, Carole King, John Prine, Saint Etienne, Cher, Mary Black to name just a few. And in 2016 Eric Clapton and Ed Sheeran duetted on Paul’s song ‘I Will Be There’.
When asked to name and shame the worst cover of one of his songs. Paul laughs – “Well, I’m not telling you!”
He does share a story of travelling in the US on tour, stopping at a gas station and hearing a dance remix of Cher’s cover of his song ‘Paradise is Here’ over the speakers.
“It was a good mix. It was the weirdest thing I had ever heard.”
“I never know who is going to record my songs and it is lovely. The songs I write, they seem to be reasonably timeless so a song I wrote 20 years ago could turn up on a new record.”
Paul’s gig this Tuesday 21 will be a mix of a few tracks from ‘Unfinished Business’ and a journey back through his extensive back catalogue. He plans to surprise with a few older songs that haven’t featured in recent tours. Perhaps some rarely heard tracks from his 1980s’ albums ‘Back to the Centre’ and ‘Primitive Dance’.
“I have been around so long and have so many songs. There are songs that used to be the highlight of my set 20 years ago and I don’t even do them any more!”
Paul Brady and his Band play UCH this Tuesday November 21. www.uch.ie for tickets.
