It’s rare that a traditional acoustic blues act bursts on the international scene with such an unimaginable big-bang sensation. Muireann Bradley (pronounced murr-un) is a wonderful 17-year-old blues and folk guitarist and singer from Ballybofey in County Donegal, Ireland. She came to the attention of the acoustic blues aficionados worldwide when her homemade YouTube films were shared across blues forums. That’s how fame happens nowadays. She was only 13 years old or so at the time. Numerous interested parties, including this writer, tried in vain to contact her and her father for interviews. Anticipation was building to a frenzy over years as more and more YouTube videos were released by the enigmatic child-protegee. The blues roots fans were flipping over backwards in excitement. Yet, most could not find a way to contact her.
Ireland may seem like an unlikely place for a young teenager to delve into the true, old blues, but many American touring musicians know that Ireland, and all of Europe, is fertile ground for roots & blues. Often, acoustic musicians report that gigging in Europe is better than at home as the audiences are seriously enthusiastic fans. Bradley follows the footsteps of the great Irish bluesman Rory Gallagher, also from the County Donegal, who was a major gateway artist that led throngs of European kids on a path of discovery to seek out the true original Black country blues artists. Surely, if he heard this young woman sing and play, Gallagher would be dancing on the table for joy about this native daughter. Bradley’s baby-boomer father, John, a swift country blues player on his own right, taught Muireann from a young age on. She reports that the old acoustic blues was a staple in her home and that she wanted to emulate her dad. Mission accomplished! This kid can play!
On her new, eagerly awaited debut album I Kept These Old Blues, she performs covers of old blues classics with highly refined alternating bass fingerpicking technique, as good as the best old-timers in the genre. Here is a young teen, legally still a child, slipping right into the space of Stefan Grossman, John Fahey and Ari Eisinger. Bradley sings in a tender, girlish voice, angelic and sweet. The combination of her inherent youth, compelling voice, guitar virtuosity and resurrection of these well-worn songs make for delightful and endearing listening.
She masterfully rips up difficult songs like Blind Blake’s Police Dog Blues with astounding ease. Her versions of Elizabeth Cotten’s Shake Sugaree and Freight Train suit her voice the best and are simply breathtakingly beautiful. She shines like a guitar super nova on the instrumental classics Vestapol (Stefan Grossman version) and Buckdancer’s Choice (John Fahey version). Her sublime fingerpicking skills let her bestow total respect to John Hurt’s Frankie (Ari Eisinger version) and Stagolee. She also took on Stefan Grossman’s arrangement of Delia.
Even the most seasoned acoustic blues fans will be stunned by this prodigal newcomer. We may have heard these songs often, and done differently, but truly never better. You got to love her! To borrow from Hank Williams, “She will melt a cold, cold heart.” Yet, we should not forget that no matter how good she is right now, she is a very young woman who mastered fingerpicking guitar and is awesome in her skill, but she is far from an old soul. Giver her time. To really make a cover song work, you must not only fully understand the meaning of the songs as intended by the songwriter. To do it right, you also need to feel the song in your soul and express it well. There are moments here where it seems as if she understands how to master the instrumentation, but does she really understand the deep meaning of the songs, which come from the cataclysmic suffering of African Americans? While wonderful and delightful, Bradley is after all just a kid. She projects pure innocence and sings some not-so-innocent songs from a not-too-innocent era, which is somewhat of a misfit. Does she really get the true content of the audacious sexual double entendre of Candyman (the Rev. Gary Davis versed was “cleaned up”, but is actually far from sanitized) or John Hurt’s Richland Woman Blues? John Hurt could sing about harsh murder and bawdry topics and make them sound like a sweet lullaby, and Bradley does as well. She has it all going.
Give her time to mature personally and as a musician. She just got started and all indicators are that great things could be coming from her for years to come. Does hyperbole like Stefan Grossman’s quote “A wonderful player, I can now retire, the torch has been passed” really help this young woman at this early stage of her career? Maybe, because any time you get the endorsement of a bigwig, it helps. Yet, overhyping her too soon has its perils. Much will depend on how her career is managed.
She is a swift instrumentalist and a fine singer, a nice fresh wind over the acoustic blues. All the rest will come in due time. We wish her the best.
by Frank Matheis, April 9, 2024