"There's a paradox in that I'm a very private person, yet somehow I want, or need, to be in front of people, performing", says Bob Bradshaw. Bradshaw - Irish-born but a US resident for three decades now - is explaining the path he's taken as a singer-songwriter-guitarist over the course of hundreds of gigs and songs, and, now, ten albums.
"I seem to be compelled to express myself in song-form", he says. "I've tried other ways to do it. I'm a published short-story writer and a failed novelist. I've tried playwriting and poetry writing, but a three- or four-minute song is just the right kind of challenge for me. I'm hoping that each song is a self-contained little world."
The latest of those ten albums, The Art Of Feeling Blue, is being released on June 16 - twelve tracks recorded between Oct. 2021 and Oct. 2022, with a core band of Boston musicians: guitarists Andrew Stern and Andy Santospago, bass-player John Sheeran and drummer Mike Connors, as well as frequent collaborators Kris Delmhorst on vocals, James Rohr on keyboards and Chad Manning on fiddle, and other special guests.
On the blue-and-white album cover is the portrait of a man, but his features are obscured by an open doorway. At the crossing of this threshold is someone with his back to us toting a guitar case. He's on his way to work, as it were, entering the inner sanctum of the mind. Both of these men are Bradshaw. The illustration, drawings of Bradshaw by artist Bob Maloney, represents the start of Bradshaw's journey. The songwriting process can take many byways and off-ramps, and over the course of the album Bradshaw will introduce us to a variety of characters, most with aspects of himself in there.
"The songs are fairly intense in nature & Bradshaw has the perfect vocal tonality to embody the grist of the tales. 12 songs that touch the rim of such artists as Nick Drake, Warren Zevon & Elvis Costello with smokey noir elements."--John Apice, Americana Highways
