Words & Photos: Images by Ellis
★★★★★
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Muireann Bradley’s voice was incredible, but watching her fingers negotiate the guitar strings was an equally compelling part of the evening. At Rough Trade Bristol, the 19-year-old’s combination of singing and fingerpicking made a strong impression, with a repertoire stretching from early blues recordings to her own new songs.
Photo: Images by Ellis
Her breakthrough appearance on ‘Jools Holland’s Annual Hootenanny’ had brought her to a much wider audience, helping propel her from a promising young blues musician into the spotlight. This in-store appearance celebrated ‘Rose Dogs & Blackwood Pew’, her new album bringing together two EPs. It captured an interesting point in the Donegal musician’s development, as the interpretations that had established her reputation increasingly shared space with original material.
‘Candyman’, familiar from her debut I Kept These Old Blues, connected the evening with that earlier chapter. Blind Lemon Jefferson’s ‘Black Horse Blues’, Geeshie Wiley’s ‘Last Kind Words Blues’ and ‘Blind Blake’s Diddie Wa Diddie’ took us further back, drawing on songs recorded in the 1920s.
Her fingerpicking was fantastic to watch. There was plenty to admire in the technique itself, but her voice was just as arresting. Hearing these songs performed by a young musician also offered a welcome invitation to explore the early Blues recordings behind them.
Blake’s ‘That Will Never Happen No More’ added another strand to that repertoire, while Jackson Browne’s ‘These Days’ reached into a later generation of American songwriting. This cover was far better than Nico’s version I was familiar with. Alongside those established songs, the new ‘I’ve Made Up My Mind’ offered a glimpse of Bradley’s own developing work.
She closed with ‘No Name Blues’, bringing the evening back to her own music. That growing balance between interpretation and songwriting will make her next steps particularly interesting. At 19, Bradley already has a remarkable voice and guitar playing that rewards close attention. There is the potential for a fantastic future here, and following how her own material evolves promises to be every bit as interesting as discovering which older songs she chooses to make her own.