“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, an Irish-born but US resident for three decades. He 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 16th – twelve tracks recorded between October 2021 and October 2022, with a core band of Boston musicians. Watch the accompanying video for his latest album single, ‘The Silk Road Caravan’, a gentle, contemplative number by a masterful storyteller.
The Silk Road Caravan was an ancient overland trade route connecting China to the Mediterranean Sea. In this song, Bob Bradshaw and Andy Santospago use ‘The Silk Road Caravan’ as a metaphor for life’s journey – in which the ‘riches’ may not be precious goods but the companions one meets along the way. Bob Bradshaw is on vocals and acoustic guitar. Kris Delmhorst is on vocals. Andy Santospago is on electric guitar, lap steel and vocals. Chad Manning plays fiddle. James Rohr plays keyboards. Jimmy Ryan plays mandocello. Scoop McGuire plays stand-up bass. Mike Connors is on drums and percussion, and Dave Westner plays drums.
On the blue-and-white album cover of ‘The Art of Feeling Blue’ (see above), we see 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 you to a variety of characters, most with aspects of himself in there.
Bradshaw, who’s now entering his 60s, had recorded the bulk of The Art Of Feeling Blue when vicissitude struck in January 2022: Bob’s wife, Connie, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. “I lost my mind when she got sick”, he says. He completed a pre-booked week-long tour of Ireland with his band in May – by far the best week of that year – but mostly put music aside and became Connie’s caregiver. She died in August. Bradshaw began to pick up the pieces.
It’s not easy for him to talk about. “This is the hardest thing that’s ever happened to me”, Bradshaw says. “I somehow went back into the studio two months after Connie died and finished up the four or five songs I started with the band in 2021.”
The Art of Feeling Blue, of course, is dedicated to Connie.
Bradshaw will continue to play gigs; he’ll continue to write songs. “I’m a lifer”, he says. “Trends don’t really matter. I’m not chasing commercial success. I want to go deeper, not wider.”
The album will be released on Digital/CD/Vinyl on 16th June.