An Astonishing First Glimpse at the Breadth of Irish Musician Muireann Bradley: I Kept These Old Blues

Muireann Bradley is a once-in-a-generation talent. Aged just 17, this prodigious musician is rapidly garnering a devout fanbase – as well as the admiration of veteran artists – thanks to her unique style, which blends traditional guitar playing with personal and mature interpretations of classic blues songs. From playing music alone in her childhood bedroom, she has since become a choice favourite on international TV spots including Jools Holland and The Late Late Show, not to mention signing with Decca Records, itself a mark of industry recognition for her rare and authentic gift.

Raised just outside the small town of Ballybofey in County Donegal, Ireland, Bradley inherited a passion for music from her father, a keen guitar player and blues fan himself. Growing up in a home filled with guitars, she began to learn to play when she was just nine years old, only taking a brief break to win a series of national titles in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and regional titles in amateur boxing reaching two national finals.

By this point, she’d badgered her parents into getting her a guitar of her own for her birthday; she developed her own playing style that lends the instrument a personality – a depth of character all of its own.

Bradley’s debut album, I Kept These Old Blues, is an astonishing first glimpse at the breadth of her talent – both as a guitar virtuoso and a singer. The first pressing has sold out everywhere and is already regarded as a collectible among in-the-know music fans – truly remarkable given Bradley was just 15 years old when she recorded it. Now remixed and mastered, I Kept These Old Blues demonstrates the kind of assuredness and skill to be expected of a musician five times her age, on blues standards such as Blind Blake’s “Police Dog Blues” and Rev Gary Davis’s “Candyman”.

She played the latter during a solo appearance on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny, where she rubbed shoulders with stars including Sir Rod Stewart, Sugababes, Joss Stone and Irish rock band The Mary Wallopers. Lit by a simple spotlight, Bradley stole the show and received a standing ovation for what audience members dubbed an “unforgettable” performance. “I was quite nervous, but everyone was so nice,” she says, singling out British-Jamaican singer and Hootenanny favourite Ruby Turner, whom she grew up watching on her dad’s taped episodes. “We got to hang out in hair and makeup for a while” — she was so nice to me and made me feel really at home."

She views herself first and foremost as a guitarist, having started out covering instrumental blues tunes before she began to sing along: “She has this really uncanny gift from a young age, where she would be able to play very difficult guitar parts and sing along with very little effort at all – something a lot of people struggle with,” her dad, John, explains. But she’s an outstanding storyteller, too, on songs such as “Staggerlee” – inspired by the murder of Billy Lyons by “Stag” Lee Shelton in St Louis, Missouri, at Christmas in 1895. “It’s very dramatic, opening on Christmas night,” Bradley says. “There are lots of different versions of the same tale by all these great blues players, but I like Mississippi John Hurt’s the best – I based my arrangement on that one.”

Clearly a natural at charming a TV audience, as her Hootenanny appearance proved, Bradley also wowed her fellow guests on The Late Late Show, Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated actors Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott, with a performance of her single “When the Levee Breaks”. Written and first recorded by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy in 1929, it narrates the upheaval wrought by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, and was notably covered by Led Zeppelin for their fourth album, known as Led Zeppelin IV.

Bradley is as fascinated by the histories behind the songs as she is by the instrumentation or the lyrics: “My dad would tell me stories when I was younger about all the great blues musicians, the stories about where they came from and the origins of the songs,” she recalls. So where other artists might veer into pastiche, her work maintains an authenticity thanks to her innate understanding and appreciation of her craft, and the centuries of tradition behind it.