Salut! Live

Fifty-five years ago, as the Johnstons took to the makeshift stage in a County Durham pub, Paul Brady turned his head to the right just as Joelle, then my girlfriend and later as now my wife, raised aloft a wooden bar.

In possible defiance of health and safety considerations, it was used to keep the door closed while artists were performing (in our defence, it was easily removable).

"Vive la révolution," Brady yelled.  He had met Joelle earlier and knew she was French.

The Johnstons proceeded to deliver the first of two scintillating sets for the packed Bishop Auckland folk club audience.

Our MC, Bill Taylor, would steal away and send a glowing review, quickly but impeccably written, to the Northern Echo, the regional morning newspaper for which we both worked. He noted with approval the traces of rock and roll in Brady's guitar playing.

From that stint in one deservedly acclaimed Irish folk band, Brady went to play in another, Planxty, and form a mighty duo with Andy Irvine before reinventing himself as a compelling solo artist with superior songwriting skills.. 

"Bob Dylan called him one of his "secret heroes" and, though Brady plays this down, paid him the great compliment of plagiarising him.

In Brady’s hands, Arthur McBride is a pure classic. Finding the song in a songbook compiled by a Nova Scotiàn musicien, Carrie Grover, he tidied up the lyrics with what he once termed a little "word architecture". Lo and behold, a phrase he invented - "thin gruel" - popped uo in Dylan's version  without the least credit to the architect. 

The groundbreaking Hard Station album in 1981 was the product of intensive, focused concentration on writing. It introduce Brady’s work to a long list of household names. Among them, Carole King, Tina Turner, Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Art Garfunkel, Cher, Phil Collins, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton and even Cliff Richard have recorded covers.

Richard’s attraction to his music completed a sort of circle; as a teenager, Brady had applied himself to learning how to play the instrumental hits of his band, the Shadows.

And now, after more than 60 years in music, Brady has produced a career-defining retrospective, The Archive. It is not a conventional compilation of previously released sounds but a four-CD collection of demos, rare acoustic versions of his work, collaborations and live recordings. The songs have been heard before but not in these formats.

Already a companion to his autobiography Crazy Dreams - not ghosted; "I wrote every word" - the CD set is complemented by a 12” square book, 70 pages of photos and memorabilia dating from his mid-teens in late 1950s Ulster. At £60, it is not cheap but there’s an awful lot of material for the money.

A single from the collection - Brady’s impressive reworking of the 1960s peace and love hit, Let’s Get Together, is already out.

"I am pretty contented," Brady told Salut! Live. "And I am pleased I am because it would be kind of horrible not to be contented at 77."

Contentment was not always easily obtained. As a Catholic growing up in the Northern Ireland border town of Strabane, in what prided itself as ‘a Protestant state for a Protestant people’, he was made to feel - his phrase - like a "second class citizen".

Brady triumphed over whatever bigotry and prejudice he experienced to become a first class singer-songwriter with an outstanding command of guitar.

Studying languages - French , Irish and Latin - at University College Dublin, he skipped lectures to pursue his passion for music. He completed the Irish part of the course but not French and Latin.

He had developed an impressive rock style but was drawn into folk music and famously sold his electric Fender Mustang to Phil Lynott, whose later band Thin Lizzy is fondly remembered decades after his premature death, to buy a Harmony Sovereign acoustic guitar 

The Archive traces the journey on which Brady then embarked, with all its meandering twists.

Brady feels comfortable with the way his life and career have proceeded. He joins regular traditional sessions at a pub and relaxes by swimming (two of three times a week, sea or pool), fishing or clay pigeon shooting. And he’s enjoyed scuba diving and snorkelling all over the world including the Red Sea last October,

He has no regrets about the paths he has followed, professionally or personally. "I’m a bit of a fatalist and feel we are who we are designed to be," he said.

Brady and his wife, Mary, a social scientist by profession, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary the day after he and I spoke by telephone. They have two grownup children, Colm and Sarah.

He has earned his contentment.

Photo: Stuart Bailie

Part two of this mini-series recalls Paul Brady's time with the Johnstons before he joined Planxty and a formidable duo with Andy Irvine, then becoming a brilliant songwriter. Please see https://www.salutlive.com/2025/03/salut-live-what-was-the-rationale-behind-this-project-is-it-the-paul-brady-story-or-the-paul-brady-story-so-far-pa.html

Part three: when Paul Brady’s university finals coincided with being asked the join The Johnstons, tjeee was only one winner: https://www.salutlive.com/2025/03/the-big-interview-3-paul-bradys.html

• Crazy Dreams was published by Merrion Press. Paul Brady  will promote The Archive in live performances in London and Ireland next month:

Thursday, 3 April, Bush Hall, London

Friday, 4 April, Bush Hall, London

Friday, 11 April, Vicar Street, Dublin

Saturday, 12 April, Vicar Street, Dublin

Sunday, 13 April, Mt Errigal Hotel, Co Donegal

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