“I DIDN’T get to touch one of my own vinyls for months after it came out,” admits Co Donegal-born teenage blues sensation Muireann Bradley of her debut album, I Kept These Old Blues, released to huge critical acclaim late last year by revered US indie label Tompkins Square.
“It’s been nearly impossible to get since it came out,” explains her dad/manager John of the much-in-demand record, which features 12 vintage blues numbers by the likes of Mississippi John Hurt, Rev Gary Davis, Blind Blake and Elizabeth Cotton, given a new lease of life by Muireann’s powerful, soulful voice and incredible fingerstyle guitar skills.
“When we did the Late Late Show [in January], we had to actually borrow a copy from someone who had managed to buy it.”
Yes, it seems that Muireann’s San Francisco-based label weren’t quite prepared for the runaway success of their teenage Irish star, who was schooled on authentic blues music and guitar style from an early age by her blues music-mad dad.
Having taken up the guitar under John’s tutelage at the age of nine, Muireann’s enthusiasm and talent for combat sports took priority for many years - the Abbey Vocational School pupil is a former All Ireland Brazilian Ju-Jitsu champion and two-time runner up Irish National Boxing champ - before the Covid pandemic became the catalyst for her to dig into singing and playing the blues once again.
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A YouTube video of her performing Blind Blake’s Police Dog Blues became an unexpectedly popular showcase for her incredible talents when it went viral in 2020, leading to the Co Donegal teen - then just 13 - being signed by Tomkins Square boss Josh Rosenthal.
Yeah, I don’t really know what we’re going to do when I go into Leaving Cert year
— Muireann Bradley
Muireann’s debut album I Kept These Old Blues was recorded in a small Ballybofey studio with local producer Terry McGinty in fits and starts over the next three years, documenting her progress at mastering some of her favourite songs from her favourite genre, before being released to huge acclaim in December 2023.
Indeed, a BBC producer was so impressed by the record that Muireann was immediately invited to appear on Jools’ Annual Hootenanny, BBC Two’s prestigious New Year’s Eve music show.
This proved to be her second big break: a mesmerising rendition of Rev Gary Davis’s Candyman helped shoot I Kept These Old Blues up the UK album download charts in early January, and record shops were soon sold-out of the vinyl edition - hence the frantic hunt for a copy to present to Late Late host Paddy Kielty for Muireann’s appearance alongside Irish acting stars Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott a couple of weeks later.
Incredibly, that BBC performance was only the Ballybofey blues sensation’s fifth ever gig, having made her live debut at the Ballyshannon Folk and Traditional Music Festival last August after winning a competition.
However, since school let out, Muireann has been busy playing out all summer, performing for President Michael D Higgins and guests at the Áras an Uachtaráin and tackling club shows all around Ireland and Britain along with a slew of festival dates.
An appearance at All Together Now in Co Waterford earlier this month found the teen sensation playing to her biggest ever audience.
“The crowd were actually, like, really nice,” she enthuses of the 6,000-strong throng which turned up to see her Sunday afternoon set on the Something Kind of Wonderful stage.
“They were really ‘for me’, which surprised me. They were really enthusiastic as well as actually listening, which was great.”
“It was really obvious that a lot of them were there to hear Muireann play - a lot of them were singing along and stuff,” comments John, who admits he was more nervous about this big show than his daughter.
“I’d been worrying about it all year, because it’s just such a jump from the crowds she’s used to playing for, but I needn’t have bothered - she loved it. The big crowd and all the noise, she ate it up.”
While John is on record that “terrible stage fright” curtailed his own musical aspirations as a younger man, it seems that Muireann is not so troubled by the pressure of live performances.
She says: “I do still get a wee bit nervous, but I’m kind of over it now compared to when I first started out. I’m quite used to [playing live] now.”
With music trips to America, Australia and the Caribbean already in the diary - the latter courtesy of an appearance on US blues star Joe Bonamasa’s Keeping The Blues Alive at Sea music cruise - for later this year and into 2025, studying for the Leaving Cert next year will definitely have some stiff competition once school returns in September.
“Yeah, I don’t really know what we’re going to do when I go into Leaving Cert year,” Muireann admits, with a mischievous chuckle.
“There hasn’t been a lot of thought put into it yet, like.”
Luckily, mum Breda just happens to be an English teacher who might be able to help keep the academic side of things on track even as international demand for her daughter’s music continues to grow.
“She wants me to get the Leaving Cert and finish school,” says Muireann, who adds “hopefully she can get me ‘grinds’ from all her teacher friends.”
And, while it might have been tough for fans to get their hands on physical copies of I Kept These Old Blues as her indie label struggled to keep up with demand, it seems Muireann’s next album should be a lot easier to find.
“Tompkins Square just couldn’t handle the distribution at all,” admits John, “it was just too much for them - that’s why we’re signing to a major label in September.
“But there’s no hard feelings, Josh has been great: that’s what he does, he finds people and sort of launches them.”
Onwards and upwards, then: but what about that difficult second album?
“I’m starting to learn some new songs now,” says Muireann, who has added excellent covers of Bob Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice (It’s Alright), I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry by Hank Williams and Memphis Minnie’s Drunken Barrel House Blues and When The Levee Breaks to her live repertoire at recent shows.
“But it’s difficult to find the time to practice, and you have to put in time, because a lot of them tunes are quite hard. You need a good bit of time to perfect them.”
Luckily, at just 17, time is most definitely on her side.
