Bob Bradshaw – The Ghost Light
Bob Bradshaw – The Ghost Light
Format: CD – Digital
Label: Fluke Records
Release: 2021
Release date: April 30, 2021
Bob Bradshaw is a storyteller. And like any good storyteller, he possesses the ability to transform himself right before your very eyes, to not only craft a compelling cast of characters, but to inhabit them with complete and utter conviction.
Take a listen to Bradshaw’s captivating new album, ‘The Ghost Light’ and you’ll find a true chameleon at work. One moment he’s an impulsive daredevil plunging over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel; the next, a sea-weary pirate lured to his death by a choir of sirens. More often than not, though, he’s simply one of us, just an ordinary, everyday soul searching for meaning, hope and redemption wherever he can find it.
“I’ve never been the kind of writer who picks up a pen to process his personal life or purge his emotions,” says Bradshaw. “I write to create, to imagine, and every track on this album is its own little world.”
Recorded over the past year, ‘The Ghost Light’ is the product of time spent in quarantine, but it’s by no means a pandemic record. The songs here are timeless, drawing on the kind of fundamental humanity that binds us all as they grapple with heartbreak and regret, memory and nostalgia, loneliness and liberation.
Bradshaw writes with a vivid eye for detail on the album, offering up a cinematic series of character-driven vignettes that often slip their most profound revelations between the lines, and his performances are subtle and understated to match, fleshed out with lush, evocative arrangements full of colour and nuance.
The result is a record as open as it is empathetic, a sharp, transportive collection that calls to mind everything from John Hiatt and Guy Clark to Bruce Cockburn and Nick Lowe in its potent mix of folk erudition and rock and roll urgency.
“When I write, I never want the scaffolding of the songs to be visible,” Bradshaw explains. “I want to tell stories with room for exploration and interpretation. I want people to bring themselves into the songs as much as possible.”
Tracks:
01. Songs on the Radio
02. Dream
03. Gone
04. Blue
05. Come Back Baby
06. She’s Gone for Good
07. 21st Century Blues
08. Sideways
09. Light of the Moon
10. In the Dark
11. Niagara Barrel Ride Blues
Website: Bob Bradshaw