Though Spady Brannan may have taken the long way around, one of Nashville’s most in-demand songwriters has finally released his first solo album.
“I’m a little bit late, but right on time,” Spady said, smiling behind silver aviators and smoking a cigar under the lazy circling fans of Nashville’s Frothy Monkey. “It’s easy to get caught up in being a writer-for-hire, especially after you’ve had some success at it, but I decided to try my own music instead of doing someone else’s.”
Originally from Florida, Brannan began his career working the clubs on the east coast. From Jacksonville to Miami, his group “Peace and Quiet” was doing seven 45-minute sets a night for months at a time. He credits much of his musical development to these experiences.
“That’s where you get your chops,” Brannan said. “Let’s face it; after the masters define stuff classically, there are no new notes. But having that kind of opportunity really helps you develop some dexterity. The only thing that makes anybody’s music different from anybody else’s is their own personal take on it.”
After a long stint in and around the Florida region, Brannan decided to turn full circle and hit up Los Angeles. He networked up and down the west coast playing everything from rock to reggae. A few years later, “Peace and Quiet” called up to ask him about playing a gig in Music City, and Nashville has never been the same since.
Now, the humble Brannan holds three decades’ worth of who’s who writing, recording and producing credentials. With hit songs sung by Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Trisha Yearwood and Kenny Rogers, it’s a wonder that the artist made it this far without recording solo.
“Spady always amazes me,” fellow artist Reba McEntire said in a recent press release. “He is a man full of energy, with a positive attitude and a loving heart.”
Pete Sallis, Brannan’s writing companion on the CD, feels that Brannan’s music not only comes from the heart, but reflects everyday realities.
“Spady doesn’t try to be cool and clever, unlike some Nashville songwriting,” Sallis said. “His music is very honest and conversational, like somebody just talking. If he had to write a song like ‘Achy-Breaky Heart’ he wouldn’t do it, even for the money. He’d rather die a poor artist.”
But not only is Brannan still alive, but he’s testing out uncharted waters with the new release entitled “The Long Way Around and Other Short Stories.”
“This particular record is about the ups and downs of one relationship with a particular woman,” Brannan said. “It is a chapter taken out of my life.”
Though the single disc holds 11 love-laden tracks, Brannan said that the album only has two of the original 10 tunes he had planned on playing. It was out of these two originals that the record bloomed into a whole new direction.
“I have been brutally honest with this record lyrically,” Brannon said. “It was more about catching a real moment in time than it was about perfection. It really got me back in touch with writing for art’s sake and not being a writer-for-hire. You’re not going to hear this record next to Britney Spears, but you might hear it lumped in with Tom Petty or Sheryl Crow, which to me is the kind of company I love to keep anyway.”
It is the true artistic spark in Brannan’s writing that gives him the edge against a lot of popular, pre-programmed music currently topping the charts.
“I liken the digital age as a catharsis to the same thing that happened during the Industrial Revolution,” Brannan said. “It’s opened so many doors now for many people to musical careers and actually be artistic about it. But the more corporative it gets, the more dissected it gets. Nashville is the last vestige for organic recordings where incredible players play at record sessions that aren’t programmed and pieced together after the fact.”
And the record is anything but programmed, with incredible performances by Brannan, John Jarvis, Mike Durham and others. The album is a musical escapade through times that everyone can relate to.
“The particulars of all our life experiences are vastly different,” Brannan said. “But what we share in common is emotional contact. When you hear a song that really moves you, after you hear the words, the first thing you start assimilating in your head are the particulars of a similar experience that resonates you to that thing. I had a friend years ago who gave me a journal, and inside he wrote ‘make your life an open book and you got nothing to hide.’ And that’s what I’ve done.”
Spady Brannan’s “Long Way Around and Other Short Stories” will be released on Oct. 3 in record stores and online at iTunes and Rhapsody. The release concert will be held in Nashville on the 3rd. The location is still undecided.
