Paul Brady has won Lifetime Achievement awards from both The Irish Recorded Music Association and the BBC. He was inducted into the British Composers and Songwriters Academy in 2004 and the (Irish) IMRO Songwriters Academy in 2013 and was further honoured by the President of Ireland with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.

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Here's why.

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Born in Belfast in 1948 and raised in Strabane with the sound of swing music, jazz and show tunes of his parents ringing in his young ears, Paul Brady had taught himself how to play piano and guitar by the time he was eleven years old. Sparked into a musical life by his early interest in this great music, Paul was inevitably hooked when he first caught the reverberations of American rock ‘n’ roll, R ‘n B, soul and blues. School holidays were subsequently devoted to learning Chuck Berry licks, along with everything ever recorded by The Ventures and of course, from just across the Irish Sea, The Shadows. All of this done against a backdrop of traditional Irish music and song.

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Armed with the ability to play and sing this rich trove of material to a very high standard, he embarked on his remarkable musical career as a teenager at college in Dublin during the mid ‘60s. The bands he joined included The Inmates, The Kult, Rootzgroup and Rockhouse. They were all playing the kind of music he loved.

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At the same time and place, the world-wide folk boom produced seminal groups like The Clancy Brothers, The Dubliners, Sweeney’s Men and The Johnstons.

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Turning professional, Paul soon joined The Johnstons. He recorded seven albums with them and lived in London and New York with the group between 1969 and 1974. He then returned to Dublin to join premier Irish folk band Planxty.

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Following Planxty’s demise, Paul played with and recorded an album as a duo with fellow member Andy Irvine.

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Paul was now heralded as a superlative interpreter of folk songs. His peerless versions of the likes of Arthur McBride, Mary & The Soldier and The Lakes Of Pontchartrain influenced countless singers, including Bob Dylan who covered all three and wrote: “…people get too famous too fast these days and it destroys them. Some guys got it down- Leonard Cohen, Paul Brady, Lou Reed - secret heroes.”

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In 1978, his first solo album Welcome Here Kind Stranger was immediately recognized as a masterpiece when it was voted Folk Album of the Year in the annual awards of the most influential music publication of that era, The Melody Maker.

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So, his next solo album in 1981 came as a complete shock to most observers when he seemingly left Irish folk music behind in the pursuit of his own sound. But the self-penned Hard Station perfectly reflected the personal changes he was experiencing and swiftly introduced his fans to the music that was a natural development of all his influences. Like his previous solo album, it has become a classic of its genre.

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As a result of the success of Hard Station, his songwriting soon came to international attention and other artists began to cover his works. So far, artists who have successfully put their own stamp on Paul’s original material include such stellar names as Tina Turner, Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Carole King, Art Garfunkel, Cher, Cliff Richard, Phil Collins, Joe Cocker and Eric Clapton, to name but a few.

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The albums which followed were, True For You (1983), Back To The Centre (1985), Primitive Dance (1987), Trick Or Treat (1991) and Spirits Colliding (1995) and they collectively established Paul as one of the most powerful Irish singer-songwriters of his generation.

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Throughout the 80s and 90s Paul travelled widely with his band in USA, UK, Ireland and continental Europe and tours with Eric Clapton and Dire Straits helped him reach a much wider audience.

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In 1999, the best of his recordings to date were collected into the album Nobody Knows, and then in May 2000 Paul released Oh What A World which was his first album of new songs since 1995. It featured his own new material alongside his songwriting collaborations with Carole King, Will Jennings, Ronan Keating, Conner Reeves and Mark Hudson.

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A few years later in 2001, Paul released a live recording of a Paul Brady concert in Dublin from back in 1978 with guests Andy Irvine, Donal Lunny, Liam O’Flynn, Matt Molloy, Paddy Glackin and Noel Hill. The long overdue release of this great concert was due to Paul misplacing the original tapes. When they turned up under a pile of LPs in his attic over twenty years later, the quality of the performances inspired him to release his first CD on his own label and The Missing Liberty Tapes were finally made available for his fans.

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Also in 2001, Paul undertook a record-breaking, celebrated run at Dublin’s premier music venue, Vicar Street. Playing 23 sold-out shows over the month of October, he re-visited much of his by now extensive repertoire and was joined on stage by several of the many artists he has worked and collaborated with over the previous thirty years. A selection of the highlights is available on The Vicar Street Sessions (Volume 1) album featuring guests Van Morrison, Mark Knopfler, Bonnie Raitt, Sinéad O’Connor, Ronan Keating, Gavin Friday, Curtis Stigers, Mary Black, Maura O’Connell, Eleanor McEvoy and Moya Brennan.

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In August 2002 Ireland’s national TV station RTE filmed a six-program series featuring Paul’s music, entitled The Paul Brady Songbook. A selection of the recordings and a DVD of the entire series, The Paul Brady Songbook was also released on Paul’s record label.

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Paul went to Nashville in 2004 to cut tracks for what would be his next record which was the 2005 album Say What You Feel. The result is an organic and fresh sounding record, mostly cut live and in one or two takes at most per song.

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Following the success of his previous collection Nobody Knows, in 2012 a new double album anthology named Dance In The Fire was released showcasing a further selection of his best works up to that point in his career.

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Since then, has Paul Brady continued to push out the boundaries not only of his own talent but of Irish contemporary music from in three more solo albums featuring a combination of new compositions and traditional folk songs mirroring the eclecticism of his long and varied musical journey. They are Hooba Dooba (2010), Unfinished Business (2017) and Maybe So (2022).

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His autobiography Crazy Dreams was published in 2022.

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All of which serves to illustrate why Paul Brady is a beacon of the cultural fabric of Ireland.

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