Patrick Brayer birthed a haunted concoction of stripped down lowest of high country music in the 1970’s in the Inland Empire. Maybe not quite country, nor confessional west coast, but a unique thing that he does with his jazz vocal phrasing, odd shifts in time in his playing and unique high bar lyrics. His first LP was issued in 1979 and included his signature tune “Cold Feelings” (also the name of the record). Twenty years later his second record was issued by Ben Harper on Ben’s short lived record label. A slight large hand past twenty years from that CD, the world will be graced with the third commercially available record by Brayer.
Brayer is well known in songwriting circles, his work has been covered by those with deep ears like John Doe, Alison Krauss, Alan Jackson and Robert Plant among others. Check out Plant doing his version of Brayer’s track The Boy Who Wouldn’t Hoe Corn
Patrick has been one of my favorite lyricists, players & singers for years and it is a dream project to be issuing what I think is his finest record yet on January 21 of next year. More on all of that soon. In the interim, as in the poetic missives that arrive from Patrick with a recently developed older photo, here is an incredible shot of Patrick with Bill Monroe taken in 1973.