Patrick John Brayer was raised on an egg ranch in the steelmill town of Fontana, California. Think Hell’s Angels, think Sammy Hagar, think Shelton Brooks. Developing a unique style of writing early on as an answer to his inability to speak, he went on to receive an education in music from an array of dirt parking lot honky tonks that befriended a Valley Blvd. truck route. To his own surprise his writing has led to the winning of eight Gold, Platinum, and Grammy Award winning projects. To this day he admits that he likes to write prose best because “when doing that, while managing to be unsuccessful, people leave you alone”. Humble but not one prone to self-deprecation he was once heard to say, “Hey, by hook and by crook, I’m better than I’m supposed to be.”
The Coin Cold Heart is Brayer’s first book, and it rings with the authenticity of one that has a rusted out belt to show from the experience of the roads he has been down. His self released recording, Cold Feelings, was released on LP in 1979 just when country was truly going south. South as in overproduced and limp. His first record is deeply personal, stripped of window dressing and the bullshit of the times. It is timeless. I mention this as it seems fitting with his trajectory that he then had the audacity to release a record of stripped down Bluegrass/Country/Songwriter gold when the world was not looking for that. Be damned those that did not or do not give it a listen. This book is a lot like that. A majikal realism trek through the possible birth of Fontana, California as told by one of our most gifted songwriters. Who knew he had a book in him? Well, hell, anyone that knows him knew he had a book in him. He has a whole goddamn trunk of them in my imagination. May this be but the first.