All Those Roads by Steve Brandick

Charlie played the bass and did some singing. Jessica sang lead on a couple of tracks and backup on a couple others. Francesca DeCaro sang backup along with Jessica on After Sunset. The beautiful flute on Ballad of Patrick and Anna is played by Georgia Conroy.

The songs are in various musical styles ranging from folk to Latin to rock and roll. What they all have in common is the poetry, language that has been finely crafted over a long period of time to tell a story or create a mood. I hope that some of the songs make you want to dance while others send you off to a dreamy world best enjoyed in a quiet moment with eyes closed. This is not soda pop. It is fine, aged wine.

The CD title, All Those Roads, came naturally. When I looked over the list of songs I had compiled, there was a clear theme, the long road from a teenager in Chicago to a husband, father and steady citizen in Newbury Park, California. The journey begins with a snippet of the instrumental Krynica which is reprised at the end. I started this piece in 1977 in Santa Cruz, California and completed it in 2005 in Newbury Park. It is meant to conjure up my roots. Krynica is the town in Russia where my mother was born. This is followed by In The Wind, written in 1969 to the people who couldn’t understand my fascination with travel and my lack of concern for money and the future. The Ballad of Patrick and Anna is a visual poem set to music that tells the story of a young American who falls in love with a beautiful European woman. It is a fictionalized version of one of the great loves of my life. Walk On Me represents the real-life ending of that relationship and was written in 1979 in San Francisco. End of an Era came to me a few years ago when I realized that, although I would still always root for the Bears and the Cubs, I had finally become an Angelino. Things About Coming My Way is a traditional folk blues that I learned when I was in high school. I always loved how the lyrics made light of a bluesy situation. Robert the Sailor is a sea chantey which tells the tale of a soul out to sea. The heart of this song emerged from the San Francisco fog during a very dark period in my life. The music was written in 2005. Foreigner is a Bolero of sorts about living in a strange culture, strange to the traveler, but most natural to the native. It’s a tribute to the perspective that a mind-bending experience can give to the traveler. Girl With The Smile marks one of the most important moments in my journey. The first time I set eyes on my wife’s beautiful smile. This is followed by Little Jessica which was written when my daughter was an infant just learning to walk. It gives me great joy to sing it with her now that she is a young woman. After Sunset takes you to the nighttime streets of a foreign city and let’s you see the world through the eyes of an ex-patriot on an adventure. Boney Mountain is a fingerpicking instrumental dedicated to Bruce Becker, my brother-in-law, who started me playing the guitar on my thirteenth birthday. Boney Mountain is part of the Santa Monica Mountain range and is in view from my yard in Newbury Park. The title track, All Those Roads, culminates my travels. This song basically says that all of the wrong turns a person takes in his travels don’t matter at all if he end’s up with people he loves. And that is how I ended up. I wish the same for you!

Steve Brandick

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