Nashville, USA is a long way from Croydon, England. It’s even further from Melbourne, Australia. But it was when Mike Brady arrived in Melbourne from Croydon in 1959 as a young emigrant that he heard American music for the first time. Sure, he’d heard Buddy Holly, Elvis, Little Richard etc. but he hadn’t heard ‘nothin’ yet as they say.
At the time Australian radio was dominated by US musicians and a large proportion of this came from Nashville. Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash, Floyd Cramer, Patsy Cline…
It wasn’t long before Mike learnt to play the songs he liked and country music was a big part. One of his first bands had a steel guitar and a little later he was playing at country and city showgrounds backing singers like Chad Morgan, Kevin Shegog, Kevin Todd and Laura Lea.
Mike was sixteen and it was to be the beginning of a long career in music, there was rock music, pop music, blues music but when he got home he played country music on his guitar to unwind. Somewhere in between now and then, he’s had sixties hits with MPD Ltd, seventies hits like Up There Cazaly and produced albums for Tina Arena, Colleen Hewett and many others through the eighties and nineties.
In late 2006 Mike made the decision to take a trip to Nashville to see what country music was all about and maybe do some recording, it was a kind of sabbatical. He had a swag of songs he’d written over a period of time that he had always wanted to record. He needed a Nashville connection to record there so he called on ex pat Aussie producer Mark Moffatt to recruit some of Nashville’s finest for this CD.
“Nashville musicians continue a skill tradition that is like a living culture handed down and improved on from generation to generation”, says Mike, “It was a daunting task for me but the courtesy and respect shown by these professionals was something unexpected. Tommy Hardin put the songs into a playable form and gave them some Nashville “grunt”, his input was huge”
Mike brought these tracks back to Melbourne where he started on the vocals. It was a big job. Mark Moffatt said if it was to be a Nashville record he had to have a Nashville twang. So with Mike’s brother Doug helping him as producer, he set out to find somewhere between Nashville and Melbourne.
So here it is, Country to Country – one country to another…country music back to country music.
At the time Australian radio was dominated by US musicians and a large proportion of this came from Nashville. Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash, Floyd Cramer, Patsy Cline…
It wasn’t long before Mike learnt to play the songs he liked and country music was a big part. One of his first bands had a steel guitar and a little later he was playing at country and city showgrounds backing singers like Chad Morgan, Kevin Shegog, Kevin Todd and Laura Lea.
Mike was sixteen and it was to be the beginning of a long career in music, there was rock music, pop music, blues music but when he got home he played country music on his guitar to unwind. Somewhere in between now and then, he’s had sixties hits with MPD Ltd, seventies hits like Up There Cazaly and produced albums for Tina Arena, Colleen Hewett and many others through the eighties and nineties.
In late 2006 Mike made the decision to take a trip to Nashville to see what country music was all about and maybe do some recording, it was a kind of sabbatical. He had a swag of songs he’d written over a period of time that he had always wanted to record. He needed a Nashville connection to record there so he called on ex pat Aussie producer Mark Moffatt to recruit some of Nashville’s finest for this CD.
“Nashville musicians continue a skill tradition that is like a living culture handed down and improved on from generation to generation”, says Mike, “It was a daunting task for me but the courtesy and respect shown by these professionals was something unexpected. Tommy Hardin put the songs into a playable form and gave them some Nashville “grunt”, his input was huge”
Mike brought these tracks back to Melbourne where he started on the vocals. It was a big job. Mark Moffatt said if it was to be a Nashville record he had to have a Nashville twang. So with Mike’s brother Doug helping him as producer, he set out to find somewhere between Nashville and Melbourne.
So here it is, Country to Country – one country to another…country music back to country music.