Singing the blues: How Donegal teen Muireann Bradley hit stardom

Last August, Ballybofey musician Muireann Bradley took to the stage at the Ballyshannon Folk and Traditional Music Festival.

Chosen by organisers as the solo artist winner in the showcase competition, the then teenage hopeful played on the main stage. Her audience of ‘a few hundred’ represented the first time she played a live gig in public.

Included in a 20-minute set, played before Dan McCabe, was a version of Candyman.

Reverend Gary Davis, the blind blues musician from South Carolina whose fingerpicking guitar playing would later influence the likes of Stefan Grossman and Bob Dylan.

A little less than five months later, Muireann was back on stage to perform Candyman again.

This time, she had a rather larger audience.

Some 2.7million people tuned in to Jools’ Annual Hootenanny on BBC Two to ring in the new year.

The 17-year-old Muireann received a standing ovation and became an instant star while playing alongside such stars as Rod Stewart, the Sugababes and Ruby Turner.

In the last week, her debut album, I Kept These Old Blues, shot to number one in the iTunes chart.

“It was very sudden,” she says of her appearance on the popular New Year’s Eve show, hosted by Jools Holland. “It was a wild surprise. My record label got in contact with Jools’ producers and the contact came from that.”

An executive producer of the show had bought the album and happened to be listening at the time the contact was made.

“I didn’t really believe that it was going to happen for a while - almost right up until I was playing,” Muireann tells Donegal Live in the heart of the family’s Ballybofey home, a hive of musical memorabilia and memories.

“We watch the Hootenanny every year. We love the show so much. The size of the TV audience didn’t even occur to me until after it was all over.

Muireann Bradley at home in Ballybofey. Photo: Joe Boland (North West Newspix)

“It was just class being beside them all, especially at the end. At the end of Enjoy Yourself, I was standing right beside Rod Stewart and Ruby Turner. They were chatting away to me at the rehearsal and the show.

“I was nervous. When I first saw the set, it was daunting. I was scared. Once I got into the show, the nerves just sort of went away. When I start playing, the nerves go away.”

A video of her performance, posted on the BBC Music channel on YouTube, has almost 400,000 views. Her own YouTube channel has been attracting quite the spike in the last couple of weeks, her subscriber numbers rising to 7,350.

“It’s mad, it’s actually crazy,” she says with an almost-nonchalant shrug of the shoulders.

“My friends thought that the whole Jools Holland thing was unreal. They were really surprised when I told them I would be on.”

Muireann Bradley with her parents, Breda and John, at Jools' Annual Hootenanny.

On Monday morning, Muireann and her mum, Breda, an English teacher, were heading back through Barnesmore Gap to punch in the first day of school in 2024. A fifth year student, the Leaving Certificate exams are on the horizon for 2025 and school will remain the important part of her schedule.

“Oh, school is king,” her father, John, says. “There have been tons of offers, but we don’t want to interfere with school too much. We will keep the gigs spread thin enough between now and the summer.”

On Monday night, she will feature on the Cerys Matthews Blues Show on BBC Radio 2 and on January 27 she will support Buffalo Nichols from Texas at the Celtic Connections Blues Night in Glasgow.

“I’ll start performing more,” Muireann says. “The Jools Holland show was only the sixth time I’ve ever played in public so I’ll start doing more - things like festivals in the summer. I haven’t played much so I’ll get more experience.”

She started recording I Kept These Old Blues with Terry McGinty at the Valley Music Studio. The process took around three years from start to finish. The album acts as a sort of chronological catalogue of her progression and evolution.

A young Muireann Bradley on the guitar.

“I learned the songs as I went along,” she says.

“It’s very different to most modern music as it’s all live in the studio and most were on the first take. There was nothing added or taken away and overdubs.

“It’s not perfect, it’s raw. That’s the way it was in the 20s and 30s when these songs were recorded first.”

The 12-song album features Muireann’s takes on a series of old country blues music from legends of the genre including John Hart, Elizabeth Cotten and Rev Gary Davis, whose Candyman she performed on Jools’ Annual Hootenanny.

With sport shut down indefinitely during the Covid-19 lockdown, Muireann found a love for the guitar strings again. Jiu-jitsu and boxing - both of which she was quite adept at - were parked and Muireann began to play.

She jotted down a list of songs she wanted to learn and posted a clip of her playing the Blind Blake song Police Dog Blues. A comment piqued the interest of John Bradley. Josh Rosenthal from the San Francisco-based record label Tompkins Square was both impressed with and interested in Muireann, who describes herself as a ‘country blues, ragtime, folk blues and roots finger picking guitar player and singer’.

Muireann Bradley at home in Ballybofey. Photos: Joe Boland (North West Newspix)

Tompkins Square have several young, modern players on their books, including Gwenifer Raymond from Wales.

“We were blown away by the interest,” John says. “Muireann was just 14 at the time. We were very slow to say yes. We talked a lot about it and we went back and said we’d agree as long as there was no pressure and they’d give Murieann as long as it would take and he agreed with that.”

Stefan Grossman, the American acoustic blues icon, posted on his own forum The Wood Shed of Muireann: ‘A wonderful player. I can now retire: the torch has been passed’.

“That’s class,” says Muireann. “During lockdown, the sport shut down and I went back to the guitar. I had nothing else to do, really, but I got really into it again. I put up a YouTube video that got a lot of attention and it has gone on from that.

“The album took a lot of time and it’s almost a diary as they pretty much run in order they were recorded.”

Murieann has an evident tough streak. In Brazilian jiu-jitsu, she was an All-Ireland champion. She attended a summer camp with Brian Coyle of Rilion Gracie and was hooked, going on to take victory in the Irish Open and compete in the IBJJF European Championships in 2019.

In the squared circle, Muireann was a natural. She was the runner-up in the 2019 Irish Girl 2 39kgs final and also in the 2022 Junior 1 54kgs final. In 2022, she was honoured by the County Donegal Boxing Board, who awarded her the Johnny McDaid Memorial Cup for Best Female Boxer.

“I just loved fighting,” she smiles. “When I was wee, I always wanted to do the fighting. There was a Japanese Jiu-Jitsu club in the town and dad heard about a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Letterkenny. We went to a summer camp first and I loved it.

“I always wanted to do boxing and I got a pair of boxing gloves for my birthday one year.

“I left boxing. It’s much more serious than the jiu-jitsu with making weight and all that stuff. There is a lot more training involved in it.

“I’ve left jiu-jitsu for a while now, but I probably will go back to that. I really love it and it’s great for fitness too. You can get injured at the fighting too easily though and don’t want to get any injured fingers!”

Muireann was nine when her father - a fanatic of the blues music who has taught guitar - bought her first guitar.

“It was a wee small travel guitar,” she remembers. “In the car, dad had loads of CDs. We listened to them all and we’d be singing along. He played them so much I knew the words.”

Now, blues fans all over the world are turning up the volume to Muireann’s words.