Bradley Nowell - Hit Me With Music

Brad, One of the great guitar players/singers of the 20th centery. We lost this one way to early. For those of you who have not heard Brad's solo and acoustic stuff I will post some of it here.

Buy some cds if you can.

I own all that I can find and never stop looking for unreleased and rare music from this artist.

Bradley Nowell is probably the only person besides Bob Marley that can perform a Marley Song and make you feel good about it.

He was really touched by music and it shows in his soulful playing smooth voice and guitar playing. Some might even want to hurt me after what Im about to say but I like Brad's acoustic version of "Zimbabwe" better than Bob's and thats only my preference(MP3 Play Count is 50 times). I'm not saying it's better. What is better? Better is subjective to the listener. Could Brad write a song that good? yes, but he didnt write that one.

Brad is the reason I got into Bob Marley. I was listening to alot of Sublime when i discovered that they covered Bob Marley songs and an even better discovery was Brad's acoustic versions of a few Marley songs. That peaked my interest. He must have listened to Marley quite alot because his covers are amazing.

I let my friend Greg (I would say he's the Marley expert) hear Brad from the Firecracker Lounge and he thought "most people in the place were not listening and just talking, only Brad cared and he was singing with a lot of sincerity, he felt the music".

Sublime covered the following Bob Marley songs.

One Cup Of Coffee/Judge Not, Trenchtown Rock, I Shot The Sheriff

Bradley played these songs. Almost as if he was paying respect to the original artist for the love of the music that influenced him.

I think thats why his acoustic covers (studio and live) of Bob Marley Songs were so amazing the passion and the love of music.

Wanting to play music and sing regardless of how it sounds. Sometimes Brad was drunk when he was performing and his playing/singing wasnt always on key but it was passionate.

Im writing about Brad because I feel the muisc that he is performing I have just listened to Zimbabwe & Marley Medley over and over for the last hour. So I will share these heart-felt recordings with anyone who might stumble upon them.

DOWNLOADS:

Bradley Nowell - Firecracker Lounge - Zimbabwe - Marley Medley (Guava Jelly, This Train and Cornerstone) also Sublime Covering I Shot The Sheriff from a live performance on a boat.
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=59f6cf975042c442d2db6fb9a8902bda

Please leave a comment if you download these tracks.

Bob Marley - I Can See Clearly Now

"It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)Sun-Shiny day"

Bob Marley one of the greatest song writers ever right next to John Lennon.

I grew up listening to music my mom listened to AM radio in California, my sister listening to rock such as Van Halen, The Eagles, Ted Nugent and Alice Cooper, and my brother listened to oldies while ironing his clothes with the TV on and the sound off watching soul train. We all know why.

So what am i trying to get at is that I Love Music and remember hearing "I Can See Clearly Now" in the 70's not knowing who sang it, that wasnt important anyways at that age.

As I got older and started to listen to what I wanted to hear vs. what everyone else was listening to, buying albums and converting them to cassette tape so I could hear it on my walkman. Of course im talking about after all the years of carying around a big radio to listen to cassette tapes.

My independent selection of music started out with The Beatles, then progressed into what was know at the time as hard rock, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and a bunch of British Bands.

By the early 80's I was listening to various music that Eric Clapton had recorded such as Cream, Derek and The Dominoes and as a solo artisit. So at some point in time I heard Eric Clapton's verson of I Shot The Sheriff.

I didnt hear the Bob Marley Version until the 90's and when I heard it I thought he covered Eric Clapton.

So what a surprise it was to me when I found out that "I Can See Clearly Now" and "I Shot The Sheriff" was written by Bob Marley songs that i sang along with on the radio.

I was only exposed to what is the official release called "Bob Marley Legend" in 1992 and loved those songs. But I didnt really get into it, I probably didnt listen to it again for many years.
Because I had really got into The Red Hot Chili Peppers at the time. They had just released Blood Sugar Sex Magic which is my favorite album of all time.

Then in 1996 I heard Sublime (self titled) and was blown away by this strange sound of Punk Rock, Reggae and Hip Hop style. I never heard anything like it and played it over and over and over. You get the point. Probably for 12 hours a day.

I had to know more about Sublime and this amazing singer/guitar player Bradley Nowell. I started to buy all the sublime I could find. I met a guy named Carlos Rollon who had been into Sublime for a while he was from Long Beach and had moved to Glendale. By the time I started to listen to Sublime he had moved on to other music since Sublime so was popular, He didnt care for the mainstream music. He gave me some of his original Sublime (rare) cd's Bad Fish E.P. and Sensimillia.

Then one day (around 1998) I went into this record shop on Sunset in Silverlake and found a cd called Bradley Nowell @ The Firecracker Lounge he did some Bob Marley covers. I listened to that for a long time. Amazing acoustic guitar and singing.

I met a couple of guys at work that really love music. Joe (worm) and Greg M. these two guys have an increadible amount of knowdledge about all types of music. We spent a countless amount of hours talking about music over the years.
I found out that Greg was a big Bob Marley fan and he offered me the Marley versions (I borrowed his Marley box set Songs of Freedom) and it was from that point that I was into Bob Marley.

Everyday I listen to Bob Marley and there is an unknown amount of unreleased material out there that I hope to hear a fraction of someday. We search the internet for these rare songs and occasionaly we find something we have never heard before.
Amazing songs that touch my soul and squeeze it.

If you would like to hear some of these rare and unreleased song go to..
http://marleyrarities.wordpress.com/

Look all around, there’s nothin but blue skies,
Look straight ahead, nothin but blue skies