‘American Echoes’ is a title twenty-five years in the making. It’s Bob Bradshaw’s seventh studio recording, and marks the time this Irish-born singer and songwriter has spent absorbing the music of his adopted homeland. From Country and Folk to Bluegrass and Blues, the songs on ‘American Echoes’ tell of the dreamers and pickers, the losers, poets and sinners Bradshaw has encountered on his journeys across the American landscape. ‘American Echoes’ builds on the strong critical response to 2013’s ‘Home’ (with its “rich mix of engaging melodies, catchy hooks and inspired lyrics” – Tom Franks, Folkwords) and ‘Whatever You Wanted’ (“a wonderfully paced example of how he has lifted the sights, sounds and moods of America and sparkled them with originality” – Lisa Torem, PennyBlackMusic.) ‘Whatever You Wanted’ was also named as one of the best Americana/Country albums of 2015 by the Telegraph UK. When asked about the new album’s title, Bradshaw says: “American Echoes… well, if an echo can be said to travel in two directions at once, then these songs travel forwards and backwards at the same time – backwards to the Folk and Country music that first inspired me to sing and write songs, and forwards to a more complex, layered sound – the result, probably, of my time at Berklee.” Bradshaw went back to school in his 40’s - to the famed Berklee College of Music, and left with a degree in Professional Music. Before that, he had learned chord shapes out of Mel Bay guitar manuals and picked up what he could from watching other people play. This blend of the ‘high and low’ is evident in the songs – all original - on ‘American Echoes’ – from the Kansas City jazz of ‘My Double And I’, to the Tom Waitsian film-noir of ‘Exotic Dancers Wanted’; from the Paul Simonish Afro-Americana of ‘Workin’ On My Protest Song’ to the Old-Timey ‘Old Soldiers’ with its American Civil-War era tone, accompanied by fiddles and banjo. Bradshaw is joined on ‘American Echoes’ by guitarists Andrew Stern and Andy Santaspago, keyboard maestro James Rohr, virtuoso fiddle-player Chad Manning, bassist Ed Lucie and drummer Mike Connors. Britt Connors and Annie Lynch provide harmony vocals.