MARCH
11-Tuesday-Marine Room- MC for Beth Fitchet’s “Songwriters Night.” (8-11) at 216 Ocean Avenue, Laguna Beach, (949) 494-3027. Featured artists will include Jack Prather, Sarah Brady, Ben Wagner & Katlin Evans, Willy & Richard Stekol playing an instrumental set, Steve Gillette & Cindy Mangeson. A good time will be had by all.

APRIL
12-Saturday-Marv’s 80th Birthday Party

MAY
10-Saturday at the CoachHouse-playing bass with HONK, San Juan Capistrano 496-8930

Willy & Dave Cross at Partner's Bistro, Laguna Beach

Willy Brady playing the Sawdust Festival (painting by Doug Miller)

Gig Reviews

"Will Brady may be OC's best-kept secret. He started playing here about 25 years ago and still averages 12 gigs per month just in the southern part of the county. His blues-influenced guitar style backs up a repertoire of pop standards, folk songs, blues and his own often quirky and insightful originals, which offer wry observations of this skewed world we inhabit. Last year's Caveman Brain CD is an impossible-to-dislike collection of Brady's songs; it's equal parts funny, touching and intimately soulful. Based on his Jack Sheldon-like vocals and percussion, bass and guitar playing, most of the songs also feature brass parts that evoke blues and jazz. Brady's low-tuned guitar picking can remind one of Stephan Stills at his best, but perhaps it's Brady's lyrics that jump out of the speakers with the most bite.

This year's Boxwork is an all instrumental guitar disc that showcases Brady's chops to the ultimate. When watching one of Brady's ubiquitous coffeehouse gigs, his sense of humor and obvious love of his trade may sometimes cloud the brilliance of his guitar playing. Boxwork will most likely correct that impression and add greater numbers to his loyal fan base. Catch Brady at any venue, and whether his audience numbers one or 100, he'll applaud his own work and wear a constant beatific smile."
Dennis Roger Reed-O C WEEKLY

"Keeping time with a thonged foot from behind root beer-colored eye covers, Will Brady can push out a soul-chilling blues aura with just a six- string and some slapback delay. Brady manages to give his ghostly linear lines fatness and his seventh chords an almost organ-like dynamic. That and a dash of 'verb on his grainy but velvet trimmed voice makes him sound like he's singing from the bottom of an abandoned silo. It's sweetly eerie to here him change the air with tunes he must have penned while visiting the existential fringe. Brady and his guitar are instantly enveloping, so much so that even a coffee shop becomes a concert venue, where one only speaks when absolutely necessary so as not to break the turgid atmosphere. He's truly a blues bard, taking it to another level, squawking bent notes like a dead man walking, singing "Caveman Brain" or "Blue Valentine" from a lost world where his heart resides."
CJ Bahnsen--L.A. TIMES CALENDAR LIVE!

"Will Brady, the veteran Laguna Beach singer-guitarist whose career stretches back to the 1960's, didn't settle for the usual blues thing in his second-billed, solo acoustic guitar slot (Opening for Charles Brown at the CoachHouse). Brady's material diverged from standard themes. One highlight was a clever novelty number about a particular kind of sugar craving-'I got the Oreo Cream sandwich, chocolate-covered, cream-filled cookie blues,' he sang.

Another promising song was a heartfelt, folk-R&B hybrid in which Brady gently implored God to create bigger hearts in humankind, so as to help mankind out of its mire of heartless behavior. In an attention-getting, set-opening gambit, Brady did a nice job recasting Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire" as a blues song.

Brady's impatience with blues commonplaces extended to his determination to avoid, or at least push beyond, the lexicon of standard guitar licks. Almost every song-except for a winsome encore instrumental-found him flying off in busy, circuitous solos full of jazzy flights and fast, percussive picking.
Mike Boehm-Los Angeles Times

Charles Brown and Willy backstage at the Coachhouse (San Juan Capistrano, California, U.S.A.)