Muireann Bradley

Though she is still an Irish teenager, Muireann Bradley has become one of the world’s most enchanting advocates for preserving classics of the rural American songbook. Six years ago, as the pandemic took hold, Bradley began focusing on standards of the Mississippi Delta and the Southern Piedmont, posting her early efforts on YouTube. She caught the attention of Josh Rosenthal, founder of the influential guitar-centric label Tompkins Square, and made a record—I Kept These Old Blues, a title like a mission statement—that became a surprise hit. She played on the BBC, sold out big rooms, and increasingly emerged as an online sensation. But that is to say little of the playing or singing that makes Old Blues special: Bradley is an articulate and athletic picker, each note arriving like a pronouncement. Her solo on Elizabeth Cotten’s “Shake Sugaree,” for instance, was brief but brilliant, recasting the old way of doing things with youthful vim.

Bradley is now expanding both her repertoire and that of the solo guitar. After signing to Decca in 2024, the landmark label reissued I Kept These Old Blues. And late in 2025, the imprint released an arresting five-song EP, Rose Dogs, that feels like another start for Bradley. Her voice strong and sensitive, she opens with a devastating cover of Jackson Browne’s teenage anthem, “These Days,” and balances wanderlust and weariness on Blaze Foley’s “Clay Pigeons.” The EP closes with “No Name Blues,” a front-porch stomper and Bradley’s first original piece. Already a striking talent with a story as surprising as it is compelling, Bradley is simply getting started.