Doyle Bramhall

Soul rolls off Doyle Bramhall’s music like sugar burnt brown. It comes from a place so natural it feels like breathing. But Bramhall’s voice, cured in blues and spiced by a well-spent life, can now take its place alongside his many inspirations: Bobby “Blue” Bland, Junior Parker, O.V. Wright, Ray Charles and a history book full of others. He has hit that spot where all his years of playing and listening come together in a glorious album of musical grace. In fact, it feels like his whole life has been spent on the road to Fitchburg Street.

It’s no coincidence that’s the name of Doyle Bramhall’s new album on YepRoc Records. In many ways, the ten songs on the new release are both a powerful summation of all the music the Texas singer-drummer-songwriter has spent his life playing, as well as a striking stance for his future.

“I was born on Fitchburg Street in West Dallas in 1949,” Doyle Bramhall explains. “That was also where my music started. My family loved to listen to music and dance. My Uncle Lloyd played harmonica in big bands in Dallas. Some of my earliest memories of Fitchburg Street are watching my mom, Aunt Helen and sister Shirley dance to the pop tunes of the day in the early 1950s.”

In speaking about his beginnings, it’s quickly clear how big an impact they had on the young Bramhall. It was a wide-open town and time, and West Dallas, also known as the Devil’s Back Porch, was home to Bonnie and Clyde and a whole host of other strong characters. "We had a large family," he says, "and on Sundays, my brother Dale and I would sing at my grandmother’s house for relatives and neighbors. I remember getting a nickel once after singing and thinking, ‘I like this.’ Dale and I were 5 or 6 at the time.

Later on, living in Irving a few miles northwest of West Dallas, my older brother Ronnie and four or five of his high school friends would get together at our house and listen to all these great R&B and blues records by Howlin’ Wolf, Memphis Slim, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Ray Charles, Lightnin’ Slim and a lot of others. They wouldn’t let us in the room because we were young, 11 or 12 at the time. So Dale and I would sit outside of his bedroom and listen. That music would totally grab me, and as soon as Ronnie went off to college, luckily he left a lot of his records. Dale and I took over his room and I haven’t stopped listening since.”

It wasn’t too long after the inspi