Gary Clark Jr. bassist Johnny Bradley recalls ‘great times’ cutting teeth as musician in Grand Rapids, proud to play with Clark

Playing with West Michigan’s Junior Valentine and Hank Mowery in the ’90s set the stage for Austin-based musician’s fortuitous relationship with Clark, who stops at Meijer Gardens Wednesday.

 

EDITOR’S NOTE: This feature first ran at Local Spins in June 2015 prior to Gary Clark Jr.’s Meijer Gardens performance.

For bassist Johnny Bradley, leaving West Michigan two decades ago for Texas to tour with noted bluesman Mike Morgan was the beginning of “a crazy odyssey.”

That journey eventually led him to a “really lucky” serendipitous musical pairing with fast-rising Austin guitarist-singer Gary Clark Jr., and Bradley hasn’t looked back since.

“The thing about Gary is he is as solid a man as far as his graciousness, his manners, his thoughtfulness – as strong in character as he is both lucky and talented,” says Bradley, who may be best known in the Grand Rapids area for his ’90s stints in Junior Valentine & The All-Stars and with Hank Mowery.

“I’m proud to stand next to Gary on all levels. I feel really lucky to play and make music, and bring to play whatever is appropriate at the time.”

Indeed, Bradley – who grew up in Battle Creek and graduated with an English and communications degree from Western Michigan University before playing shows in Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo as a full-time musician – has spent five years in Clark’s band, pitching in on the guitarist’s most recent album and crisscrossing the country with an artist hailed by critics and fans alike.

“We’ve been blowing and going and just did a 12-hour trek to get here,” Bradley said by phone from a tour stop in Delaware, just days before a high-profile New York gig with D’Angelo.

On Wednesday, that tour stops at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park for a sold-out concert and Bradley’s first Michigan show since a Detroit appearance more than a year ago. It’s been much longer since Bradley’s returned to Grand Rapids, where he cut his teeth as a working musician with Valentine and Mowery decades ago.

“Great times,” he recalls of that formative era. “I took my guitar to school in the second grade and became ‘that guy’ and fostered it a lot with Hank (Mowery) and Junior (Valentine) and the whole scene there in Grand Rapids. … For guys like me and Hank to meet music enthusiasts like Junior Valentine and sort of be taken under his wing (was) like drinking a really concentrated mix of the exact vitamins for your soul and brain.”

Bradley says Valentine exposed him to blues and roots music greats to aid in his development as a musician, and he harbors “really fond memories of Grand Rapids and the sense of community” he found in the music scene at venues such as Rhythm Kitchen and Martini’s (now Billy’s Lounge in Eastown).

IT ALL STARTED AT A PIZZA PLACE IN KALAMAZOO

When Valentine first met Bradley during a solo show at a Kalamazoo pizza place about 20 years ago, he offered to let the bassist sit in with him weekly for no pay and gave him cassette tapes of blues artists and songs to learn.

“I introduced him to many blues and R&B artists: T-Bone Walker Fabulous Thunderbirds, James Brown, Little Walter, Rufus Thomas, Junior Watson, Professor Longhair. JB was a very good student,” Valentine recalls. “He soaked up everything I gave him, practiced a lot.”

Valentine eventually asked Bradley to join his band and he soon became not only a bandmate but “a showman, friend, brother, student and confidant,” says Valentine, adding that Clark’s band is “a perfect fit” for Bradley, who’s since become “one of the finest and most tasteful bass players in Austin and now, anywhere.”

“I have never enjoyed the experience with a band member that I had with JB,” says Valentine, who remains “more than pleased at his success. Every time I watch him play with Gary, I think of the pizza place gigs in Kalamazoo and I smile.”

Bradley said those memorable early years after he quit his job in Kalamazoo to pursue music professionally in West Michigan formed the cornerstone for a career based on hard work and dedication to one’s craft.

“I just put my head down and did it hard, and I think my life has just become a product of that momentum,” says Bradley, who’s married and has two young children at home in Austin. “What matters is who you surround yourself with and being who you want to be right now.”

He’s thrilled to be back to play in Grand Rapids, where he still has plenty of connections. Wednesday’s sold-out 7 p.m. Meijer Gardens show opens with a set by singer-songwriter Heather Maloney.

Bradley, who also “did a stint” with blues guitarist Anson Funderburgh and worked as a bassist for hire before Clark brought him on board five years ago, said his “strengths were really in committing to a vision on a higher level.”

Clark, he insists, is the ideal frontman to make that happen, along with guitarist King Zapata and drummer Johnny Radelat – all of whom embrace “different eras and different genres of blues. It’s kind of like being able to go over to a water reservoir and pull out the cork when you need to. That’s something we have in common.”

Clark also is a talented multi-instrumentalist who Bradley says can play bass, drums and keyboards, often doing much of the work himself on his 2012 “Blak and Blu” album and 2011 “The Bright Lights EP.” Bradley says he and Zapata “helped out at different points in the creative process,” adding “different seasoning” on parts of the most recent studio album. And, of course, Bradley, Radelat and Zapata form the backbone of Clark’s live album released last year.

Band members also share influences of icons such as Guitar Slim, Lazy Lester, Magic Sam, B.B. King, Freddie King, T-Bone Walker and Lightning Hopkins, to name just a few.

“We all like listening to the blues and living in Austin and having the resources like that. It’s a language that everyone knows,” he says. “Gary’s the thing that pulls it all together.”

VIDEO: Gary Clark Jr., “When My Train Pulls In”

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