Patsy O’Brien is a musician who lives in the best of both worlds. The Ireland born, now Colorado-based guitar player and singer-songwriter sometimes goes out on the road as a hired guitarist, other times he goes at it solo. It’s a best of both worlds for the musician, hitting the road playing someone else’s music or hitting the road to play his own.
O’Brien will perform solo this Saturday at the Dolores River Brewery in Dolores.
If you go
WHAT: Celtic, folk and roots music with singer-songwriter Patsy O’Brien
WHEN: 7 p.m. Saturday
WHERE: Dolores River Brewery, 100 Fourth St., Dolores
TICKETS: Visit www.doloresriverbrewery.com
“There’s a nice balance. When you’re hired with a band, my job is to just show up, and I don’t have to think about anything else, and that’s kind of nice,” he said. “On the other side of that, I love to get out on my own. I don’t mind doing the logistical stuff myself. They’re different animals, and they do sort of compliment each other. It’s nice to do both.”
O’Brien describes himself as a kid who, after bugging his parents for an instrument “picked up a guitar and never put it down,” while a healthy dose of listening to all styles of music set him down a music road. Being born in Ireland offered a load of Celtic sounds, but there was also blues, jazz and rock. File him under sing-songwriter, with the aforementioned genres all rising to the top that also come with exceptional guitar playing – that’s his sound.
“I pull on a lot of genres: Being Irish, born, bred and buttered as they say over in Ireland, I’ve soaked up a lot of the Irish music, but as a guitar player to all other genres, like rock ’n’ roll, jazz, blues, country, they’re in there as well,” he said. “The whole genre thing, it’s tough to put anybody in a box, and I’m no exception to that because there’s a whole lot of those influences. So, that kind of stuff shows up. I mean, you might feel like there’s a bit of a country feel to it. There’s definitely some very strong Irish Celtic feel. And the jazz blues thing turns up. If I’m working on jigs and reels and some Irish folk tunes or something like that, after a while, I’m going to want to play some Billie Holiday or something, you know, that kind of a thing. So I guess it’s kind of cyclical like that. They all serve a purpose, you know.”
That purpose is to entertain; save the genre classification or the need to hear one over the other, as O’Brien digs on playing all he knows.
“In Western music there’s only 12 notes, and I like all of them,” he said. “I don’t really care what order they come in.”
He also digs playing in a town like Dolores, in a room like the Dolores River Brewery. The steadfast music fans of Montezuma County seem to get out and support most genres when a band graces a Montezuma County stage – it doesn’t matter if its plugged in electric guitars banging out rock music, dirty blues, jazz ballads or an acoustic Celtic ballad, they’ll support it. O’Brien is into that, too: Give him an audience and he’ll offer up all the genres in his offering of songs, sounds that could be influenced by Ella Fitzgerald, Paddy Moloney or John Prine. He’s also a heck of a guitar player, with a load of chops to boot.
“I just love getting out and singing and playing in front of people, and especially in venues where people are sitting right in front of me. I can talk to them, I can meet them, you know, that kind of thing. So that’s why I like a place like Dolores and the brewery there,” he said. “That’s just a great room that I love.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
