Bradley McKellip is a son, a sibling, a fiancé, a talented musician, and a gifted writer. He's also my guest for Episode No. 228.
You can follow Mr. McKellip on Instagram at @bradleymckellip, and consume his content on Bandcamp, where you'll discover that he has four EPs, a live set, and a single. He's been a part of numerous outfits in the Lawrence, KS area, and, well, I just can't say enough kind things about him and the chunk of change he shared with me at the end of last month.
We talked clean copy, robust vocabularies, poetry, photography, Anthony Bourdain and Guy Fieri, and -- among other things -- life. Somewhere in that mix, we examined a few of his favorite records, which were these:
Red Headed Stranger (1975), Willie Nelson
J Dilla's Donuts (2006)
The '59 Sound (2008), Gaslight Anthem
Bon Iver's 22, A Million (2016)
Small Town (2017), Bill Frisell
A portion of our conversation jogged this old man's rusty memory bin and reminded me of the time Mark Kelpe gifted me a paperback copy of Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential (2000) as part of one of my manager reviews working as a chef for Kelpe's (now) Culinary Virtue company. He and his business partner James Westphal taught me a number of good lessons across my eight years under their employ, and I'm forever grateful for those learning moments and the gig(s) themselves.
Kelpe, on the title page, wrote, "I hope this inspires you to write your own book. Keep challenging your life -- creatively!"
I really enjoyed this chat, and I hope you'll check it out. Thank you, Bradley, for the time and the energy, and thank you to everyone that supports the show.
copyright disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the audio clips contained within this episode. They are snippets from a Bruce Springsteen tune called, "I'm on Fire," which you can find on his 1984 album, Born in the U.S.A., c/o Bruce Springsteen.