Last updated: 12 hours ago
Dan Branigan is a UK based banjo player, guitarist and songwriter. His music blends all the flavours of a musical journey from rock to funk to the old-time country sound that drew him to the clawhammer banjo style.
His latest release, Lines of Truth, is about losing your life partner to dementia. Dan's mother suffered with dementia for the last 10 years of her life and this song is written from his father’s perspective, watching as his soulmate is slowly taken away by the disease. Witnessing the change in his parent’s relationship, after being together for more than 50 years, was heartbreaking. More generally the song is about coming to terms with the end of any long term relationship.
For the early-part of his musical career Dan existed on a strict diet of pure seventies funk, playing rhythm guitar with the pioneering funk rockers The High Rollers from Calgary, Canada and then in the early 90s with London funksters <a href="spotify:artist:0oGhHwWYCl6wxSOiQY32HS" data-name="Puppy Phat">Puppy Phat</a>.
In the late nineties Dan started playing vintage open-back 5 string banjo, and he soon fell in love with the old-time clawhammer style. The next 20 years were spent raising a family in the Cotswolds, picking his banjo at old-time music gatherings and playing with Des Barkus in the popular Oxfordshire Americana band, Country For Old Men.
For fans of: <a href="spotify:artist:196lKsA13K3keVXMDFK66q" data-name="The Avett Brothers">The Avett Brothers</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5sXaGoRLSpd7VeyZrLkKwt" data-name="Gregory Alan Isakov">Gregory Alan Isakov</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5Bcrb5qQMVTEbJ43fdIS4A" data-name="Mipso">Mipso</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:4DBi4EYXgiqbkxvWUXUzMi" data-name="Old Crow Medicine Show">Old Crow Medicine Show</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1I7oHjCjMrMUz66v67yJJu" data-name="Joshua Hyslop">Joshua Hyslop</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6ijT84fUReKCGYV3MjhB2y" data-name="Railroad Earth">Railroad Earth</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:06nsZ3qSOYZ2hPVIMcr1IN" data-name="J.J. Cale">J.J. Cale</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3QcM2tU8CDY3LyzvwCj1CI" data-name="Dillard & Clark">Dillard & Clark</a>
His latest release, Lines of Truth, is about losing your life partner to dementia. Dan's mother suffered with dementia for the last 10 years of her life and this song is written from his father’s perspective, watching as his soulmate is slowly taken away by the disease. Witnessing the change in his parent’s relationship, after being together for more than 50 years, was heartbreaking. More generally the song is about coming to terms with the end of any long term relationship.
For the early-part of his musical career Dan existed on a strict diet of pure seventies funk, playing rhythm guitar with the pioneering funk rockers The High Rollers from Calgary, Canada and then in the early 90s with London funksters <a href="spotify:artist:0oGhHwWYCl6wxSOiQY32HS" data-name="Puppy Phat">Puppy Phat</a>.
In the late nineties Dan started playing vintage open-back 5 string banjo, and he soon fell in love with the old-time clawhammer style. The next 20 years were spent raising a family in the Cotswolds, picking his banjo at old-time music gatherings and playing with Des Barkus in the popular Oxfordshire Americana band, Country For Old Men.
For fans of: <a href="spotify:artist:196lKsA13K3keVXMDFK66q" data-name="The Avett Brothers">The Avett Brothers</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5sXaGoRLSpd7VeyZrLkKwt" data-name="Gregory Alan Isakov">Gregory Alan Isakov</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5Bcrb5qQMVTEbJ43fdIS4A" data-name="Mipso">Mipso</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:4DBi4EYXgiqbkxvWUXUzMi" data-name="Old Crow Medicine Show">Old Crow Medicine Show</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1I7oHjCjMrMUz66v67yJJu" data-name="Joshua Hyslop">Joshua Hyslop</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:6ijT84fUReKCGYV3MjhB2y" data-name="Railroad Earth">Railroad Earth</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:06nsZ3qSOYZ2hPVIMcr1IN" data-name="J.J. Cale">J.J. Cale</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3QcM2tU8CDY3LyzvwCj1CI" data-name="Dillard & Clark">Dillard & Clark</a>