“Hometown,” the new single from singer-songwriter Jaclyn Bradley, reveals an emotional, spiritual, and physical journey: a circular voyage away from one’s birthplace to travel the world, experience life, suffer, mature, and then return home with a heart open to love.
Bradley explains, “Sometimes we find that everything we are searching for already lives inside us. The most beautiful trip is always the one you take back to your own heart.”
For Bradley, home is Lorain, Ohio, which she left as a teen to pursue music. She studied opera at Indiana University and worked at VH1 in Los Angeles, followed by moving to New York City where she stopped her roommate from going to work at The World Trade Center on September 11.
Bradley’s journey included music therapy in hospitals. Somewhere in there she married, became a mother, and moved to The Netherlands and then Ireland. She recorded music, made films, and was a contestant on The Voice of Holland and Ireland’s Got Talent.
In late 2019, right before the pandemic hit, Bradley moved with her daughter back to where e she was born.
Bradley shares, “To say I wasn’t broken and scared would be untrue, but in the nurturing place that raised me, I was able to thrive, reinvent, and find light again.”
In 2020, Jaclyn opened a music school, Rock Town Music Academy, in downtown Lorain where she now teaches students of all ages. The school was awarded best music instruction in the county and is currently nominated for best music school in the area by Cleveland Magazine.
Co-written by Derek Connell and produced by Austin Moorhead in Nashville, “Hometown” features backing vocals by Parker McKay.
Opening on a strumming guitar backed by a drawling steel guitar, “Hometown” rolls into a deliciously shaped Americana melody riding a tight, mid-tempo rhythm. Topped by Bradley’s evocative vocals, drenched in poignancy and nostalgia, the lyrics narrate the ebb and flow of Bradley’s life.
The outro elevates to choir-like harmonies, imbuing the tune with moving depth and dimension, along with the realization of wholeness and contentment.
Jaclyn Bradley’s charisma shines through “Hometown,” an intimate, soulful song that showcases her versatile, alluring voice.
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