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Rachel Bradshaw is ready to take the field
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
Rachel Bradshaw is having a huge year.
Not only is the budding country singer getting married to Tennessee Titans kicker Rob Bironas, but she’s also launching her first major tour and releasing her debut album.
The 25-year-old Bradshaw is used to pro football players. Her father is Terry Bradshaw, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback legend who earned four Super Bowl rings in the 1970s.
She’ll join Josh Turner’s tour this week as opening act. Youngstown will be the first city to catch Bradshaw on the tour, which stops at Stambaugh Auditorium on Saturday.
The Texan signed a record deal with Nashville’s Bigger Picture Group in 2012 and will release her debut album in April.
For Bradshaw, it seems like the future has arrived.
“It feels like I was writing songs and performing my entire life just to get prepared for this moment,” she said in a phone interview last week.
The Dallas-area native learned last month that she was picked to tour with Turner. “They said, ‘It’s your time,’” she recalled. “It’s so cool!”
From a young age, Bradshaw knew she wanted to be a singer. She started gaining experience at a very young age, performing in Texas opry halls and county fairs.
After moving to Nashville to attend Belmont University, Bradshaw got serious about songwriting.
Those skills will soon become evident because she wrote 11 of the 13 songs on her upcoming album.
Although Music City is brimming with songwriters, Bradshaw feels most comfortable with her own material.
“Nashville songwriters are really smart,” she explained. “They will write songs just for you. But I like being in control, writing and recording my own stuff. It’s hard to find songs written by other people that fit me.”
Apparently, that’s an understatement. Bradshaw said she and her producer recently combed through 1,300 songs just to unearth a few that seemed right.
Not surprisingly, Bradshaw’s do-it-right-the-first-time approach extends to the recording process. She was in the studio until every song was mixed. “I’m not an artist who just lets people do things for me,” she said. “At the end, it’s worth it for me.”
As a singer, Bradshaw knows her comfort zone. “I have a raspy voice and grew up listening to Bonnie Raitt and John Prine and Alanis Morissette,” she said. “I’m a mix of these.”
She also stays true to herself when writing songs, exploring emotions that stem from life experiences. “One of my songs, ‘Rodeo,’ is all harmonica and acoustic guitar, and you may think of riding a bull, but it couldn’t be more apart from that,” she said. “It makes you think. It’s a little dark.”
With her nuptials set for June 28 and the tour looming, Bradshaw was in wedding-planner mode last week. In fact, she and Bironas were picking out floral arrangements when she called The Vindicator.
When talking to the daughter of a Hall of Famer, football inevitably enters the conversation. So, was marrying a football player always in the cards for her?
“I used to think I would die before marrying an athlete,” she said. “But then I met [Bironas].” She pointed out that her fiance and her father get along great. “They’re good friends,” she said.
Bradshaw will be back in Steelers country this weekend for the second time in little more than a year.
On Dec. 23, 2012, she donned a black and gold game shirt — No. 12, her father’s number — and sang the National Anthem before a Steelers game at Heinz Field.
Fans in the Steel City once had a famously love-hate relationship with her father, although it has become quite warm in recent years.
Still, she was relieved when the throng roared its approval for her.
“The response was overwhelming,” she said. “I didn’t know how they would react, but it was overwhelming.”