Brad Delp

Bradley Edward "Brad" Delp (June 12, 1951 – March 9, 2007) was an American musician, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock bands Boston and RTZ.

Early life

Delp was born in Peabody, Massachusetts on June 12, 1951 to French-Canadian immigrants, and raised in Danvers, Massachusetts.^[1]

Musical career

Delp while playing for his band Beatlejuice

In 1969, guitarist Barry Goudreau introduced Delp to Tom Scholz, who was looking for a singer to complete some demo recordings. Eventually Scholz formed the short-lived band Mother's Milk (1973–74), including Delp and Goudreau. After producing a demo, Epic Records eventually signed the act. Mother's Milk was renamed Boston, and the self-titled debut album (recorded in 1975, although many tracks had been written years before) was released in August 1976. Delp performed all of the lead and backing vocals, including all layered vocal overdubs.

Boston's debut album has sold more than 20 million copies, and produced rock standards such as "More Than a Feeling", "Foreplay/Long Time" and "Peace of Mind". Delp co-wrote "Smokin'" along with Scholz, and wrote the album's closing track, "Let Me Take You Home Tonight".

Their next album, Don't Look Back, was released two years later in August 1978. Its release spawned new hits such as the title track, "Party" (a sequel of sorts to "Smokin'"), and the poignant ballad "A Man I'll Never Be". As they did with "Smokin'", Delp and Scholz again collaborated on "Party", and Delp penned "Used to Bad News".

After the first two Boston albums, Delp sang vocals on Barry Goudreau's self-titled solo album, released in 1980. Scholz's legendary perfectionism and a legal battle with their record company stalled any further Boston albums until 1986, when the band released the appropriately titled Third Stage. Delp co-wrote the songs "Cool the Engines" and "Can'tcha Say (You Believe in Me)/Still in Love" for the album, and both songs got significant airplay.

Though well known for his "golden" voice with soaring vocals and range, Delp was also a multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, harmonica and keyboards. He wrote or co-wrote songs for Boston, RTZ, Orion the Hunter, Lisa Guyer, and other artists.

In 1991 Delp and Goudreau formed a new band called RTZ. After Boston released the album Walk On in 1994 with Fran Cosmo on vocals, Delp and Boston eventually reunited later that year for another major tour and Delp continued to record vocals on several albums and projects, including new tracks for Boston's 1997 Greatest Hits compilation and their 2002 release, Corporate America.

From the mid-1990s until his death in 2007, Delp also played in a side project when he had time off from Boston – a Beatles tribute band called Beatlejuice. The Beatles had always been a personal favorite of Delp, and he revered them for their songwriting.

During this time Delp also co-wrote and recorded with former Boston bandmate Barry Goudreau and in 2003 released the CD Delp and Goudreau.

Personal life

Delp was twice married and divorced, and had two children by his second wife, Micki Delp. He was a vegetarian for over 30 years, and contributed to a number of charitable causes.^[2]

Death

Delp committed suicide sometime between 11:00 pm on March 8 and 1:20 pm on March 9, 2007.^[3] The local police discovered his body after a 911 call from Pamela Sullivan when she saw a dryer vent tube connected to the exhaust pipe of Delp's yellow car. They found him lying on a pillow on his master bathroom floor of his home on Academy Avenue in Atkinson, New Hampshire. Two charcoal grills were found to have been lit inside the bathtub causing the room to fill with smoke.^[4] A suicide note was paper-clipped to the neck of his T-shirt, which read: "Mr. Brad Delp. 'J'ai une âme solitaire'. I am a lonely soul." Delp left four sealed envelopes in his office addressed to his children, his former wife Micki, his fiancee, and another unnamed couple.^[5][6][7] He was 55 years old.

The official cause of death was listed as suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.^[8] The reason for Delp's suicide has been the subject of contradictory news reports and lawsuits. A series ^[9] of interviews conducted by the Boston Herald alleged that lingering hard feelings from Boston's breakup in the 1980s and personal tension between Delp and bandleader Scholz drove the singer to commit suicide. Scholz denied these claims but lost the defamation suits he waged in defense of his character.^[10] Court documents from the trials show Scholz claiming that personal problems plagued Delp and were the true reason for his decision to kill himself. Boston Herald attorneys point to voluminous testimony from former Boston members, other local musicians, Delp’s doctor, and Delp’s friends, including Meg Sullivan (his fiancee's sister), many of whom say the singer didn’t like Scholz, desperately wanted to quit the band, and felt tormented by his role as middle man in an ugly conflict between Boston’s founder and former band members. All of this was summarized in a 140-page statement filed by the Herald in April. <www.marshallofrock.com/sad-revelations-behind-the-suicide-of-former-boston-singer-brad-delp>

However, additional sworn testimony by Meg Sullivan painted a more tragic picture of his motives. Brad Delp was roommates with Meg Sullivan, his fiancee Pamela Sullivan's sister, for two-and-a-half years before his death. On February 28, 2007, Meg discovered a hidden camera planted in her room.^[11] After confronting Delp, he admitted to planting the camera and would later write a series of emails pleading for forgiveness to M. Sullivan. Todd Winmill, Meg Sullivan's boyfriend, implored Delp to admit his wrongdoings to Pamela Sullivan on March 3. After promising to tell her in a few days, Delp purchased the grills and tubing he would use to commit his final act. Pamela would find his body on March 9. In the bathroom were several notes written by Delp, one of which read: “I have had bouts of depression and thoughts of suicide since I was a teenager … [Pamela] was my ‘ray of sunshine,’ but sometimes even a ray of sunshine is no substitute for a good psychiatrist.”

Read More: Court Documents Recount ‘Embarrassing Incident’ That Preceded Boston Singer’s Suicide | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/brad-delp-suicide-lawsuit/?trackback=tsmclip^[12]

The following day, Boston's website was temporarily shut down, the webmaster having replaced their home page with a simple black background and white text message: "We've just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll."^[13]

On March 19, 2008, Barry Goudreau released one final song with Delp on vocals titled "Rockin Away". Written and recorded in the summer of 2006, co-written with Goudreau, it is an autobiography of Delp's musical career. According to "America's Music Charts", a third-party survey of radio airplay, the song received some airplay in early 2008. ^[14]

On what would have been Delp's 61st birthday, June 12, 2012, Jenna Delp, Delp's daughter and President of the Brad Delp Foundation, released an MP3 on the foundation website of a "never before released" song which was written and recorded by Delp in 1973. It was also announced that the Foundation intended to release a complete CD of Brad's solo work at some point in the future, which would encompass a span of 30 years of previously unreleased material written and recorded by Delp and his closest friends.^[15]

On November 25, 2015, The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts found in favor of the Boston Herald and Micki Delp, in a defamation lawsuit brought by Tom Scholz, producer, primary songwriter and lead musician for Boston. In question was if the Herald's statement that the hard feelings coming from the breakup of Boston contributing to Delp's suicide are opinion rather than fact.^[16] On February 23, 2016, Scholz filed a petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court of the United States to allow his defamation lawsuit to go ahead. On June 6, 2016, the Supreme Court declined to revive the case.^[17]

Discography

With Boston

• Boston (1976)
• Don't Look Back (1978)
• Third Stage (1986)
• Greatest Hits (1997)
• Corporate America (2002)
• Life, Love & Hope (2013)

With Barry Goudreau

• Barry Goudreau (1980)

With Orion the Hunter

• Orion the Hunter (1984)

With RTZ

• Return to Zero (1991)
• Lost (1998)
• Lost and Found (2005)

With Delp and Goudreau

• Delp and Goudreau (2003)
• "Rockin Away" single (2008)

With Mark "Guitar" Miller

• Whatcha Gonna Do! (2008)

With Orpheus

• Orpheus Again (2010)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Brad Delp.

• Brad Delp at the Internet Movie Database
• "Brad Delp". Find a Grave. Retrieved August 12, 2010. 
• Brad Delp Foundation