Rest In Peace: Anne Bradshaw

Of all the deaths which have occurred in the past two years, both musical and non-musical, none of those have effected me much as the recent passing of my mother. What has made it an even bigger hammer blow for my wife Tina and me was the fact that our mothers have died within two and a half months of one another. A memorial service was held for her last night and it was great to see so many people out to pay respects to her. This included a man I never met but dated my mother some 27 years ago. It was also good for me to see relatives I hadn’t seen in over thirty years. Plus, it was good to know that she was loved in two countries as I conveyed all the good wishes and feelings from my family in the UK.

My mother wasn’t the music buff her eldest son and daughter were to become. Her teenage years were in the 1950s where she was into Elvis and American Bandstand. One of her amusing tales was that she had a dance with local Bandstand favourite, Jerry Blavat. If you live outside of the Delaware Valley, you probably have never heard of him and she was very impressed by him either. In the 80s, she often gave me grief about my dressing in the heavy metal fashion but nowadays, I understand that it more out of concern over the crap metalheads had to endure at the time. She was just trying to look out for me and not see me get hurt.

In 1986, my sister did take her to see Loverboy and Dokken in concert because they were playing at a racetrack and my mother liked a Loverboy song. I believe it was the ballad like, “This Could be the Night.” However, as I’m not completely sure, I won’t feature it here. I am sure she would have liked the song I’m going to feature instead. She would have appreciated Danny Vaughn for his outstanding vocal ability and would have liked some of Tyketto’s songs. Therefore, I ask that you listen to the song and pay tribute to a great lady who was responsible for bringing me into the world and was loved by many.

 

 

Rest in peace Mom.