Brad Colerick

Singer/songwriter Brad Colerick was born in Valentine, NE, and lived there until he was five, when his family moved to Lincoln. His family was not particularly musical, although one of his grandfathers played a violin that he gave Colerick. Colerick restored the instrument, but he was actually more interested in the guitar. Heavily influenced by James Taylor, he played clubs in Lincoln and Omaha while attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the early '80s, and continued after graduating, sometimes solo and sometimes teamed with Gene Klosner; the two made a duo album. In 1986, Colerick moved to Los Angeles, just before releasing his debut solo album, Token Dreams. To support himself, he got a day job with a music production company, that is, a company making music for commercials. In this capacity, he worked with such artists as Amy Grant, Livingston Taylor, Johnny Cash, Shawn Colvin, B.B. King, and Veruca Salt. He founded Back 9 Records in 1990. In 2002, he and his associate Dave Curtin opened their own music production company on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, DeepMix. That year, he won a London International Advertising Award for a song he wrote and recorded with Buddy Guy. Despite this success, he longed to return to working as an artist himself outside the realm of advertising. But it took him nearly two decades to get back to that. He began giving concerts again, often back in Nebraska. On February 28, 2006, Back 9 finally released his second solo album, Cottonwood. Lines in the Dirt followed on July 10, 2007. His fourth album, When I'm Gone, appeared on September 15, 2009.