March 9, 2007 – Brad Delp was born on June 12, 1951. Delp was born in Peabody, Massachusetts on June 12, 1951 to French-Canadian immigrants. He was raised in Danvers, Massachusetts.
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 all backing harmony vocals, including all layered vocal overdubs.
Boston’s debut album 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”, 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 and singing all harmony parts on every song, 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.
Their debut album, Boston, released in August 1976, was an enormous success, selling over 17 million records and produced future rock standards such as “More Than a Feeling” and “Peace of Mind“, it ranks as the best-selling debut album in United States history. Brad performed all lead and backing vocals, including all ‘layered’ vocal overdubs on the album.
Delp’s legacy will always lie in the way that he was able to merge his vocal style and his inner soul with the music and lyrics of Scholz in a way that was completely and uniquely vulnerable, a rarity in the landscape of 1970s hard rock. “I understand about indecision, and I don’t care if I get behind/People living in competition, all I want is to have my peace of my mind” is the chorus to one of the most overplayed songs in rock history; yet it is worth pausing to ponder the fact that one the highest-selling debut albums in rock history made a hit single about not taking one’s career too seriously.
Delp sang vocals on Boston’s 1976 hits “More than a Feeling” and “Long Time.” He also sang on Boston’s most recent album, “Corporate America,” released in 2002.
Guitar World wrote this about his suicide death:
The parked car was unattended, but to the police who arrived at Brad Delp’s home on March 9, it was immediately clear that something was amiss. A dryer vent hose connected to the car’s exhaust pipe lay on the ground alongside the vehicle. Inside the garage, a note taped to the house door made the owner’s intentions explicit:
“To whoever finds this I have hopefully committed suicide. Plan B was to asphyxiate myself in my car.”
The police had been called to the Boston lead singer’s home in Atkinson, New Hampshire, by his fiancée, Pamela Sullivan, after she’d discovered Delp’s car with the dryer hose attached. Delp “had been depressed for some time,” Sullivan told the police, “feeling emotional [and] bad about himself.”
Inside the house, on a door at the top of the stairs, the police found a second note directing them to the master bedroom. Cautiously they made their way inside and into the master bedroom. There, like a portent, a third note warned them of the possible presence of deadly carbon monoxide.
Outside the bathroom of the master bedroom, a faint smell of burnt charcoal hovered in the air. The police knocked on the bathroom door. “Mr. Delp?” they called. “Sir, are you inside? Are you okay, sir?”
After a lengthy silence, they turned their shoulders to the door and began battering it with their full force. As it gave, the odor of charcoal intensified and hot plumes of blue-grey smoke poured from the excavated room. Broken tape along the door indicated it had been sealed. The police waited for the smoke to abate, then entered the room, covering their mouths and waving away the haze.
As the smoke cleared, the scene within the bathroom slowly came into view. Two charcoal grills perched among the bathroom fixtures, their metal tops emitting heat waves. On the floor beside them lay the body of a man, his head resting on a pillow. A note paper-clipped to the neck of his shirt told them what they needed to know: “Mr. Brad Delp. Jai une ame solitaire. I am a lonely soul.” Brad Delp was dead, a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the New Hampshire medical examiner. He was 55. Though his fragile emotional state had been known to his fiancée, Delp’s fans were none the wiser. To millions of music fans, he was forever the singer whose buoyant voice carried Boston to the top of the charts in the Seventies and Eighties with hits like “More Than a Feeling, “Peace of Mind,” “Long Time” and “Amanda.” At the time of his death, Delp was preparing for a summer tour with his Boston band mates, guitarists Tom Scholz and Barry Goudreau. He had also planned to marry Sullivan during a break in the tour. Police found four sealed letters in the home that were addressed to Sullivan; Delp’s children; their mother, Micki Delp; and another unidentified couple. Police lieutenant William Baldwin said the police had given the letters to the family members without reading them. Whatever insights the letters may have provided, Delp provided sufficient clues to his circumstances in one of the notes found at his house: “I take complete and sole responsibility for my present situation. I have lost my desire to live,” he wrote, adding instructions to the police on how to contact his fiancée. “Unfortunately she is totally unaware of what I have done.” Brad Delp was cremated on Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Brad Delp was dead, a suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning, according to the New Hampshire medical examiner. He was 55.
Though his fragile emotional state had been known to his fiancée, Delp’s fans were none the wiser. To millions of music fans, he was forever the singer whose buoyant voice carried Boston to the top of the charts in the Seventies and Eighties with hits like “More Than a Feeling, “Peace of Mind,” “Long Time” and “Amanda.” At the time of his death, Delp was preparing for a summer tour with his Boston band mates, guitarists Tom Scholz and Barry Goudreau. He had also planned to marry Sullivan during a break in the tour.
Police found four sealed letters in the home that were addressed to Sullivan; Delp’s children; their mother, Micki Delp; and another unidentified couple. Police lieutenant William Baldwin said the police had given the letters to the family members without reading them.
Whatever insights the letters may have provided, Delp provided sufficient clues to his circumstances in one of the notes found at his house: “I take complete and sole responsibility for my present situation. I have lost my desire to live,” he wrote, adding instructions to the police on how to contact his fiancée. “Unfortunately she is totally unaware of what I have done.”
“We just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll.”
