Tom Breiding Music - Press - www.tombreiding.com

The Unbroken Circle: Songs of the West Virginia Coalfields

If you live near Pittsburgh, chances are you already know the music of Tom Breiding, a local legend. If you're a member of the Steelworkers there, you remember his benefit for the "Stand Up for Steel" campaign. If you live in another part of the country, this CD is a wonderful introduction to a singer, songwriter and guitarist who performs some of the most compelling roots-rock ballads anywhere. "The Unbroken Circle" is primarily a collection of Breiding's songs about the history of coalfields in West Virginia, his native state. They include "The Obituary of Joe Fry," written after he discovered the death notice of a miner killed in a 1937 mine explosion and "The Longest Darkest Day," which tells of the 1972 Buffalo Creek flood after the collapse of a mine's dam. This is the work of a musician who never has forgotten his roots. Available from The Union Shop Online(TM).

Click here to view the story on the AFL CIO website.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette - September 28, 2007
By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Music Preview: Breiding mines West Virginia coal history in album

Tom Breiding
With: The Mavens, The Gearharts.
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Tickets: $10; 412-276-6600.
Where: CD release show at Cefalo's, Carnegie.

"The Unbroken Circle," a record that shines a light on the coalfields of West Virginia a century back, didn't begin with its creator, Tom Breiding, thinking about miners or mine disasters.

Rather, he had performed at Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia in 1999, and it snowed for 36 hours straight.

"I was as sick as I've ever been, and it was a tough weekend," Breiding says. "When I pulled my car out of the garage on Sunday to drive home the sun was shining, and for the first time I had a look at those snow-covered mountains as far as the eye could see. I was inspired at that moment to write about my home state of West Virginia, and I had the chorus for 'My Father's Clothes' by the time I reached the bottom of the mountain."

He might not have known it at the time, but the song would go on to deal with a son losing his father after lightning struck the tram rail above, sending the sparks deep into the mine.

The record, eight years in the making, would take shape with these kind of bluegrass-folk songs about the hard lives of miners and their families, with references to such historical events as the Blair Mountain strike in 1921 and the Buffalo Creek Mine Disaster in 1972.

"All of my initial research was done on the Internet," Breiding says. "I'd spend hours fascinated by these incredible stories that I knew very little about. I read 'The Battle of Blair Mountain' by Robert Shogan, and that brought a lot of perspective to these isolated incidents in the West Virginia Mine Wars, and I began to see how they were all connected. After most of these songs were written I began traveling to the coalfields in Logan County to listen to folks who live there, to check the historical accuracy of my songs, and to make sure the sentiments in my presentation were appropriate."

It wasn't hard for Breiding, who was raised in Wheeling and now lives in Pittsburgh, to relate to these characters, and even sing in a voice that would capture their dialect.

"There is a deep connection for most natives of West Virginia to our beautiful state, even those of us from the northern panhandle which is above the Mason-Dixon Line," he says. "That may be because of the reputation we have to all of those who live outside the state. Throughout America's past and present we see incredible acts of bravery and a willingness to fight for freedom, but the prospect of 10,000 civilian miners taking matters into their own hands, arming themselves and marching into Logan County for fair wages is a demonstration of rebellion that may be unrivaled in our country's history. I had to write about this. I grew up with West Virginia history classes and learned nothing about it until I did my own research."

"The Unbroken Circle" is a musical departure as well for Breiding, who has been known as much for being a rocker as a folk artist. He was familiar enough with the Fourth of July square dances in Proctor, W.Va., and he bought his first guitar and picked up some tips from Tom White, who fronted The Short Crick Flatpickers. Still, recording it is a different story.

"It was an evolving process," he says. "I began by buying a six-string banjo and getting some basic tracks. I had never recorded a fiddle, mandolin or even an upright bass before. ... Slowly, I began to get comfortable with the sound, and the mixes started happening. We have satellite radio, so I locked into the bluegrass station and listened to absolutely nothing else for more than six months. Every once in a while, I'd throw in a disc of my latest mixes to compare them."

While some of the songs deal with tragic events that go back almost a hundred years, the headlines show that the same things are still happening today.

"Two weeks ago while I was in Logan County another miner there died in a roof collapse," Breiding says. "I've witnessed mountaintop removal in person, I've heard the blasts and toured mountains like Blair that are endangered. Someone from an environmental organization e-mailed me the other day to say that a lot of artists seem to be doing similar projects right now. I am only too pleased. There is so much that needs to be examined."

First published on September 28, 2007 at 12:00 am
Scott Mervis can be reached at smervis@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2576.

Pittsburgh Tribune Review - September 23, 2007
By Regis Behe - TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Decades of history inspire Tom Breiding's new CD

Tom Breiding
What: CD release party, with the Mavens, the Gearharts and American Son
When: 7 p.m. Saturday
Admission: $10
Where: Cefalo's, Carnegie
Details: 412-276-6600

LOGAN COUNTY, W.Va. -- Tom Breiding is standing on the eastern slope of Blair Mountain beneath a canopy of magnolia, poplar, beech and oak trees.

He has come here on this sun-splashed September day with Kenny King, an amateur historian who lives in Logan County and also works in the coal industry, seeking affirmation for a project he's been working on for eight years.

Breiding is about to release "The Unbroken Circle: Songs of the West Virginia Coalfields." While he is a native West Virginian -- born in Wheeling -- he has visited this part of "Almost Heaven" only a few times. Now a resident of McMurray, Washington County, he has reservations about a project that spans seven decades of West Virginia history.

"These are things I read about and wrote about, and now I'm here," says Breiding as King, wielding a metal detector, unearths 30.06 shotgun shells.

The metal casings are reminders that 86 years ago, the Battle of Blair Mountain was fought between 10,000 miners seeking union rights and 16,000 state policemen, deputies and militiamen hired by the coal-mining companies. In this part of the Mountain State, the confrontation remains an epic event, a reminder of the deep divide between the working man and the coal companies. Now, with mountaintop removal mining prevalent in Logan County, activists and miners are once again wary of what is transpiring.

"I have nothing against mining," King says. "It's just the way they're doing it."

This is the backdrop for Breiding's work, which includes the songs "Union Miner," "The Bull Moose Special" and "The Longest Darkest Day," an account of the Buffalo Creek flood in 1972, caused when a mine's gob pile dam collapsed. He says the CD is not a political statement but part of his mission as a storyteller.

"The state motto, right on the flag, is 'Mountaineers Are Always Free,'" Breiding says. "I feel a connection with everybody who comes from the state of West Virginia. That was part of the inspiration. And part of the inspiration is the rebellious side of things. These miners who were called on to take action (at the Battle of Blair Mountain) had to stand up for themselves to do something about their conditions."

"The Unbroken Circle" is colored by bluegrass -- or, as Breiding calls it, "old-timey" music -- a departure from the rock 'n' roll that has dominated his previous releases. And so, Breiding has come to Logan County to road-test these songs, to see if his artistic vision measures up with a reality he is acquainted with but does not really know.

Keeping the record straight

Roger Bryant knows a little bit about music and Logan County history. His grandmother was Aunt Jennie Wilson, a revered figure in Appalachian folk music circles. Bryant has had a few hit songs -- including "There Ain't Enough Whiskey in Tennessee to Drink the Ugly Off of You" -- and has shared stages with Tom T. Hall, Tammy Wynette, Kathy Mattea and Kris Kristofferson.

Most notably, Bryant's song "Stop the Flow of Coal," released in the mid-1970s, earned him national attention including an appearance on NBC's "Today."

So it's with a bit of trepidation that Breiding launches into "Union Miner" in Bryant's office at Logan Country Emergency Services, where Bryant serves as executive director.

Bryant listens intently as Breiding sings about a World War I veteran who feels disenfranchised because he has joined a union.

"Nice piece," Bryant says when Breiding has finished. "You've got it all in there."

Bryant says "Union Miner" and songs like it are important because they crystallize events that tend to fade as years pass.

"As the World War II vets die off, so does the real history, the real truth of World War II," Bryant says. "I think a lot of that is true of Blair Mountain. As those folks die off, the real history and truth of the Blair Mountain battle dies with them. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, but it's the natural order of things.

"It's up to people like you and me to keep that alive so we don't repeat the same mistakes we made in the past. And if you go back and look, music is the only thing that keeps a lot of events alive."

Heart of West Virginia

A one-lane concrete bridge, the remnant of a 1938 WPA project, leads to Sunbeam, a small unincorporated community in Logan County. There are many sites like Sunbeam sprinkled throughout the region, with names such as Red Campbell, Freeze Fork, Justice Addition, Rum Junction and Superior Bottom, small communities that are the remnants of mining camps.

This is where King lives with his mother, Christine, in a small, well-appointed trailer filled with curios and knickknacks. There's a sense of warmth and welcoming that exudes from Christine King, 72, as she greets her visitors with stories about growing up in a log cabin in nearby Lincoln County.

"My great uncle had six boys, and he played music and they all played," she says. "They would gather up at our house, out in the country, on Saturday nights, and there'd be music all night."

Other than a battery-powered radio, these gatherings were the family's main form of entertainment. Now Christine King is being asked to listen to "The Obituary of Joe Fry," a song Breiding wrote after discovering the death notice of a miner who died in a Macbeth Mine explosion of 1937.

Left to mourn, a host of friends and kin
and Violet, his beloved darling dear
She might meet him over there, for this poor Violet prays
He planned to be a Christian someday

Christine King pays rapt attention throughout Breiding's performance, locked onto every lyric and note. Yes, she says, Breiding would have fit in with her family years ago.

"Every Saturday night, we'd have music," she says. "One would play fiddle, one would play banjo, and my grandmother would play harmonica, and my mother would play the guitar."

Her voice fades. Something has been brought back to her this day.

Paying history a visit Breiding spends the rest of the afternoon with Kenny King.

They travel to the top of Lowe Mountain, where coal companies are transforming verdant green foliage into a lunar landscape. They take the same path the union miners walked on Blair Mountain, uncovering artifacts every dozen paces or so. They pause at the gap on Blair Mountain where the coal mining forces fired on the union miners, who dove for cover from the assault of rifles and machine guns.

Everything Breiding tried to portray on "The Unbroken Circle" has become real and tangible in the space of a few hours. His instincts, his trust in the material, have been affirmed.

"I realized I had to show a lot of respect for the people who live here and experienced these things," he says. "I tried to bring some humility to the project, in my whole approach to marketing it and sharing it with others."

Carol Warren, a project coordinator with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, thinks Breiding might succeed in doing more than that.

"If we really don't understand where we've been, it's hard to understand where we are in the present," Warren says. "The coal industry and the lives of the people here have been intertwined for a long time. I think it's important for people to remember the way it goes together, the ups and the downs of an industry that have affected people's lives for a long time."

And continues to affect people's lives.

The emotions, the heartbreak of the Battle of Blair Mountain, of the Macbeth Mine explosion of 1937, of the Buffalo Creek disaster of 1972, all of which Breiding taps into, are revisited upon each generation. Witness what happened at the Sago Mine in January 2006, when 12 men lost their lives, or at the Crandall Canyon mine in Utah, where six miners were never found and three rescuers died in August.

As Breiding sings in "The Unbroken Circle":

It's hard to see beyond tomorrow
when you're living for today
In desperate times it's just survival,
I'll tell you, sir, it's always been that way.

Regis Behe can be reached at rbehe@tribweb.com or 412-320-7990.

Press for "Time to Roll"

Pittsburgh City Paper - June 2006
By Aaron Jentzen
Excerpts from CD review: Tom Breiding and American Son, AmeriSon Records

Pittsburgh's guitar-slinger Tom Breiding's release with his band American Son, Time to Roll, walks the more imaginative side of the roots-rock line of demarcation. Lyrically there's still a fair amount of bygone days, with daddies, granddaddies, old cars going nowhere, ain'ts and hometowns. At the beginning of "Daddy's Old Black Hearse" there's a cracking "vinyl" sound, and the disc itself looks and feels like a very small LP.

But on songs such as "Ain't No Quittin' Side of Me," Breiding's narrative impulse and evocative imagery overtake the nostalgia: "In a field in Pennsylvania I looked out on the rise / I saw the mighty serpent, the devil in his eyes / My heart knew his great poison but my feet marched just the same / Through the valley of death, my head held high callin' Virginia's name."

Musically, Time to Roll sounds modernized - many songs have spacious, studio-magic atmospheres that give the dobros, shakers, acoustic guitars and Breiding's voice an epic sound. The more electrified tracks show off Breiding's and Jeff Stevens' hot guitar licks, often reminiscent of Tom Petty, Dire Straits or even Pretenders records. All in all, quality music that looks forward more than it does back.

Breiding seems to share a frustration with a music industry that lost interest in selling this type of authenticity at least a decade ago. He sings, "This ain't California, ain't no milk and honey here," and if the current musical climates do nothing else, they spur on those artists in search of something older, bigger, and more real than even itself.

Pittsburgh Tribune Review - April, 2006
By Regis Behe
Guitarist Breiding to unveil Time to Roll

It's not unusual for Tom Breiding to come home from a gig and head directly to his home studio, staying up until dawn. Nor is it odd for him to sequester himself in the studio for hours at a time on weekends, or during the week when he comes home from work.

Breiding is so consumed by music that some cultural references elude him.

"What's '24'?" he responds, before remembering it's the television show starring Kiefer Sutherland.

Chances are "24" might not be to Breiding's liking anyway. The thought of a 24-hour day is too limiting for a guy who says, "There's a definite sense of urgency for me with my music."

The fire that fuels Breiding's desire to write, to record and to perform is evident on his new CD, "Time to Roll," which will be unveiled Saturday at Cefalo's in Carnegie. Recorded with guitarist Jeff Stevens, bassist Mike "Pit" Mozena and Chris Moore on drums, the album is a departure from his past releases.

"I've known these guys almost all my life," says Breiding, 42, who grew up in Wheeling, W.Va., and played with the trio in the Mid-1980s. "And this is the first band record I've ever made…All the other records I've made I've approached song by song, sometimes maybe lumping three songs together and using the same rhythm section, but always finishing it with different musicians."

For most of his life - at least since he was 15 and playing guitar with a bar band that had steady weekend gigs at a 24-hour establishment in McMechen, W.Va. - Breiding has been a musician. His songwriting skills first began to emerge in the late '90s with the releases "Guitar and Pen" and "Happy Hour in the Round Hotel."

With "Time to Roll," it's apparent that he's ratcheted up this aspect of his music. Songs such as "Lest This Soul Shall Go Astray," and "Daddy's Old Black Hearse" have a simple, direct and poignant lyricism that eludes many songwriters.

"Ain't No Quittin' Side of Me," on the other hand, starts out with the lines "In a field in Pennsylvania I looked out on the rise / I saw the mighty serpent, the devil in his eyes." Immediately a listener conjures up images of the Flight 93 tragedy of Sept. 11, but the song then takes a different tack: It's actually about another seminal event in American history, the Battle of Gettysburg.

Perhaps the best and most telling song on the album, however, is "My Martha," a driving rocker that, superficially seems like a love song. But Breiding has long admitted he's unable to write relationship songs, and this tune is no exception.

"I started to think about the name Martha, and then Duane Allman's song "Little Martha," he says. "Instead of a relationship song about a woman, I thought, 'Martha is my music, and my relationship with music all these years,' and then the music came really fast.

"It's the whole idea of growing up and how music is all you want to do. Everybody tells you that you can't do it for a living, that you have to find something else…But here I am, 42 years old, and it hasn't gone away. I've drifted away from it at times, but not really. It's just like somebody you don't see every day, but you still think about them.

Observer Reporter - Tuesday, March 21, 2006
By Harry Funk
Tom Breiding

When I came up with the idea about a year ago for an online music feature, my first thought was: Tom Breiding.

I've known Tom, a songwriter/singer/guitarist who lives in Peters Township, for the better part of a decade now, and I always enjoy hearing him play. And I'm particularly impressed by his ability to work up a good tune that clicks with focused lyrics and some catchy hooks. He has plenty of those in his catalog.

Last year, I caught up with him just as he was finishing a project called "Guitar and Pen, Vol. 2," a collection of songs he'd written but hadn't recorded to date. The disc represented his first efforts at recording in his own studio, and the effort shows he's mastered yet another step in the music-making process.

For 2006, he's taken his studio expertise to the next level with "Time to Roll," the new album by Tom Breiding & American Son.

"This is the first band record I've done," he says, "and the first opportunity I have to support the record with live shows that are indicative of what's on the record.

His bandmates in American Son are guys he played with in his native Wheeling during his formative years in the '80s: guitarist Jeff Stevens, bass player Pit Mozena and drummer Chris Moore. They've been working since last spring on the new songs, most of which were written specifically for "Time to Roll."

The one exception "Ain't No Quittin' Side of Me," which was on hold while it was under consideration for use in "Fields of Freedom," a film about the Battle of Gettysburg. Tom tells us what happened with that deal in another song, "The Music Plays On":

"Thirty-six dollars to Hollywood, overnight/Producer says, 'Yeah, man, this song's just right!'/Two months later, I'm sleepin' on the floor/He calls to say they found a giant to write the whole score."

The song's lyrics also are one of two sources for the album's title. The phrase also appears in "Manifold Road," a car-based metaphor that's named for the street intersecting with Route 19 near Washington.

Another of the album's highlights is "What I Wouldn't Do," which opens with an intriguing echo effect on Tom's vocals, with a guitar played through a Leslie-speaker filter as the focal point of instrumentation. The song serves as further proof that Tom's expertise extends to production work along with his other skills.

As he's done with previous releases, Tom worked with Wheeling studio whiz Jamie Peck, who worked on the mastering and played synthesizer on "Ain't No Quittin' Side of Me." Also making an appearance is Bill Toms on "My Martha," which develops into a substantial guitar workout.

"Martha" is reminiscent of the work Tom has done with Bill's band, Hard Rain. That group's latest album, "The West End Kid," has fared well since its release last fall, hitting No. 100 on the Americana Chart.

The release show for "Time to Roll" is scheduled for April 29 at Cefalo's in Carnegie. Opening will be Bill Toms & Hard Rain, along with Kick Start (Jeff, Pit and Chris with their buddy John Kirchner).

A CD release party is set for May 12 at Moondog's in Blawnox, also featuring a performance by Norman Nardini.

Other Tom Breiding & American Son shows are with Joe D'Urso & Stone Caravan, on June 9 in Morgantown, W.Va., and June 10 at the Rhythm House in Bridgeville.

And Tom continues to play his Saturday afternoon acoustic shows with Bill Toms at Leaf & Bean in the Strip District. It's time to roll over there to hear some fantastic music.

Click here to view this article online.

Press for "Bill Toms and Hard Rain - The West End Kid"

Observer Reporter - Tuesday, October 25, 2005
By Harry Funk
Doing it right

Here's the formula for a successful CD release party:

Book it in an acoustically superior venue.
Schedule some talented opening acts.
Kick out the jams and keep everyone rockin' for hours on end.
Release a killer CD from which to draw material.

There you have it. And it was executed to perfection by Bill Toms and Hard Rain on Saturday night at Cefalo's Restaurant & Nightclub in Carnegie.

If you haven't been to Cefalo's, check it out. The restaurant/showplace is inside a renovated church - the type of building that was constructed with acoustics in mind. Combine that with a clear sound system, and everyone can enjoy the music (and good food, too, from what I'm told).

Preceding Bill's band to the stage were Joey Murphy, solo with acoustic guitar, and Tom Breiding and American Son, a four-piece band.

Joey performed a set of her originals, her husky, well-projected voice and catchy strumming providing an atmospheric opener as the crowd settled in for a night of rock 'n' roll. And Tom's band rocked, drawing material from several of his albums, including closing the set with my personal favorite of his: "You Don't Want to Lose Her," from "Happy Hour in the Round Hotel" (named after the departed Peters Township tavern). The talented Jill Simmons joined in to lend her vocal talents to that tune's chorus.

Tom, of course, also is a member of Bill Toms and Hard Rain, so he strapped on his Telecaster again for the evening's main attraction, a show celebrating the release of Bill's "The West End Kid." (Scroll down for more about this fine recording.)

The band was smokin' all night, with all the guys putting their many years of experience on full display: Bill and several other band members also are members of the locally legendary Houserockers. So of course, the head Houserocker, Joe Grushecky, guested on several songs, blazing away on his Schecter. Another guest was Marc Reisman (yet one more Houserocker), wailing away on his collection of Marine Bands.

Others musicians joined forces with Bill and his band throughout the evening (at one point, we counted 10 people on stage) for a thoroughly entertaining show that had a good bit of the packed house dancing, and most of the crowd alternately drained from the high energy and wanting to hear more.

Talk about doing it right.

Click here to view this article online.

Press for "Guitar And Pen II"

Observer Reporter - Friday, May 20, 2005
By Harry Funk
New Tom Breiding album

Click here to browse the Observer Reporter's Sound Files to download clips from Tom Breiding.

While going through some old tapes, Tom Breiding found a recording he made with fellow guitarist Kirk Engel working out a bluesy original called "Two Time Love."

Hearing the song again brought back some fond memories of their collaboration in Tom's band, American Son. But it certainly made for a bittersweet experience, as Kirk had passed away in the interim.

As a tribute to him, "Two Time Love" is seeing the light of day as part of a medley, with excerpts from the lo-fi recording bracketing a song Tom composed in memory of Kirk.

"I wrote 'Pretty Words' as soon as I came home from the funeral home," he said.

"Two Time Love (verses from the writing session)/Pretty Words/Two Time Love (bridge)" serves as the centerpiece for Breiding?Äôs seventh album, "Guitar and Pen, Vol. II."

The original "Guitar and Pen," recorded live in 1998 at Leaf & Bean in Peters Township, is just Tom with his axe, playing and singing his own compositions. "Vol. II" follows much the same pattern, except that he recorded most of the material himself in his home studio, also in Peters.

"Most of them are songs that never found their way into releases," he said. "I really liked some of them, but they didn't fit the format of what I was releasing at the time."

His last three releases - "Happy Hour in the Round Hotel," "American Son" and "Two Tone Chevrolet" - have been with full bands and tend to feature a harder-edged sound. Tom describes the tunes on "Vol. II" more as "songs from the heart, songs for songs' sake."

"I'm so busy with other things, I thought, these things are never going to be released unless I get something going soon." Along with the Kirk Engel tribute, "Vol. II" also features some other special touches. Tom's son, Jack, makes a guest appearance on "The Magic of Christmas," wishing everyone a happy holiday. Now 9 and taking drum lessons, Jack also lends a percussion track to one of the tunes.

Tom also says in the liner notes that he wrote a song called "My Hometown" during the week of 9/11, a time when many songwriters were committing their feelings about the events to music.

Keep an eye out for Tom's appearances this summer, both solo and with American son. And look for Tom as a member of former Houserocker Bill Toms' band, Hard Rain.

posted by Harry Funk

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Friday, April 01, 2005
By Ed Masley
Pittsburgh Calling, TOM BREIDING

The sound: Acoustic story songs that range from heartfelt post-Stone Pony American rock to gritty porch-front blues.

Tom's Back Pages: Now a sideman in Bill Toms' Hard Rain, this Wheeling native also fronts his own band, American Son. He began his recording career in 1992 with "Railroad Town," and has followed it up with a series of acclaimed releases.

This Year's Model: "Guitar and Pen Vol. II" is, as the title would suggest, a sequel to "Guitar and Pen," an earlier collection of Breiding alone on acoustic guitar. The rationale? "These are mostly songs that have been sitting around for a long time and most of them I really liked, but they just never found a place on any of my previous releases."

Nardini's choice: Local blues-rocker Norman Nardini calls the best song on the album, "Fifteen Minutes," Breiding's best song ever. And he may be on to something there. It's his "Summer of '69," a haunting meditation on his childhood dreams. It starts with Breiding and his buddies tossing guitars in the back of his '68 Ford, just trying to stretch their 15 minutes by an hour or two, and ends with the hard-working songwriter wondering why his friends have given up and moved on with their lives while he's still hanging on. It's poignant stuff, and Breiding puts it out there with total conviction.

Why he left it off his other albums: "I didn't know what to do with it," he says. "I wrote it as kind of a rock 'n' roll song and recorded it like that, but it didn't sound good." The idea for this project was to take those songs that didn't sound right with the band and put them out there as they were, in demo form.

Up next: "I've got all these Appalachian songs, old-timey songs that I'm writing that I want to put together. And I've also started writing some real rocking stuff for the band to record." He's also in the studio with Hard Rain. Breiding says, "I love it. I keep telling Bill this is the record I wanted to make when I was 15. Man, it's rockin'. There's not an acoustic guitar on the whole thing."

On the importance of having a band: "I'm writing more of the rock 'n' roll stuff recently," he says. "I've always done that. It's just that a lot of them haven't found their way to records or I've written a lot and never really finished them. Maybe there was no avenue for me to play them at the time. I never really had a band that I could count on until recently."

On why he's just as happy doing the solo acoustic thing: "It's my initial love," he says, "to write a song and just record it and to hear it back as a finished product. There's nothing like that. You start out with a blank piece of paper and a couple hours later, you have this audio that you can listen to. I still love that probably more than anything else I do."

The show: You can catch Breiding Saturday night at the Starlite Lounge where The Threepenny Opry finds Breiding sharing a stage with Jay Hitt, Eve Goodman, Jeff Miller, Howard Davidson & Friends and a rare appearance by the some-would-say reclusive Phil Harris of Hector in Paris. Kickoff is at 8 p.m. The Starlite Lounge is at 364 Freeport Road in Blawnox. 412-828-9842. There is no cover but donations are requested.

Click here to view this story on the Post Gazette Website.

Pittsburgh Tribune Review - Sunday, March 27, 2005
By Regis Behe
High-caliber talent flies below the radar in Western PA

During a recent interview, lead singer Chris Allen of Rosavelt expressed admiration for the local music scene, noting that his hometown of Cleveland failed to match Pittsburgh's diversity.

While I'm not familiar with the breadth or quality of music in Cleveland, I do agree there is an incredible range of talent in this region. New faces, such as Emily Rodgers, a young singer from Lawrenceville, emerge every week, it seems. Rodgers and her band, Her Majesty's Stars, have the ability to become a regional, if not national, touring act.

For every young musician of promise, however, there are three or four who have quietly been producing music for years. Take Tom Breiding, Tom Duda and Mike Sweeney. They aren't the best-known musicians in Western Pennsylvania, but they are among the most accomplished. All have recently released CDs that deserve to be heard.

Breiding, who lives in McMurray, Washington County, has quietly built an impressive body of work with releases including "American Son" and "Two Tone Chevrolet." His new CD, "Guitar and Pen, Vol. II," finds him going the solo acoustic route, with great success. Breiding is an excellent storyteller, and on "Guitar and Pen" his vocals are reminiscent of John Mellencamp's: simple, direct and affecting.

Duda's "Instrumental Telepathy" is the polar opposite of Breiding's CD. As the title indicates, the songs are instrumentals and range from the cocktail lounge feel of "Blue Moon Serenade" to "Funk 'N Pie," which sounds like it could have been an outtake from a Tower of Power session. The blues-drenched "Charlane's Allure" features some tasty organ and piano courtesy of Chuck Leavell, who's toured with the Allman Brothers and Rolling Stones. Duda, of Latrobe, plays guitar and bass throughout, but he generously shares the spotlight with musicians such as saxophonist Eric DeFade, keyboard player Bill Hubauer and Pete Freeman on pedal steel guitar. When Duda does step forward -- check out his solo on "Rocket Sled" -- he shows himself to be one of the area's better, if somewhat anonymous, guitarists.

Sweeney, who lives on the South Side, is a musician's musician, having worked with Breiding, Shari Richards, Glenn Pavone and numerous others in the area. Two CDs he recorded with a loose aggregation of musicians under the name Hoodoo Drugstore indicate he's an excellent composer of bluesy, barrelhouse rock with strains of country and zydeco woven into the mixes. Sweeney wrote or co-wrote all the songs on "Misfits, Murderers & Madmen" and "Root Doctor" and played bass. He enlisted two fine vocalists, D.C. Fitzgerald and Robert Peckman, for the vocals, and if you didn't know better, you'd think these CDs were recorded in Memphis, Biloxi or some other port of call beneath the Mason-Dixon line.

None of these discs is going to hit the Billboard charts. Sales probably are measured in the hundreds, not thousands. But all are worth a listen. As Duda writes on the CD cover to "Instrumental Telepathy," "The next good thing is often overlooked while waiting for The Next Big Thing."

Press for "Two Tone Chevrolet"

Pittsburgh City Paper - Wednesday, July 21, 2004
By Justin Hopper
MAIN EVENT

Tom Breiding's got Pittsburgh - and the U.S. of A. - summed up pretty damn good on "Goodbye Town": There's been a lot of talk, a lot of schemes / a lot of downright lies / you live long enough on broken dreams / it ain't hard to figure out why." There's a legion of reasons this area turns out so many top-notch, Springsteen-esque melancholy blue-collar soliloquists like Grushecky, Bill Toms and Tom Breiding: It's like an honest-American been-wronged song goldmine around here, from Homestead '92 to Act 47. On Two Tone Chevrolet, Breiding's new album it sometimes seems like Breiding's got a membership to the goose-bump-lyric of the month club: "Gary '55" is sadder than its cousin of the same make by Tom Waits; "Gettin' Used to Gettin' Over You," complete with mournful pedal steel, would sound better only if George Jones were singing it. (Wouldn't everything?) Breiding's sixth album has its downsides - particularly the Hallmark-intensifying keyboards on "My Old Man and Me" - but they're few, and they're things we can all get used to gettin' over. Raise a shot and a beer to Breiding and gig-mate Bill Toms at the lush bar of Club Cafe - may not be the club's usual booze fare, but it's the appropriate, and deserving, honor for one of the Pittsburgh area's longest-serving songwriters.

Tom Breiding and Bill Toms and Hard Rain perform at 8p.m. Wed. July 28. Club Cafe, South Side. 412-431-4950

Observer Reporter - Wednesday, June 16, 2004
By Harry Funk
Cars, guitars on musician's mind

You have to wonder about what it takes to make it in the music business.

Maybe it's a lip-synching strumpet gyrating around in just enough clothing to please the censors. Or a bunch of guys playing their guitars and screaming so loud you can't really hear what they're doing.

Talent? That seems to be far down on the list of priorities.

While certain such "artists" achieve widespread notoriety, other musicians direct their skills toward more selective audiences, gaining a good deal of respect along the way.

Tom Breiding has been honing his singing, guitar playing and songwriting talents since the early 80's, from his hometown of Wheeling W.Va., to his current residence in Peters Township, and points in between.

He's played in bands, been on the staff of a Nashville publishing company and has recorded several albums, primarily of his own compositions.

His latest, "Two-Tone Chevrolet," is brand new. In fact, he just celebrated with release parties at Moondogs in Blawnox and the Hard Rock Cafe at Station Square in Pittsburgh.

Tom has carved a niche as a chronicler of small-town American, and his new CD continues in that vein, from the cover art shot at the Motordrome in Smithton to the subject matter of many of the songs.

The disc's title comes from "Gary's '55," a song about the "sweetest car alive," which none of Gary's minimum-wage co-workers ever saw - until it was too late.

Tom wrote that one himself, as he did for another of the album's highlights, "Back Roads." The tune ostensibly deals with the dreams of youth gone sour, but a catchy melody (buoyed by producer Jamie Peck's pennywhistle) helps deliver an ultimately optimistic message, "things would all work out someday."

"It's a real up-tempo record," Tom says noting that it contains only one ballad, the heartfelt "My Old Man and Me."

On a couple of songs, Tom collaborated with songwriting pro Steve Dean, who's had a good deal of success on the country charts. In fact, their "Gettin' Used to Gettin' Over You" would blend right in with the best cuts in regular rotation on country radio stations.

A Pittsburgh writer, Mike Sweeny, collaborated with Tom on "Stock Car King" (the vehicular theme figures very prominently on the disc), and Mike receives sole credit for the rollicking "Dynamite Truck." Another veteran of the Pittsburgh rock scene, Bill Toms plays guitar of that track.

Speaking of whom, Tom is a regular member of the band Bill Toms and Hard Rain. That's when he's not leading his own group, American Son, or playing solo shows.

Speaking of which, Tom Breiding will bring his guitar to the Main Street Farmers' Market tomorrow as featured performer. So if you're anywhere near Washington - or even if you're not - stop on by for some quality music to go along with the quality products offered by local vendors.

And enjoy the type of talent that doesn't have to skirt the edge of decency or hearing impairment to entertain.

Harry Funk is associate editor for the Observer-Reporter. He can be reached at hfunk@observer-reporter.com.

Pittsburgh Tribune Review - Monday, June 7, 2004
By Regis Behe
Car restoration inspires songwriter's latest CD

When he got a 1970 Chevelle from his aunt 18 years ago, Tom Breiding put it to good use. The musician logged almost 130,000 miles on it, using the car as his full-time vehicle for five or six years before getting a better ride.

When his aunt died three years ago, Breiding decided it was time to restore the Chevelle. After coming home from his job teaching English at a grade school, he'd spend evenings getting his hands dirty.

"I sensed there could be some good songs coming out of this," he says. "The whole time I was working on it, I was thinking that.

Many of the songs inspired by the Chevelle's restoration are included on "Two Tone Chevrolet," which Breiding will debut Wednesday at the Hard Rock Cafe in Station Square.

Despite the title, "Two Tone Chevrolet" is not merely a collection of songs about cars. As in his previous recordings, "American Son" and "Happy Hour in the Round Hotel," Breiding writes about the ordinary Joes who roll up their sleeves every day and go to work; his backdrops are the working-class neighborhoods that can be found in any small town from Pittsburgh to Wheeling, W.Va., where he grew up. Like Bruce Springsteen and Pittsburgh's Joe Grushecky, Breiding braces his lyrics with guitar-oriented rock music that's straightforward and direct, and delivers an emotional punch.

"Before anything else in my life, there was music," he says. "If there was one thing I was sure I was going to do, it was play music. Of course, when I was a kid, I was sure I was going to be a star."

Instead, Breiding became an English Teacher - he currently teaches at St. Thomas More School in Bethel Park - and played in a cover band before he started writing his own songs. At first, progress was slow - out of an initial batch of 50 songs, producer Jamie Peck selected four to record in 1988.

But Breiding got better. "Happy Hour in the Round Hotel," released in 2000, was a series of character sketches based on conversations of the type one would hear at a neighborhood bar. The four-song EP he released in 2002, "American Son," was devoted to the decline of the steel industry in the region.

If "Two Tone Chevrolet" has a connecting thread, it's movement, whether it's the characters traveling on "Back Roads," the implication of travel in "One Way Ticket" or the sheer escapism of "Stock Car King," a song Breiding wrote with South Side musician and songwriter Mike Sweeney.

Breiding, however, confesses that his themes only emerge in retrospect. Many of his first efforts at songwriting were about trains, the barges on the Ohio River and the steel mills of the Ohio Valley that were the landscape of his native Wheeling.

"That's when I realized that stuff was a big part of who I was," he says.

Those working-class themes enabled Breiding to hook up with Bill Toms and Hard Rain as a guitarist, and he frequently plays gigs with Grushecky and the Houserockers. It's a tribe he's comfortable in, one that he appreciates and suits his material.

"I can't tell you what it means to me to be part of other people who are like me and are doing what I do," he says. "We all value the same things. We're just ordinary guys."

Regis Behe can be reached at rbehe@tribweb.com.

Press for "American Son"

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Sunday, February 03, 2002
By Dave Zuchowski
The Arts: Peters musician plans 'spontaneous' performance at Kofenya

Tom Breiding, 38, says music has been his passion since boyhood. To prove his point, all he has to do is show the sitting room of his comfy Peters home. There, an electric keyboard nudges against the front window and an assortment of six acoustic and electric guitars hang from a rack on the opposite wall.

"My really good ones are still in their cases," he says of the six or seven additional guitars that make up his collection.

While the main reason for our interview was to discuss his upcoming performance at Kofenya's Cafe in McMurray, a quick run down of his background is crucial to understanding his music.

"I write a lot of story songs, songs about steel towns, fathers and sons, and the working man," said the self-taught musician and composer. "When I write, I like to create characters and situations people will be interested in. It's the lyrics, the story line behind everything, that entertains my audience."

A native of Wheeling, W.Va., Breiding has had a way with words since childhood. It's a trait that made him an English major at West Liberty State College and, following graduation, an English teacher for the past 14 years. He has been the English and reading instructor at St. Thomas More School in Bethel Park since 1999.

While teaching suits him to a T, it's evident by talking to him that it's music and composing that really turn him on. Over the past 18 years, he's written a couple hundred songs, some of which were collaborations with composer giants like Steve Dean, who wrote Reba McEntire's "Walk On" and Alabama's "Southern Star."

In 1991, Breiding landed a position as staff writer with the Tom Collins Music Corp. in Nashville, Tenn., where he worked for a year. At that time, Collins was the largest independent publisher on Nashville's Music Row and was responsible for helping launch the careers of singers such as Barbara Mandrell and Ronnie Milsap.

While country has influenced the music he writes, much of Breiding's output is a mix of genres that includes elements of blues, folk and rock. A lover of all types of music, Breiding started listening to pop songs in the early '70s. Today, you're as likely to hear classical music playing in his home as the new U2 album or Glen Campbell's Greatest Hits.

Similar to his upcoming appearance at Kofenya, about 90 percent of Breiding's live performances are solo gigs, sung and played on acoustical guitar. For the remaining appearances, he teams up on electric guitar with bass guitarist Nathan Peck, guitarist Kirk Engel and drummer Alex Peck. In either case, the focus of the music is on his original compositions.

Voted Pittsburgh's "Best Acoustical Performer" in 2000 by City Search, a Web service at http://pittsburgh.citysearch.com, Breiding says he can play his songs almost anywhere -- in front of a country audience at the Capitol Music Hall in Wheeling (where he's performed three times), for a rock audience at Nick's Fat City on Pittsburgh's South Side (where he's opened for Joe Grushecky), or at Moondog's in Blawnox, which caters to a blues and rock crowd.

"In smaller intimate settings like Kofenya, I can be spontaneous," he said. "I walk in, start playing and see where everything goes. In larger venues, I can't afford that luxury and play according to a predetermined format."

While Breiding tries to write his music within the parameters of the hit radio repertoire -- three-minute pop songs with a moving story line -- he once worked on a song that took him a year to finish.

"Longest, Darkest Day" is drawn from the 1972 Buffalo Creek mine disaster in which 125 people died and thousands were left homeless when three slate dams broke after a heavy rainfall, and swept through eight West Virginia towns.

"I became enthralled with the story of these people and did extensive research, including reading accounts of eye witnesses and survivors," he said. "In writing the song, I tried to make it as historically accurate as possible as well as dramatic enough to capture in words and melody the suffering these people went through."

"Longest, Darkest Day" will be the focal point of his next CD, (his sixth) tentatively titled "Dark River." Breiding also intends to perform the song at his upcoming appearance at Kofenya.

To date, "Steel Town Blues" is his most requested song, his personal favorite, one of the first ones he wrote and the one that got him the job with Collins. The story line deals with growing up in a small steel town, moving away, then looking back and realizing how much your roots and beginnings are part of you.

Breiding says he's worked so hard in his relatively long career and that he's come so close to becoming successful that it's made him realize the fine line between making it and not making it in the music business. A lot of it has to do with commitment and perseverance.

"Even if I don't make it big, I'll still be content knowing I've created a musical legacy on the plight of poor people," he said. "It's a legacy I'll be proud to pass along to my 6-year-old son, Jack."

Breiding can be heard live at Kofenya's, 210 Valley Brook Road in McMurray, from 9 p.m. to midnight Friday. He'll also perform during the Sweet Sunday fund-raiser for the Washington City Mission from 2 to 7 p.m. next Sunday in the Holiday Inn-Meadowlands. Visit Breiding's Web site at http://www.tombreiding.com.

Dave Zuchowski is a free-lance writer who covers arts and entertainment for Washington Sunday. He can be reached by e-mail at: owlscribe@yahoo.com.

Click here to view this story on the Post Gazette Website.

Pittsburgh Tribune Review - Thursday, August 16, 2001
by Regis Behe

Area songwriter standing up for steel crisis

THIS JUST IN - One of the best local releases of the year is Tom Breiding's four-song EP, "American Son." Echoing Bruce Springsteen's "Greetings From Asbury Park," the Wheeling, W.Va., native details the forgotten plight of steelworkers in songs such as "End of the Line" and "Take It From Me."

Politics aside, "American Son" is a tuneful, sometimes rollicking collection of songs that especially benefits from Jamie Peck's piano accompaniment. Drummer Alex Peck, bassist Nathan Peck and guitarist Roger Hoard round out the musicians on a recording that, at four songs, is far too short.

Breiding's 7 p.m. show today at Rosebud in Strip District is billed as an effort to heighten awareness to the current domestic steel crisis. Presented by the United Steelworkers and the Stand Up for Steel Coalition, tickets are $10 at the door. Bill Toms and Hard Rain are the opening act.

Rosebud is at 1650 Smallman St. in the Strip.

Tom Breiding will play a show to raise awareness about the domestic steel crisis at 7 p.m. today at Rosebud in the Strip District. (Guitar & Pen photo)

City Paper - August 15, 2001 - August 22, 2001
writer: JORDAN WEEKS

Steeling the Show

MUSIC PREVIEW - Who's gonna' listen to a guy with a guitar?" asks local veteran singer-songwriter and Venitia resident Tom Breiding over the phone, laughing at the implicit irony. He knows that he hasn't gotten this far in his recent quest to raise awareness about the crisis facing American steelworkers with that kind of defeatist position. He's bound and determined to make an impact regarding the issue.

Breiding has organized a show at Rosebud this Thursday as a heads-up about the increasing number of steel mill closings in our region and especially in his hometown of Wheeling, West Virginia, where the problem has hit a little too close to home.

"My brother just lost his job in April," says Breiding. "His mill shut down. The Wheeling and Weirton area in particular, and up in Beaver -- there are other pockets around Pittsburgh, too, that are being affected by the situation.

"Wheeling relies on that industry for survival," he continues. "The area's deteriorated so much in the last twenty years, that if the steel industry goes, it'll really be bad down there. The people that aren't in the mills are so affected by them closing down, that's what's really sad. I've watched my hometown deteriorate to practically nothing. The downtown area ... it's not even a shadow of what it used to be. And if the steel industry closes down, it affects every aspect of the economy, and it only gets worse."

Also this past April, Breiding released American Son, a four-song EP relating directly to the steel crisis affecting his brother, his whole family, and, by extension, the entire country.

"The title cut, 'American Son,' really deals with people that are affected by this," says Breiding. "It's just in support of the American steelworker who's faced with losing his job to foreign steel. And that's what it is. It's about my brother. And about my hometown. That's really what it's about."

So what exactly is happening that's causing this crisis? Breiding, maintaining that he's not an expert on the subject, is reluctant to go into specifics. But he offers, "The basic thing is this: We have this global economy, and the trade laws are no longer enforced. Other countries are dumping their steel here, and the imports have been increased ... over the last two years. And there was one major dumping in 1998, in about a three-month period, and it just wiped out a lot of the small American steel companies. ... I think there are over fifteen steel companies that have filed Chapter Eleven in the last two years."

A singer-songwriter with a pleasant everyman's voice, Breiding has a knack for churning out winsome, country-tinged roots-rock in the vein of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. He describes the songs on his most recent full-length release, Happy Hour in the Round Hotel (2000), as "conversational -- like what you'd overhear at a bar." This makes sense, especially considering that the album is named after an area bar that Tom used to frequent. Opened in the 1940s, the place closed down last year, but Breiding has effectively kept its homey spirit alive with his release.

It's this kind of personal songwriting that has peppered Breiding's nearly 20-year career. During that time he was a staff writer for Tom Collins at renowned Nashville independent publishing venture Collins Music Corporation, which led to the purchase of his song catalog by Acuff Rose/Opryland Music in November 1999.

There have been a couple of glitches relating to the Rosebud show. For instance, due to unforeseen circumstances, the original spokespeople set to talk about the steel crisis at the show won't be there. But that hasn't discouraged the intrepid Breiding. "It's for a good cause," he asserts, "a cause that I've worked real hard for. I've worked really hard to put this show together, and the show's gonna go on."

"A humanist to the bone," Breiding is quick to offer, "I'm not a fanatical union guy, I'm not a fanatical labor guy. I never made a conscious effort to do this; it's just always been in my heart. It's just something that's real close to me. I just see my hometown, and it's really sad what's happening. And I'm concerned about it."

Tom Breiding and American Son plus Bill Toms and Hard Rain perform at 7 p.m. Thu., Aug 16, at Rosebud, Strip District. 412-261-2232.

In Pittsburgh - 8/15/01 - 8/21/01
by Jamie Mcleod

TOM BREIDING @ ROSEBUD

No one who witnessed the collapse of Pittsburgh's once booming steel mills during the mid-1980s can deny the impact that the void has had on both the physical and psychological landscape of Western Pennsylvania. As part of their continuous effort to prevent further injury to the already mortally wounded American steel industry, the United Steelworkers and the Stand Up for Steel Coalition are sponsoring a concert at Rosebud featuring folk musician Tom Breiding. Their hope is to heighten local awareness of the current domestic steel crisis. Breiding, who dedicated his most recent release, American Son, to the people like those in the region "who rely on steel for survival," is just the man to do it. The four songs on the EP tell stories of hard-working Americans trying to bear up under the burden of unemployment as their hometowns deteriorate. The title track, which tells the story of a Gulf War veteran who comes home only to lose his job, is just the type of sentiment Pittsburghers can understand, which is perhaps why CitySearch.com users voted the Wheeling native "Pittsburgh's Best Acoustic Performer" for the year 2000.

Valley Independent - Wednesday, August 15, 2001
By Jeff Pikulsky - Staff Writer

Artist makes music with steely resolve, passion and purpose

West Virginia native Tom Breiding has, through music, captured the gritty, hard-working persona of the American steelworker.

Even though Breiding, 38, now lives in McMurray, he continues to sing about the struggling steel industry that so many families were dependent upon decades ago - and today.

Surprisingly, Breiding has never worked in a steel mill. Neither have his parents.

But Breiding was aware of the industry's decline, especially in his hometown of Wheeling, and he was inspired to carry the tale to the public in a powerful and entertaining way.

Breiding has become a musical spokesman for mill workers, telling tales of hardship and perseverance via his personal brand of American folk rock.

STEEL AS ART - With cars of coke passing behind him, singer-songwriter Tom Breiding discusses his musical craft. (Jim Ference/The Valley Independent photo)

The artist says he draws fuel from the dignity and reliance of the American steel worker and from acquaintances who have struggled to survive in the trade.

The result was "American Son," Breiding's latest, four-song album.

Through music, Breiding portrays the state of the industry and reflects the stern lifestyle of the people who have or still work in it.

"The mills were more of a visual thing for me," Breiding said. "You see those mills lighting up the sky; it's just beautiful."

The self-taught musician said his songwriting technique is basic, drawn from the manner in which the steel industry has impacted his life.

Breiding said he never learned to read music. He primarily relies on feeling and emotion when he writes.

His most recent songs tell a story of Americans working hard to preserve their families and their country.

The opening song, "End of the Line," demonstrates Breiding's rich voice and powerful lyrical imagery and portrays a dying breed of mill worker.

"While his prayers went to heaven, the jobs went to hell. Now that big old mill is just an empty shell. He tries to make ends meet the best he can. He's waiting for an answer. Lord help that man," he sings.

Breiding incorporates experiences from his past in an acoustic ballad titled "Take It From Me," which details a fictitious meeting with a stranger left unemployed when the mill shut down.

In the chorus, the unfortunate stranger tells Breiding about the hard lesson he learned when his mill career suddenly ended.

"Son, you're young, you've got to stay tough. This world owes you nothing and nothing comes free. The day a man stops working is the day he starts losing all he was working for. This I know, take it from me."

As Breiding works his opinions into the stories, the music takes on a natural feel.

Breiding said his style has been compared to some American rock icons since most of his songs tell stories, but he dismisses that as coincidence.

"There are a few guys I try to emulate and they just happen to be the male singer-songwriters - Springsteen, Petty and Mellencamp," he said.

Breiding said he admires singers of that genre and their collective gift of presenting strong imagery.

Breiding expresses strong emotions in a laid-back groove on the album's title track, "American Son," promoting the idea that everyone's hometown environment affects his or her development as a person.

In the song, Breiding alludes to the impact of foreign corporations on domestic steel and American jobs.

Breiding employs the perspective of a Gulf War veteran to set the mood.

The album's closing song, "This Town," relates directly to Breiding's early life in his hometown and how his experiences there made him who he is today.

"That song is very specific. I was one of the ones saying, 'God I have to get out of here.'" Breiding said. "Then you grow up and mature and look back at some of the people that stayed, and they are some of my closest friends.

"I just think it's very admirable, those people that stayed. That alone makes them worth singing about. I'm just a guy that grew up in an area that happened to survive on steel. I'm proud of where I came from and I just hate to see it go."

Breiding said his hometown, an area once booming with steel production, now struggles to survive.

"As I got older, the decline began and now it's to the point that the only thing that is keeping that economy alive down there is the mills ... ," he said.

"It hasn't gone yet and that's what I'm singing about. I'm trying to make people aware that there are communities like this here in Monessen and Beaver County and the Ohio Valley ... "

Breiding said his songs are not about his own hardships but of the heartache of others.

"I don't want to sound like I've had hard times. I've been blessed," Breiding said.

Ironically, the decline of the industry recently did hit close to home for Breiding when the steel mill where his brother worked shut down three weeks after the release of "American Son."

That is the nightmare Breiding is trying to prevent through his musical efforts.

"The steel industry was the first thing in my lifetime where I could say if we do something about this maybe my hometown could survive," he said.

Breiding said songwriting, although primitive at first, came natural to him because he writes about his feelings.

The musician said he found his niche when he wrote "Railroad Town," a breakthrough song featured on his debut 20-song release titled "Guitar and Pen."

Breiding said his love for music and his passion about the steel industry is evident in his music, and that those who have heard him perform have extended gratitude.

Breiding said his interest in writing original material about the steel industry began when he moved to Pittsburgh in the mid-1980s after playing in rock cover bands.

A teacher at St. Thomas Moore Elementary School, Breiding says music is his true calling.

"The important thing to me is to keep making music on my own and to do good things with it," he continued.

Breiding's most recent unreleased work includes tracks about the coalfields of West Virginia. Although not familiar with that industry, Breiding said he was anxious to learn about it.

Breiding will continue to rely on his roots, and he expresses that belief through the final words of his latest album: "Who you are is where you come from."

TimesOnline.com - Thursday, August 16, 2001
By Scott Tady, Times Staff

'American Son' toils for the working man

CENTER STAGE - Tom Breiding watched the area's steel industry implode and decided to do something about it.

Specifically, he wrote four songs chronicling the plight, hopes and enduring spirit of steelworkers and their families.

He hopes that in some small way those songs, which appear on his new "American Son" CD, will bolster and bring awareness to an industry struggling to survive in a new world order based on global economics.

The Wheeling, W.Va., native, who now lives in McMurray, will sing those songs and selections from his four previous albums during a show at 7 tonight at Rosebud in Pittsburgh's Strip District.

The show is billed as "A Show of Support for American Steel." The United Steelworkers union had agreed to sponsor the show, with a large contingent planning to attend, until discovering Rosebud would be using nonunion workers to set up the stage. In protest, they plan to stay home, but for Breiding, whose brother works in an Ohio Valley mill, the show will go on.

"I'm just going to do what it is I do," says Breiding, who was chosen Pittsburgh's Best Acoustic Performer last year by CitySearch.com.

On "American Son," Breiding treads the same lyrical path as Bruce Springsteen, or, closer to home, Joe Grushecky. Closed-down mills and depressed river towns serve as the backdrop for Breiding's poignant songs.

The title track's lead character joined the military to fight for foreign oil, only to return home to lose his job to foreign steel.

"When a man stops working, he loses all he was working for," intones another down-on-his-luck character on "Take It From Me."

But in the end, the working-class heroes persevere - much like the singer himself, who toiled for more than 15 years in cover bands before focusing on writing original songs in 1997.

He went on to perform three times at Wheeling's famed Jamboree USA, opening up for Terry Clark, Ty Herndon and Kenny Chesney.

Breiding recorded "American Son" on the Railroad Town Records label, using some of the Wheeling area's most respected studio musicians, including Roger Hoard and the Pecks - Alex, Nathan and Jamie.

A few of those musicians will join Breiding tonight at Rosebud. The opening act will be Bill Toms and his band Hard Rain. Toms has been a member of Grushecky's acclaimed bar band, the Houserockers.

Scott Tady can be reached online at stady@calkinsnewspapers.com.

Press for "Happy Hour in the Round Hotel"

CitySearch.com - August 7, 2000
by Manny Theiner

The Verdict

A native of nearby Wheeling, W.V., he's played in cover bands for more than 15 years and was a staff songwriter for the Tom Collins publishing house on Nashville's legendary Music Row.

The Output

In 1997, he began to focus on an original format, and has released four albums. His third release, "Guitar and Pen," a 20-track anthology of previous studio work and 1998 live shows, was noted with considerable acclaim by Pittsburgh area newspapers for its honest, blue-collar lyrical approach on such songs as "Steeltown Blues."

The Appearances

Breiding has toured the regional Barnes and Noble circuit and also played with the likes of Freedy Johnston, Jane Siberry and Peter Himmelman. Locally, he can be seen at Rosebud, McMurray's Leaf and Bean coffeehouse and Club Cafe, where he premiered his latest CD, "Happy Hour from the Road Hotel," on July 28.

Tip Sheet

One of Pittsburgh's Best
Breiding has been compared to, and has shared the stage with, quintessential Pittsburgh blue-collar rocker Joe Grushecky.

File Between
"Born to Run" Springsteen and "Tom Joad" Springsteen.

Product Placement
Breiding is endorsed by Alvarez guitars.

Press for "Guitar and Pen"

In Pittsburgh - November 11, 1998
by Stephen H. Segal

You'd have thought the whole "nostalgic hometown boy and his guitar" thing would have been mined for all it as worth by the time Springsteen was done with it. And on the off chance the Jersey guy might have missed a couply choice sentiments because of their particularly Pittsburghish nature, you'd certainly have thought Joe Grushecky and Norm Nardini would have sung them all by now.

Enter Tom Breiding.

The Wheeling-native-turned-Pittsburgher has spent the past 10 years quietly penning ballad after ballad after ballad; they're collected on Guitar and Pen, which includes recent live performances, as well as tracks from Breiding's earlier two indie records.

You know where the album's going early on, hearing lyrics like "Goodbye, steeltown-hello steeltown blues." But it's to Breiding's great credit that he makes nearly every single piece of potentially schmaltzy strumming work. The poignant "A Picture of Him" is a father-son lament that tops classics like Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle," and "Float Me On Down This River" is a first-rate bit of live bluegrass picking that sonically fulfills the title's promise.

Ultimately, Guitar and Pen makes for an excellant companion to Grushecky's latest, Coming Home: While each can stand alone as a blue-collar ode to the region, Tom's rockin' punch are both bitter when you listen to them in the same context. Slap both discs into the changer, hit "random" and enjoy the post-steel soundscape.

Pittsburgh Post Gazette - October 6, 1998
by Ed Masley

Tom Breiding's "Steeltown Blues" is just the sort of song that made a local legend out of Joe Grushecky - a poignant, plain-spoken look at the shifting fortunes of an industrial town through the eyes of a child too young to understand.

"You wanted things your father could not give," he sings. "Ashamed of how your family had to live. But you were young and did not see his younger days and how it used to be."

It's one of 20 original songs on Breiding's self-released "Guitar and Pen," a collection that's bound to find the singer-songwriter, like Grushecky before him, compared to a popular stadium draw of the '80s.

"I've been kind of pigeonholed into the Springsteen thing and so forth, the blue-collar stuff," says the singer, who opens for Hal Ketchum tonight at Rosebud. "But if you listen to the disc, you'll find there's a lot of different types of songs."

And there are. But for the most part, it's the ongs that detail the personal struggles of working-class heroes that hit hardest. And if that's the sort of gift gets a guy compared to Bruce, there are worse fates.

Breiding only started writing his own material after years of playing cover tunes in rock 'n' roll bands. "I don't think a month went by for about a ten year period where I wasn't playing in a band," he says. "It was all rock 'n' roll, playing electric guitar. I didn't even own an acoustic guitar until a couple months after I started writing music."

Breiding's focus shifted from rock 'n' roll gigging to writing and playing acoustic guitar after moving to Coraopolis, where he teaches ninth- and 10th-grade English.

"When I moved up to this area from Wheeling, I didn't know too many people around," he says. "And I kind of got obsessed with writing music."

With encouragement from Jamie Peck, who runs a studio in Wheeling, Breiding cut some demos and landed a publishing deal in Nashville. That was seven years ago.

"It looked to me like that was gonna be my big break, and I was gonna do this for a living, be a songwriter," Breiding says. "I was told big things. And so I thought big things were gonna happen."

Six years passed and big things hadn't happened yet, so Breiding started playing shows as a solo acoustic act.

"Everything I had done to a certain point was a collection of demos I was sending to Nashville that I was being paid to do, and I wasn't performing the songs," he says. "I was going out on weekends and playing blues and rock 'n' roll just for kicks, but my writing career was a totally separate thing. I kept it anonymous for years, just waiting for the big break. I figured, you know, everybody will hear about me soon enough."

He's still got the publishing deal. And he's currently shopping around for a label. In the meantime, he figured it might be cool to self-release a collection of his strongest stuff.

His brother and two of his cousins still work in the mill. But Breiding says it was more of a visual thing that inspired the writing of "Steeltown Blues."
"I've been playing in rock 'n' roll bands since I was 16 years old," he says. "And when you drive up and down the valley from New Martinsville down to Sistersville to Stubenville and East Liverpool, and you come home at 2 or 3 in the morning every Friday and Saturday night, those images are just etched in your mind, up and down the river, those beautiful steel mills lighting up the sky."

Wheeling native puts 'guitar and pen' to good use
by Sharon Stackpole - 1998

Hauntingly beautiful arrangements mark "Guitar and Pen," the latest release from Wheeling native Tom Breiding.

Breiding, an English teacher in Pennsylvania, said in a recent interview that he learned to play the guitar "by ear" as a teen-ager. Through he admitted that reading music is "like Latin to me," he makes a pretty good pass at interpreting it anyway.

The compositions are elegant and spare in his bluesy pieces: Though punctuated with the harmonica and saxophone, the arrangements never get muddled.

Breiding draws on the industrial blue-collar setting of his hometwon roots to pull together an impressive collection of moody, often desolate pieces.

There are obvious influences of early Bruce Springsteen in his style, though that's not always a good thing. I always felt Springsteen's music - with his penchant for extended solos and contrived poetry - samcked of arrogant self-importance, which Breiding fortunately manages to aviod.

Instead, Breiding's songs speak of ambivalence, rejection and struggles for self-assurance in songs like "Little Girl Tonight."

Describing a relationship that's drifted away from him, Breiding broods, "Love went cold just when I needed it the most/Just when I thought it was all that I had.../I could walk away for the rest of my life/Never knowing what we could've done/Oh, no ... I've gotta do this theng for myself/I've gotta find my little girl tonight."

By the end of the album, you find yourself wishing he does.

The songs are gritty, honest, buy not too rough, and Breiding proves he can deliver a country song the same way with pieces like "The Next Heartache" ("Here's another shock you wern't prepared to take/The next heartache comes/When the last one's been forgotten.")

Breiding, already a local favorite at Jaybbo's Grub and Grog in Elm Grove and at Nail City in downtown Wheeling, also performs weekly in regional clubs. But in the meanwhile, give "Guitar and Pen" a listen.

"Guitar and Pen" can found at National Record Mart in the Ohio Valley Mall.

Press for "The Next Heartache"

Published songwriter to record live in McMurray
by Barbara Potter - 1998

For his first live recording, singer-songwriter Tom Breiding will mix his latest CD at a local cafe, the Leaf and Bean in McMurray, from 8p.m. to midnight Saturday, February 21st. Jamie Peck of Wheeling will be handling the recording and mixing of this performance.

Originally from Wheeling, West Virginia, Breiding, 34, has performed at the famous "Bluebird Cafe" and in May 1997 opened for Terry Clark at Jamboree USA. He also performs weekly in regional clubs.

The self-taught musician said he began playing in bands at the age of 16, but it was years later before he began writing songs.

"I tried taking music classes in college, but I just could never follow what the instructors wanted the students to do, " he said, referring to the desire to produce his own sound, something close to that of Bruce Sprinsteen.

"Faced without a band for the first time in 10 years, I began developing some songwriting skils. One day I just picked up my roommates acoustic guitar and started writing acts from the '70s like Neil Young, the Eagles and Poco," he said.

Breiding said his favorite music is everything from blues to rock to country. In 1992, Breiding got a contract as a published songwriter with one of the largest independent publishers in Nashville's storied Music Row - Collins Music Corporation. Collins Music Corporation. Collins has developed recordings for several well-known artists such as Barbara Mandrell, B.B. King and Ronnie Milsap.

Upon graduating with an English degree from West Liberty State College in West Virginia, Breiding taught for six years at St. Thomas More School in Bethel Park. For the past four years he has taught English at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart High School in Coraopolis.

Breiding lives in Venetia with his wife, Janet, and 2-year-old son, Jack.

His latest CD, "The Next Heartache," is available at Borders Books and Music.

Press for "Railroad Town"

Tom Breiding
by Alan Wallace - 1993

This six-song cassette sounds a lot like what Bruce Springsteen might have turned out early on had he come out of Highland Park instead of Ashbury Park. A sampling of the song titles conveys some of Breiding's no-nonsence, blue-collar 'Burgh sensibility: "Steeltown Blues," "Railroad Town," "Iron Willed and Steel Proud." The production is clean, and there are touches reminiscent of both E Street Band's and John Mellencamp's music: Jamie Peck's sax and Hammond B-3, Paul Kramer's mandolin and Greg Trostle's steel guitar. The tunes range from straight-ahead rockers to ballads, with "What You Do" a bit on the sappy side, but in general, Breiding sounds confident writing about what he knows. Railroad Town is a solid foundation; what Breiding needs to do with future work is expand on his own musical vision, distinguishing himself. The basics seem to be in place.

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