Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on 2026-08-06
Singer-songwriter Jim Choukas Bradley will release his second album, Black Hills Ranger, on Friday, August 7. Recorded in Nashville, the new collection draws from a life spent traveling across the country, studying American history, practicing law, raising a family, and writing songs rooted in the people and places he has encountered along the way.
Black Hills Ranger follows Bradley’s debut album, Rising Tide, which was recorded in part at Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, New York. While the new album marks his first recording project made in Nashville, its stories reach far beyond Music City, reflecting a personal history that stretches from the woods of Connecticut to Thailand, the Pacific Northwest, New England, Washington, D.C., and the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Bradley was born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, where he grew up in a city neighborhood bordering several hundred acres of riverside woods. He spent much of his childhood exploring the area with his brothers and friends, developing the sense of curiosity and freedom that would later become part of his songwriting.
He attended high school in Bangkok, Thailand, and Westchester County, New York. After graduating, Bradley headed west, attending two colleges in Portland, Oregon, while hitchhiking along the West Coast, riding freight trains, playing guitar and piano, and writing songs.
During those years, he also developed a lasting interest in American history. That fascination, combined with his wide-ranging travels, has continued to inform the characters, landscapes, and experiences found in his music.
Bradley eventually returned east and graduated from the University of Vermont, where he met his future wife, Melanie, in a Russian literature class. Their first date came in January 1974, when Bradley drove Melanie across the Canadian border from Burlington to Montreal in his faltering Dodge Dart to see Bob Dylan and The Band. The concert took place at the beginning of Dylan’s first tour in nearly eight years.
As newlyweds, Jim and Melanie lived and worked in Coos County, New Hampshire, in the northern White Mountains. For a time, they earned money by writing and recording advertising jingles for local businesses. One of those jingles remained in rotation on a Berlin, New Hampshire, radio station for more than 20 years.
The couple later moved to Washington, D.C., where Bradley attended Georgetown University Law Center and Melanie began her career as a naturalist and nature-book author. They have lived in Washington and the surrounding countryside ever since, raising their children, Sophie and Jesse, near the base of Sugarloaf Mountain in Maryland.
Alongside his music, Bradley has maintained a legal career spanning more than 45 years, including 40 years as a law firm partner. His work has focused on helping small cities and towns across the United States secure reliable, affordable natural gas and electricity supplies for their residents, businesses, and industries.
Bradley also developed a method of public financing that has saved communities hundreds of millions of dollars in energy costs during the past three decades. His legal practice has taken him to cities and towns throughout the country, allowing him to visit all 50 states and further deepen his connection to America’s varied landscapes and communities.
He continues to practice law full time and has no plans to step away from the work, aside from making more room for music.
Bradley has performed his original songs throughout the Washington, D.C., area, where his music has received local radio airplay, as well as in Nashville, Burlington, Vermont, and New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
Music and exploration also run throughout his family. His son Jesse performs with him live and contributes vocals and guitar to several tracks on Black Hills Ranger. Melanie collaborated with Bradley on the lyrics to two of the album’s songs.
The album’s title also carries a family connection. Bradley’s ancestors have lived in nearly every region of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, while both of his grandfathers were born in South Dakota, home of the Black Hills.
With Black Hills Ranger, Bradley brings those family histories, decades of travel, and a lifelong interest in the American experience together in a collection that introduces his music to a wider audience.
Black Hills Ranger will be released Friday, August 7.
Follow Jim Choukas Bradley on Instagram HERE.
