If you’ve spent any time in Estes Park over the summer, there’s a good chance you’ve heard the familiar sound of a guitar strumming in Bond Park. That sound likely belongs to Cowboy Brad—a local legend whose musical roots run deeper than most people realize. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Brad recently to hear how he got started in music and why he never left the mountains.
A Musical Childhood
Brad’s love for music started young. Both of his parents were musically inclined, and they fostered his curiosity by filling the house with records and singalongs. “I remember sitting on the living room floor with my mom playing kids’ songs on vinyl,” Brad told me. “I’d try to figure out what was making each sound. Horns? Strings? Drums?”
His first official instrument? The piano at age six. “Great for learning treble and bass clefs—but I was too young and didn’t like the teacher,” he laughed. That early experience gave him a solid foundation, though, and paved the way for what came next: the guitar.
Discovering the Guitar (and Bluegrass)
At 12 or 13, Brad convinced his parents to let him switch to guitar. “They said, ‘We’ll give you one year of lessons, and then you can quit if you don’t like it.’” He got a classical guitar and endured a year of formal training. “I didn’t love it, but it taught me how to use my fingers properly.”
Once those lessons ended, Brad was off to the races—buying sheet music and teaching himself the folk, country, and bluegrass songs he loved. Along the way, he picked up trombone (thanks to a rerun of The Music Man) and joined the school band, which he stuck with through high school. “The trombone taught me bass clef, and being in band was just plain fun.”
Coming Home to Estes
After high school and eight years in military service, Brad found his way back to Estes Park in the mid-1990s. At the time, a group called Business Advocates of Estes Park was trying to keep visitors in town past sunset. They brought in local musicians to play cowboy songs in Bond Park, and Brad couldn’t resist joining in.
“One summer, I just kept coming back to hear Jim and Bob Barleen play. When Jim stepped away, they asked me to step in. I’ve been doing it ever since.”
Bond Park Nights
What started as a cowboy singalong around a campfire has evolved over the years—mainly because the fire got taken away. “First it was logs, then propane. Now it’s just the music,” Brad said. “But sometimes we get elk instead of fire. Families of them, mamas and babies.”
The real draw? The music, the community, and the memories. “Generations of people come back every year. A little girl even brought a cardboard cutout of me once. Called it ‘Cardboard Brad.’ I still have it.”
Brad has now published nearly 300 original songs. You can hear many of them live in Bond Park during the summer, or pick up his CDs at local shops or on cowboybrad.com.
Mountain Over Ocean
Brad’s brother has been trying to lure him to Hawaii for years. “It’s beautiful,” Brad admits. “But I like the seasons. I like the mountains. As Dorothy said, ‘There’s no place like home.’”
And we’re glad he stayed. Estes Park wouldn’t sound quite the same without Cowboy Brad.
