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Mark Brinkman has been around music all his life. He grew up in Wisconsin playing classical piano at the age of four. Like so many kids of the 1960s he was heavily influenced by the folk and rock groups of the era. He took up guitar and played everything from Kingston Trio stuff to Doobie Brothers to Jethro Tull. Brink could never have prepared for the change his life would take in 1974 when he attended Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Festival at Bean Blossom Indiana. It was there he heard groups such at Bill Monroe & the Blue Grass Boys, Lester Flatt & the Nashville Grass, Jimmy Martin among others. It was a life changing experience that continues to influence him today as he continues to write bluegrass, Americana, country and Acoustic songs.

About the same time “Brink,” as all his friends call him, began writing songs, folks songs for acoustic guitar mainly. He performed these songs at many local clubs around Madison, Wisconsin, while attending college there. Over the following  25 and more years he has continued to write music and perform around the country.

He spent a few fruitless years in Nashville, going from publisher to publisher, trying to get his songs published. Discouraged, he gave up song writing for about 10 years.

Bluestone Mountain was the first Brinkman song to be recorded, cut by Don Rigsby and released on his acclaimed Empty Old Mailbox album, released in 2000. Rigsby’s version of this haunting song was awarded the West Virginia Governor’s Award.

Since then Brinkman has not looked back. Going from strength to strength, his songs have been widely recorded. A sample of those that he had had recorded includes She’s a Stranger In His Mind, a song about Alzheimer’s disease recorded by Carrie Hassler & Hard Rain;  I Can’t Bear the Thought of Losing You recorded by The Larry Stephenson Band; Prisoner of the Highway, by Don Rigsby & Midnight Call; The Legend of Jonas Willingham recorded by the Lonesome River Band; Alone In The Still Of The Night by Valerie Smith; The Ghost of Silas Jordan, Can’t Be Anything But Love and  Hobo’s Lament all by The Boohers; The Old Coal Mine recorded by Larry Sparks; Before Your First Tear Hits the Ground and Tennessee Backroads by Lou Reid & Carolina; When You’re Looking Up by Lorraine Jordan & Carolina Road; and Devil’s Road recorded by Grasstowne.

Brinkman has been a Merlefest Chris Austin Songwriting Contest finalist five times and his song Beyond the Rain was nominated and voted Best Bluegrass Gospel Song at the 2007 National Gospel Quartet Convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

He has his own publishing company, Brinksongs, online at www.brinksongs.com.

Brinkman says, “Writing music is like breathing, something I just have to do to live. I can’t see ever getting away from the process of creating music from a blank page.” (more…)

Noted bluegrass songwriter Mark “Brink” Brinkman is profiled in today’s edition of The Columbus Dispatch.

The focus of the piece is a new song of Brink’s, With Love from Normandy, which he had performed at a Memorial Day celebration this past weekend. The song is written from the perspective of a young boy who discovers a letter his grandfather had written to his grandmother the day before he died on the beaches of Normandy.

The article also touches on Brink’s decision to pursue his muse as a songwriter in mid-life.

“Seven years ago, I stepped down from the corporate life,” Brinkman said. “I’d been the state manager for American Family Insurance for 10 years. But the travel, the meetings; my kids were growing up without me, my music was suffering. . .” It was a sentence fragment that needed no end.

Brinkman, who still free-lances as a claims adjuster, has been playing with notes and rhymes for 40 years.

“I like performing,” he said, “but I don’t need to perform. On the other hand, I need to write.”

You can read the full piece online.

For the next two weeks, The GrassCast will focus on bluegrass songwriters. Episode 33 is a discussion with Mark “Brink” Brinkman, whose publishing company, Brinksongs, has been successful getting cuts on projects from Don Rigsby, The Kruger Brothers, Pine Mountain Railroad, Wildfire and others. We include audio samples from some of these recordings, and talk about how he got started as a songwriter, and how the digital download phenomenon affects independent songwriters.

This GrassCast is 17 minutes in length and the file download size is 16 MB.

Below is an mp3 file for you to listen here or download. The GrassCast is also available in the iTunes music store as an enhanced podcast containing photos and hyperlinks relative to the subject matter being discussed in the interview.

Listen now:
Direct Download: ep33_mark_brinkman.mp3
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