Stratford Native Releases Original Studio Album From 1980s

STRATFORD, CT — (Contributed article): A music educator and professional guitarist who grew up in Stratford has just unearthed his own time capsule- one most people only wish they had thought of. Shelton resident Bruce Bednarsky, a former adjunct assistant professor of music both at Fairfield University and Sacred Heart University, recently distributed his 1980s studio album of original music, "A Time to Remember," to popular online music platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music.

Bednarsky is known throughout the Greater New York City area as a proficient jazz guitarist. But the newly released effort, which is for sale on the website CD Baby with the tagline "the best feel-good '80s pop rock you've never heard," consists of five catchy numbers that were tailored to fit the audio needs of airwave listeners in the Reagan era.

Bednarsky, alongside his wife Carla and one of his guitar students, Tom O'Neill, recorded the tunes live, in Tom's Connecticut home studio. Built by strong hooks and positive lyrics, the album channels the sonic sound of Rick Springfield, topped off with vocals comparable to the Thompson Twins, thanks to Carla’s crucial backup harmony.

The infectious "Imagine That, Imagine This" could have been the theme song of a rom-com synonymous with the time period, but the album was recorded toward the end of the 1980s, when hip-hop was beginning to shake up the charts, and the guitar shreds of hair metal were being traded in for fuzzy wails, thanks to the then-emerging grunge genre.

“I thought we had a chance with Warner Bros.,” Carla says, as Warner Bros. had published Bruce’s bass guitar guide Bassically Bass in 1984. “For them, the timing wasn't right. Maybe it was too bubblegum for the direction they were going in.”

"A Time to Remember" is nuanced but muddy, and according to Mike Bednarsky, the youngest of Bruce’s three sons, that sound is marketable to fans of today's independent music. He encouraged his father to share the songs with the world.

“Some circles of my generation are all about making music that is deliberately low fidelity or what some would consider to be poor quality," says Mike, a singer-songwriter who lives in Los Angeles. “There's a lot of clever and edgy stuff out there that starts with that sensibility in mind. When I heard my dad's songs, I was blown away by how great they are as is, but I also immediately thought that this would be the perfect time to repurpose them."

Mike cites "Waiting for the Chance" as a song that could easily be mistaken as a just-recorded underground cut. "Mac DeMarco fans would eat up the slinky guitar solo on that one. A DJ could spin that at a dive bar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and it would be right at home.”

But for Bruce, who earned a B.S. in Music Education and Performance from the University of Bridgeport, giving "A Time to Remember" a new life is what's most important.

"I would even love to record those all over again, but an A&R person would have to take interest in them,” Bruce says.

"We're still kinda rock 'n' rollers,” Carla adds. “I would still relate to it the same way as I did 30 years ago.”

The "A Time to Remember" album cover reveals the Bruce Bednarsky of today, accomplished and satiated, on a subway platform in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, N.Y., eyes focused on what's ahead- but there's nothing wrong with a little nostalgia every now and then.

Contributed photo and article