BMARYSVILLE — Marysville musician Bradford Loomis has lived the adage that it can take years to become an overnight success.

Loomis recently celebrated the release of his new album, “Into the Great Unknown,” with a series of shows in Wenatchee, Snohomish and Seattle, but his music career would never have been promoted from being a lifelong hobby if he hadn’t gotten laid off from Verizon.

“I backed into doing music as a career,” Loomis said. “I went the responsible route and got a 9-to-5 job to pay for a house and support a wife and three kids, but when I lost the job, I went into hustler mode. I needed to provide for my family, I’d always wanted to be a musician, and now, I had nothing left to lose by giving it a try. I just wish I’d been more attentive in my business classes,” he laughed.

Although Loomis developed an appreciation for music through choir, band and orchestra as he was growing up, he credits former Marysville school music teacher Stuart Hunt with helping him connect to it, beyond just emulating the singers that he heard on the radio.

“Mr. Hunt was a phenomenal teacher,” said Loomis, whose preferred flavor of sound has become what he regards as the roots of American folk music. “I’ve always been fascinated by our nation’s history, and the stories that are rooted in it. Songs like ‘On the Banks of the Ohio’ are about real-life events in American history. I sing songs about slavery and the other things that this country has gone through. It’s a way to inform people of our history while expressing my emotions about it through a narrative. If we forget our history, we’re doomed to repeat it.”

With his long, thick beard and his quiet speaking voice, Loomis himself admits that his personality might have been better-suited to those past eras, as he waxes rhapsodic about what his life would have been like in the 19th century as a Midwestern settler, a Texas ranch-hand or a drifter on the railroads or the Mississippi River.

In the real world of the modern day, he hopes to develop his career as much as he has his skills, and he invites his fellow Marysville residents to check out his upcoming performance at the Wintercourt Coffeehouse, located at 7314 44th Ave. NE, on Friday, June 14, starting at 7 p.m. For ticket prices, music samples and more information, log onto www.bradfordloomis.com.