Charles Bradley in MOJO (Posted By Harry)
Charles Bradley in MOJO
(Jan 2012 feature)
Charles Bradley ‘No Time For Dreaming’ (Daptone) Out Now.
“Soul music comes from the heart,” says Charles Bradley. “It’s a way of working through the bad stuff that happens to you, about turning the negative into positives, about throwing your all into every performance.” The 62-year-old gravel-voiced testifier is the newest recruit to Brooklyn’s Daptone label, home to Sharon Jones And The Dap-Kings. An he’s had more than his share of bad stuff to deal with. “I grew up on the streets, slept in subway trains and doorways wrapped in plastic bags, ate at soup kitchens” he goes on. “It was music that kept me going.”
…In 2002 (Charles Bradley) was discovered by Daptone’s producer Gabe Roth while performing his ‘Black Velvet’ tribute to James Brown in local bars. After a series of Roth-produced deep funk 45s, all that “bad stuff” fed into 2011’s blistering No Time For Dreaming, a mix of gritty messages and raw-nerving hitting ballads.
In 1999 Charles’ foundations had been rocked when he awoke one morning in his mother’s house to find his nephew had shot and killed his brother. “I didn’t see a future,” he reflects. “But Thomas (Brenneck, Bradley’s bandleader and guitarist) told me to tell my story to help people, like James Brown and Sam Cooke and Otis had helped me And so, songs like The World (Is Going Up In Flames), Heartaches And Pain and Why Is It So Hard are addressing that situation. And my message is simple. The road gets dark, and it can take a long time to find the end. It took me 40 years to get my dream. You just gotta have faith, keep moving forward.”
Written By Lois Wilson
Charles Bradley tours Europe this Month.
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