Charles Bradley led a hardscrabble life.
Born in poverty in Brooklyn in 1948, Bradley’s life would change in 1962, when his sister took him to the Apollo Theater to see soul legend James Brown perform:
"It was breathtaking," Bradley told Rolling Stone of the Apollo show in 2016. "I didn't know who James Brown really was but I wanted to go see. When they called James Brown onstage, I'll never forget they had this purple light and yellow light – my two favorite colors. And when they introduced him, he came flying on the stage on one leg and I said, 'What in the hell is this?' [Laughs] And I was mesmerized. I was just gone. I was just shocked. Shocked. I said, 'Wow. I wanna be something like that.'"
Charles would indeed become “something like that”, but only after cooking for ten years in a Maine Hospital for the mentally ill and 17 years of blue collar work in California before returning to New York to nurse his dying mother.
Along the way his brother was murdered and Charles nearly died from a penicillin allergy.
But back in New York he reaped the rewards of hours of practice as a teenager, learning the Godfather of Soul’s act, including swing a broomstick on a piece of rope emulating Brown’s signature microphone moves.
“Bradley never forgot Brown's Apollo show and began to eke out a living in New York clubs covering the singer, incorporating wigs and costumes he would hand-sew himself. Gabriel Roth, the co-founder of revered Brooklyn funk and soul label Daptone Records who already had Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings and Antibalas on their roster, saw one of Bradley's shows and introduced him to label producer-musician Tom Brenneck. Brenneck would go on to produce all three Bradley albums.”
Charles as “Black Velvet”.
In 2011 Charles would break through with his own act, cutting No Time for Dreaming with the Menahan Street Band, which Rolling Stone named one of the top fifty albums of the year.
Two more successful albums followed, Victim of Love in 2013 and Changes in 2016 , featuring a cover of the Black Sabbath tune for which the album was named.
The hard luck from which Charles fashioned his beautiful music would return last year, however, when he was diagnosed with Stomach cancer. After a brief remission, the cancer moved to his liver.
"Right now, I don't see a stopping point 'cause I don't see no place where I can stop at and rest in peace," he told Rolling Stone last year. "But I know that from doing shows for the public, the love when I go out into the audience and hug 'em and the things that they say to me personally … [pauses] Wow. It's not only me onstage doing it. I open their hearts up and they feel the love of my heart and when I go out there and really respond to 'em and talk to 'em, they tell me some things."
RIP, Brother Charles.