Watch “I Feel A Change” Video From Posthumous Charles Bradley LP, Black Velvet
When he passed from stomach cancer last year, it left a hole in music, our hearts, & the world at large. A new 10 track LP hopes to fill them, if only a little
It’s always been difficult to mention Charles Bradley without wanting to discuss his amazing backstory, but that’s become especially true since his passing. Many of you likely know about how Charles was discovered late in life, releasing his first album at the age of 62 years old, if not the unspeakable hardships that he endured throughout the arduous journey that he traveled to ultimately become a universally claimed vocalist, performing on stages across the world. For those unfamiliar, I strongly recommend the documentary, Soul Of America which chronicles his life, and enters into it while Bradley was still living in squalor and unable to read, while anticipating his debut release. It will break your heart to learn about how his mother abandoned him with his grandmother, after his birth in Gainesville, Florida. He didn’t really “meet” his mom until he was 7 or 8 years old. She relocated him to Brooklyn, but, by the age of 14, he found himself alone as a transient sleeping on the subway system, often among junkies that would ask him to shoot them up. Eventually, Bradley would discover Job Corp which would improve his situation. The skills that he acquired there allowed him to take on cooking jobs, but he continued to bounce around the country for decades struggling. He eventually moved in to help take care of his mother in her old age, making her well-being a priority over his own, embracing the very woman who found it so difficult to embrace him when he needed her most. The film will damn near tear your heart in half when you hear Charles discuss the night that his brother was murdered by his own nephew — pushing through police lines, against the advice of law enforcement, he witnessed the graphic crime scene that left brain matter on the floor, and scarred his own mind from then on out. If you aren’t rooting for the man by the end of the film, I’d question if you ever had a heart in your chest at all.
While it’s true that Charles began living on the streets at 14, that was also the age that his sister took him to see James Brown; an event that affected him in a profound way by initiating his love of music, and inspiring his dream to pursue it. Fortunately, it’s a dream which he never entirely let go of. Much like how he had times where he was surrounded by heroin addicts, but never fell into substance abuse, Charles walked through a world surrounded by selfishness, pain, and desperation, while never absorbing the negative traits exhibited around him. Miraculously, he held on to hope and positivity, persevering with blind faith through every obstacle with an enduring belief that everything would work out and be as it should be, in time. A good 37 years after seeing James Brown on stage, Bradley was discovered by Daptone records co-founder, Gabe Roth, while performing a tribute to the Godfather Of Soul. At the time, he had moved back to New York and was doing a routine as a James Brown impersonator under the name of Black Velvet. He was already 51 by then, when he was brought in to work with the label, but that “big break” still didn’t materialize for another decade, as Daptone never found a way to utilize his talents. Eventually, guitarist/producer, Thomas Brenneck (Budos Band, Dap Kings) found himself living near Charles in Brooklyn, where he began working with the soul singer one on one. As he would learn more about his life, he convinced Bradley to start writing more personal, autobiographical tracks that told his story. That’s when he truly found his voice. As I wrote back in my first piece about Charles Bradley, after seeing him perform at the 2012 Sasquatch festival, “[Brenneck] was able to coax an albums worth of amazing, raw, and heartfelt lyrics out him with his guitar. Sure, Bradley‘s lyrics reveal plenty of pain, but they also reveal unwavering strength and resilience. The sheer fact that he’s able to perform for us at all is revealing enough: we know that the story gets better and that there will be a silver lining. The most that Charles might ask is why things have to be so difficult or when the pain will finally end, but he never asks if it will.“
Brenneck released Bradley‘s debut, No Time For Dreaming, on his own Daptone subsidiary, Dunham Records, and was backing him as part of the Menahan Street Band when I saw him at Sasquatch! that year. What was so amazing about that show is that, although he was on the top of my list of must-sees at the festival, most people didn’t seem to be aware of Charles Bradley, at all, including the other members of the media that I spoke with. He performed early in the day with a 1pm set on the mainstage, but won over an unfamiliar crowd with such an affecting performance that some teenagers were actually bawling their eyes out. As his people tried to escort him backstage, Charles wanted nothing more than to reach over the font barricade to hug and thank anyone and everyone in attendance.
I had the wonderful fortune to experience and photograph him live a half-dozen times, slowly watching him blow minds as his star ascended. The lineup of his backing band would slightly shift overtime — they would come to be known as “His Extraordinaires” — and his popularity grew with his name gaining a larger and larger font when listed on festival flyers. He even made an appearance performing on the Netflix program, Luke Cage. But the one thing that never changed with him was how raw he was, and how he gave everything that he had every time that he hit the stage. The showmanship from his Black Velvet days remained: the dance moves; the spins; when he’d drop to his knees, when he’d throw the mic stand, only to snap it back by the cord at the last minute. He was electric. His moment in the spotlight may have come late in life, but he cherished and appreciated all of it. He would open himself up and dump his entire contents out on stage. The gut-wrenching pain in his voice was born from despair, but it echoed of hope… of inspiration. When I saw him do a private KEXP radio performance at the Bumbershoot Music & Arts Festival, he tried to hug everyone as they worked to usher him out, reminded him that there was more to his schedule that day. It may be a bold claim to make, but when he opened for the Maceo Parker (James Brown, Parliament Funkadelic) at the festival later that night, he did nothing short of blow the legendary sax man off the stage — while Maceo‘s band hit every note with unrivaled precision, the tangible authenticity in Bradley‘s warm, gritty soul is something that cannot be practiced, or successfully followed.
I finally got my chance to meet “The Screaming Eagle Of Soul” during a Lagunitas “Couch Trip” promotional event that he played in 2015, another situation where the audience didn’t know what to expect, yet, by the end of it, were screaming for him with pure joy and tears streaming down their faces. I stumbled up to him toward the end of the night, as most of the place had already been cleared, and as I began to speak, I almost felt guilty for having a heavy buzz from all the free beer that I had consumed. He hugged me and espoused some sort of wisdom that I didn’t completely catch, but it began with, “My uncle told meeee…” As usual, a man was with him attempting to redirect him with a plea of, “Charles! We have to go” and failing. He finished what he needed to say — a message of perseverance and “to never give up,” a message that he was already the living embodiment of. A message that he relayed through every fiber of his being, by just being himself and living in that truth.
This is the very last photo that I ever took of him.
When I say that this is “the last” photo that I ever took of him, I don’t just mean that this is from the last concert of his that I shot, or even that it was the last image that I edited, but that it’s literally the very last click of the shutter I was responsible for with him in the frame. After he died, I looked back through my files and discovered it.
Toward the end of his life, Bradley faced increasing health issues and more and more concert dates were getting canceled. It was hard not to fear the worst, but whenever he hit that stage, you’d never know that you were witnessing a man that had been struggling with any physical limitations, let alone something life threatening. From my first visit to the Pickathon Music Festival, I’d been suggesting/recommending the entertainer to the booking committee, but things didn’t line up for that to happen until last year, and even then, it seemed touch and go. An overwhelming amount of other dates had been canceled leading up to it. This time, he was battling stomach cancer. But, Charles did show up and he showed up as large as ever. He cried as he sang his brilliant cover of Black Sabbath‘s “Changes,” a song which he dedicated to his mother, who had past just prior to him recording it. f you’ve heard it, then you know that he made it his own. He told us, as he always had, that he loved us. We knew that he meant it, although we questioned if we deserved him. That rose sneaking into the right side of the frame in the photo above came from a bouquet’s worth that he distributed to us in the crowd. He performed again at Pickathon the following night, this time in the Woods. I didn’t attend it, both so that I could catch something else on the schedule and because that first show was so perfect that I didn’t want to tamper with that memory. I believe that Charles may have performed one other concert after the festival, but the rest of his dates, were swiftly canceled. Pickathon was at the beginning of August and, by the end of September, the news came that he’d lost his battle. It hurt. He was the closest thing to an angel that many of us will ever witness in human form. He was one of a kind and he touched everybody that ever came in contact with him. It was a better world with him in it.
This week comes the announcement of a brand new Charles Bradley studio album titled Black Velvet. It will be his 4th and final. The following info comes via the press release
Black Velvet is a celebration of Charles Bradley, lovingly assembled by his friends and family at Dunham/Daptone Records. Though chronologically the material spans Charles‘ entire career, this is no anthology, greatest hits or other shallow rehashing of the songs that already made him famous. Rather, this album is a profound exploration through the less-travelled corners of the soulful universe tha tCharles and his longtime producer, co-writer and friend Tommy “TNT” Brenneck created in the studio together over their decade-long partnership.
It features new songs recorded during the sessions from each of his three albums, heard here for the very first time in all their scorching glory: “Can’t Fight the Feeling,” “Fly Little Girl” and the heart-wrenching single “I Feel a Change“; hard core rarities like his funk-bomb duet with LaRose Jackson, “Luv Jones,” the psychedelic groover, “(I Hope You Find) The Good Life” and the ever-illusive alternate full band electric version of “Victim of Love“; sought-after covers of Nirvana’s “Stay Away,” Neal Young’s “Heart of Gold” and Rodriguez’s “Slip Away“; and the title track “Black Velvet,” a stirring Menahan Street Band instrumental to which Charles was never able to cut a vocal.
Brenneck notes of “I Feel A Change,” recorded during the Victim of Love sessions, “Horns and organ were recorded later adding a haunting beauty to the otherwise a cappella intro. The lyrics are 100% Charles. Personal yet abstract. Directly from the heart. He truly loved the expression ‘going through changes’ and this was a few years before we would record our rendition of Sabbath’s ‘Changes’ with the Budos. Sadly Charles never got to hear the finished version of this beautiful song.”
The release date for Black Velvet is slated for November 9th, a mere 4 days after the Screaming Eagle Of Soul would have turned 70 years old. But Charles Bradley is eternal. He affected so many people on such a deep level, and that’s why it can be so difficult to restrain oneself from speaking about him in depth, whenever his name is brought up. It’s why this post is unfolded as it has, when it was originally just intended to be a simple album announcement. The true greatness of Bradley is that his story, while beautiful, inspiring, and moving; isn’t even necessary to appreciate his work. His music, and the quality and, more specifically, the delivery of his soul shattering vocals, speak volumes on their own. It’s a tremendous gift to know that, with Black Velvet, he’ll have one more opportunity to not only tell us who he was, but to remind us all of our best selves and what we all have the potential to be, regardless of if everything else in this mortal world is working to convince and direct us otherwise. To remember him, is to remember that, and there’s no greater impact that any one of us could ever dream to leave behind. Thanks again, Charles. We miss you.
Check out the video for the first single, “I Feel A Change,” below.