Charles Bradley
Charles Bradley spent most of his life on the margins, drifting between cooking jobs and casual work while moonlighting in New York clubs as a James Brown impersonator called Black Velvet. One of those shows caught the eye of Daptone co-founder Gabriel Roth, who introduced him to guitarist and producer Thomas Brenneck.
No Time for Dreaming finally arrived in 2011, when Bradley was 62. Cut with the Menahan Street Band, it sounded like a lost late-60s soul record: raw horns, taut grooves and a voice that rasped, pleaded and screamed through songs about poverty, heartbreak and survival. Victim of Love added warmth and psychedelic shading, while Changes turned Black Sabbath's ballad into a soul lament he tied to his mother's death.
On stage he was billed as the Screaming Eagle of Soul, and the 2012 documentary Soul of America followed his long road to that late success.
If you like Charles Bradley you should check out: Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Otis Redding, James Brown, The Budos Band, Al Green, Bill Withers, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, The Teskey Brothers
