Rob Zammarchi
When he was a teenager, Charles Bradley saw James Brown at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. Soon after he began mimicking the singer’s performances at home, in Brooklyn, using a broomstick as a microphone stand. Bradley eventually parlayed that talent into a career, performing in a James Brown tribute act under the name Black Velvet.
That’s probably as far as Bradley would have gone were it not for Gabe Roth. The co-founder of Daptone Records, a Brooklyn-based independent funk and soul label that’s home to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Antibalas and the Budos Band, discovered the singer toiling in a Brooklyn club and offered him a record deal.
Charles Bradley was 62 years old.
Since then, Bradley has released two albums, been the subject of a documentary film and performed at the same venue in which he first saw Brown.
Now he’s coming to Madison on June 27 to headline the inaugural Shake the Lake — a free event that replaces the long-running annual Rhythm & Booms. It also will feature food, family activities and fireworks on John Nolen Drive between Broom and Blair streets. Bradley and his Extraordinaires will play at 8:45 p.m.
“I am going to open my heart to Madison,” Bradley, now 66, says in a voice as soulful and raw as his music.
Close your eyes while listening to either one of Bradley’s critically acclaimed albums — 2011’s No Time for Dreaming or 2013’s Victim of Love — and you’ll swear you’re listening to the original “Godfather of Soul.” Bradley’s voice drips with gut-churned emotion and decades of far-from-easy livin’. The man even looks like James Brown.
On No Time for Dreaming, the singer revisited his troubled past, which includes running away from home as a teen and sleeping in subway cars. His brother was murdered, and Bradley himself almost died from a penicillin allergy. He also hitchhiked across the country, all the way to Alaska and California, where he eked out a living working odd jobs and playing small gigs.
“Those songs were already written deep down in my soul,” says Bradley, who often co-writes with producer Tom Brenneck, former guitarist for Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and leader of Bradley’s studio band, composed of other Daptone musicians. “I was just singing what I actually lived.”
“How Long?” is about decades spent chasing that elusive big break, in both music and life, while “Heartaches and Pain” chronicles the moments following his brother Joe’s killing: “I woke up this mornin’ / My momma she was cryin’ / So I looked out my window / Police lights was flashin’ / People was screamin’ / So I ran down to the street / My friend grabbed my shoulder / And he said these words to me / Life is full of sorrow / So I have to tell you this / Your brother is gone.”
Victim of Love features happier songs that boast greater diversity, best exemplified by the horn charts, psychedelic soul and fuzzy guitars of “You Put the Flame On It,” “Confusion” and “Where Do We Go From Here?”.
Bradley sings every lyric on both records as though they may be his last words, with an emotional depth today’s younger soul and R&B stars seldom reach. “When my heart is hurting, I need the music to soothe it,” he says.
Despite the musical changes between No Time for Dreaming and Victim of Love, Bradley wants to continue evolving. “I know that I need more dynamics in my music,” he admits. “I can do soul; soul is where I came from. But I want to do more rock and country-western and put it with my own style. I love the lyrics in country-western music.” Bradley already has recorded unusual covers of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” and Nirvana’s “Stay Away.”
A new album is expected next year, Bradley says, and it, too, will be full of songs inspired by his life and his search for light in dark places. “The world is looking for love,” he says. “We are all on this planet together. What can I do for the world to make it a better place?”
Bradley is known to throw some Otis Redding and Bobby Womack songs into his live sets and, if he “gets in the spirit,” some classic James Brown, too. His favorite Brown songs to perform include “There Was a Time” and “I Can’t Stand Myself (When You Touch Me).” “That’s one of my nasty ones,” he says with a laugh.
But the primary focus now is on his own material, as Bradley seeks to push his late-blooming career as far as it will go. “I feel very bittersweet about my success, because I’d been beggin’ and cryin’ for this opportunity,” he says. “I wish I would have had this opportunity when I was in my 20s or 30s or 40s.”
