Charles Bradley was born in 1948 but found few outlets for his musical ambitions until this century. Per Wikipedia, his first single came in 2002. Abandoned by his mother, he spent much of his early life homeless on the streets and roaming the country at large until finally working as a restaurant chef gave him an income he could rely on. The long delay in recognition was partly a matter of his stage fright and also perhaps due to his calling card as a James Brown impersonator. He learned his chops there—how could it not have served his career well?—but may have limited his bookings. I don’t hear Brown as much in this early single from his last album, Black Velvet, as I do the Stax-like approach of an act like Sam & Dave or Eddie Floyd, defined in many ways by its horn charts. Others have compared him to Otis Redding. But JB is plainly in the mix as well. Bradley’s rough guttural style of singing and his throat-clotted screams say it all. There’s no question he belongs in the halls of soul music. He died too soon, even at 68, with too little public appreciation. He was a natural, and no doubt the close study of classic 1960s soul served him well even if it did take most of his life to start to get the attention he deserved. In 2018 I did not know his story, already dead by then from stomach cancer, with less than 20 years in any kind of spotlight. I just liked the raw feel and horns of “Can’t Fight the Feeling” and the faith Bradley obviously had in soul music and all the ways it can galvanize, soothe, and reach ecstatic heights.
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