Introducing: Charles Bradley – Overcoming a hard knock life with soul music
It’s a heartwarming story. After years of toiling away, struggling through personal tragedy of his brother’s murder, working as a cook as a fallback and playing in bars, 62 year-old Charles Bradley has finally brought his soulful voice to an audience thanks to Gabriel Roth of Daptone Records (home to Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings).
Watch that video above, like all great soul singers, Bradley tells you his life story in a cathartic but affirming way, sweating it all out at every performance. Listen to ‘Heartaches & Pain’ below and let him tell you how how he agonisingly, found out his brother died. Those screams are elemental, necessary. It’s his soul and his heart letting it all out. Soul music is his life. Which is why that weathered classic voice is making people take notice, belatedly yet justifiably.
At 62, No Time For Dreaming is Bradley’s debut album. He plays the Sea Sessions festival in Donegal in June.
Charles Bradley – Heartaches And Pain
