Charles Bradley
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Charles Bradley

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“The first album was in the darkness, and I was really afraid to come out of my shell and open up – to let my real spirit out. I was doing the James Brown from my roots (Bradley started out as a James Brown impersonator). Now I’m doing me – Charles Bradley,” the man himself beams. “The first album was strictly from my soul, but with the second album there is still that truth coming out of me, but it’s not so hard to sing it. On the first album, Heartaches And Pain was about my brother, and it took a lot to get onstage and sing that song.”

As was documented on the terrific documentary Soul Of America, Charles has gone through tremendous struggle to achieve success as a singer. It’s a struggle that has resonated with a global audience. It’s getting easier with the audience’s help and support and love that they give me. A lot of people are coming up to me saying ‘I wanna thank you for helping me through my own crisis.’ I listen to them, and you find a lot of people out there going through changes and hurt just like me, but they don’t have the chance to express it, to open up their heart and say it. If you ain’t got no good music behind you and a way to let that through… thank god I have the right music and the right timing to set my heart free. A lot of people are going through worse changes than I’ve been through, but they come up to me and thank me for helping them open up with their trials and tribulations.”

The Charles Bradley live show is quite like no other, with a cathartic and euphoric elation expressed through the power of soul music. “It’s inexpressible. To look around and see the hurt in people’s faces. They say I need to be careful jumping over the fences and going into the crowd. One time I did a show and it was raining like heck, and I was shocked to see all these people come out in the rain and see me. I was on stage and I wasn’t getting wet, and I said that isn’t fair,” Charles recalls. “I jumped off the stage and went out and hugged everybody in the rain. It’s one of those moments that you can never find again.”

Leading the charge of the nascent soul revival, Charles can rationalise why the genre has experienced a newfound resurgence.Today’s music, all they’re doing is taking back from the ‘60s and ‘50s. Deep soul is a feeling you can express and you try to find the deepness inside you to bring it out. If you look at today’s music, they’re all indebted to old school music, because that’s where the heart is at. I don’t care what lyrics or how you use it, old school is always gonna be top of the line,” Charles ponders. “I love the sound, the dynamics of the music, and I want to put my lyrics deeply into the music. I love this music, but I know I can go deeper.”

Despite beginning to find success, Charles is adamant that it won’t affect his ability to channel heartache and struggle to produce his art. “If you was deeply hurt, and you got a scar, the scar may heal but it’ll always be there. You always remember where that scar came from. At this point in my life, I may be able to afford certain things, but I still see what I had to go through just to get this little thing. I’m still struggling. I’m just beginning to move out of the Projects, and I’ve been trying to move out of the Projects for many, many years when my mother first bought the house. I get a little money from my music, and it’s giving me a chance to fix up the things I always wanted to fix up – like fixing up my mother’s basement, putting tiles in, putting heating in. Me and my mother went through a lot of struggles together, but when we talk now it’s humbling. She opens up to me and I open up to her, that’s my heart and my life.”

After a breathtaking performance last year at Golden Plains, Charles returned to Australia for an all-too brief run of shows at the start of this year. Hopefully we can see Charles onstage again sometime in the not-too-distant future. “I wanna see that desert one more time, I love that desert,” he recalls. “I’ll never forget my time in Australia for the rest of my life.”

BY LACHLAN KANONIUK