Charles Bradley, soul survivor, is a man with a lot of love to give, including a new album.
LISTEN Charles Bradley's Victim of Love
Album stream to April 2, 2013
Tracklist
When the “screaming eagle of soul” released his debut album No Time for Dreaming in 2011 at the tender age of 62, critics revelled over his pained, passionate voice and the rawness of his sound, wondering why it had taken him so long to make it in America. The album was closely followed by a documentary of his life, Charles Bradley: Soul of America, and from that, with its accounts of Bradley’s homelessness as a child, his life in the projects and the murder of his brother, the music world soon learned the real-life heartaches and pain behind his debut record.
After two years of wowing audiences across the globe, the Brooklyn-based singer is back with his second album, Victim of Love, which is a sweeping embrace of the soul spectrum (and we’re streaming it here on CBC Music until April 2). I caught up with the now 64-year-old Bradley, when he was home in New York.
“Oh Victim of Love, it just came out natural,” a gravelly voice tells me down the phone line. “It’s just the way I feel, that’s why I can sing it, the way I sing it, I can put my guts to it, put my heart and soul to it because I feel it.”
Victim of Love is a far more eclectic album than Bradley’s debut record. Having documented the trials and tribulations of his first 60 years on No Time for Dreaming, his followup is more focused on music than hardship, and presents a more content Bradley, one who’s reflecting on his success, sharing the sounds that make him move and, in the tradition of all great soul, lamenting lost love.
“The second record I just wanted people to learn to know a little more of me and know that the kind of music that I’m singing is actually me,” Bradley explains. “It’s not nothing that’s coming from just out of nowhere, it’s coming from millions of past experiences and the people that I’ve met while I’ve been on tour.”
A sophomore change in tone
Lyrically, Victim of Love still has the pain that you would expect from a Bradley record; the title track says it all. The real difference with this album, compared to Dreaming, is the range of styles on offer.
On “Victim of Love” it seems that Bradley and his backing group, the Menahan Street Band, are giving us a history lesson in the soul genre. There is the upbeat, early Motown sound of “You Put the Flame On It,” the psychedelic Temptations feel of “Confusion,” the flute-laden ’70s groove of “Love Bug Blues,” and songs such as “Let Love Stand a Chance” and “Victim of Love,” which carry all the raw emotional hallmarks of an Otis Redding ballad.
As Bradley tells me, this nod to the past masters was an intentional tribute.
“Because you know, we need [soul] music to come back in the mainstream,” he says. “Back in the day we just sat back and listened to music … when music is real good I can’t get enough of it, I’ll play it over and over and over again…. A lot of this music that they’re doing today with young kids … they need to get their minds out of the bedroom and get back to real music and let people know it’s not all about sex.”
Despite the historical undertones (this is a Daptone album, after all) and Bradley’s yearning for the past, this isn’t a throwback record — or No Time for Dreaming, part two. Bradley and his band have put a new spin on every track to ensure this album is unlike anything they have done before. Even when you think you’re on familiar Bradley turf, as with the opening track “Strictly Reserved for You,” along comes some unlikely fuzz guitar just to keep you on your toes.
Victim of Love is an accomplished record by a singer and band confident enough in their music (and the soul genre) to experiment with their sound and push the boundaries of expectation.
‘I can go forward now’
Success has been a long emotional ride for the sexagenarian, and down the phone line Bradley explains how grateful he is that the world continues to let him sing.
“So much has happened to me within this last year,” he tells me. “I don’t believe it … I was asking myself why is everyone doing this for me? What is going on? I must’ve done something real good in life … I don’t know how to accept it, but I just thank God for it.”
At one point Bradley says to me, “I finally found my past, I finally found my past life that I can go forward now.”
Bradley and his band are gearing up to tour North America in April, and I asked him whether there was any message he had for his fans in Canada.
“All I’ve got to say, all of them, you’re not my fans, you’re my brothers and sisters, all I do is to come and enjoy and have a good time with you.”
Charles Bradley, a man with a lot of love to give.
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