Artist.......: Charles Bradley
Album........: Live at La Cigale (Paris)
Label........: n/a
Genre........: Soul
Catnr........: n/a
Source.......: DVBS
Rip.date.....: 2012-10-06
Str.date.....: 2012-04-26
Quality......: 225kbps/48.0kHz/Joint Stereo
Url..........: http://thecharlesbradley.com/
track title time
1. Live at La Cigale (Paris) 53:05
Runtime 53:05
Size 85.59
Release Notes:
Soul and R&B singer Charles Bradley definitely didnÆt arrive as a recording
artist by taking the easy route. Born in Gainesville, FL in 1948, but raised in
Brooklyn, NY, Bradley spent a good part of his childhood living on the streets.
A transformational moment came when his sister took him to see James Brown at
the Apollo in 1962. Bradley was struck by Brown's energy and stage manner, and
began practicing microphone tricks with a broom at home, dreaming of being a
star on his own stage, and it was a dream he would never abandon in spite of all
sorts of mishaps, misdirects, and general hard times. Bradley escaped Brooklyn
by joining the federal program Job Corps, which took him to Bar Harbor, ME,
where he learned to cook, a profession he was to fall back on time and time
again. He also put together a band in Maine and began playing local gigs. The
band didnÆt last long, though, and when most of its members were drafted, and
with the Vietnam War hanging in the air, Bradley moved to Wassaic, NY, where he
worked as a cook at a hospital for the mentally ill. Nine years later, he left
that position and hitchhiked west, ending up in Alaska for a time before moving
to California, again taking a job as a chef, and for the next 20 years, he
performed music on the side, playing whatever gigs he could find. When he was
laid off from his position, though, he began to doubt the decision to live in so
far from where he grew up, and he relocated back to Brooklyn, this time working
at odd jobs instead of returning to being a chef. He never let go of his musical
dreams, however, and he began performing his James Brown-inspired routines in
such local clubs as Black Velvet, attracting a loyal following, and eventually
capturing the attention of Gabriel Roth from Daptone Records, who immediately
brought the fiery singer into label sessions, releasing a single, ôTake It as It
Comes,ö that showed what Bradley had to offer as a vocalist. Roth also
introduced Bradley to Thomas Brenneck, then a guitarist, songwriter, and home
producer for Dirt Rifle & the Bullets. The pair had an affinity for each other
musically, and together they released two singles on Daptone as Charles Bradley
& the Bullets before the actual group by that name disbanded, with most of the
members going in an Afro-beat direction with the Budos Band. Brenneck and
Bradley continued to work together, though, and after Bradley told him about
waking up in his home one morning to discover his nephew had shot and killed his
brother, Brenneck suggested they tell the story in music as a catharsis and as a
cautionary tale. The result, tracked with the Menahan Street Band, was a pair of
impassioned singles, ôThe World (Is Going Up in Flames)ö and ôHeartaches and
Pain,ö which Brenneck released on his Daptone sub-imprint Dunham Records. These
werenÆt songs drawn from Bradley's Black Velvet act, but were instead highly
personal and striking outings that put his own emerging voice as a singer and
songwriter at the center of things. A full album for Dunham, No Time for
Dreaming, appeared early in 2011.