Charles Bradley and His Extraordinaires will perform at the Workplay Theatre on Friday, April 20. The show is set to begin at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at www.workplay.com or at the door.
It wasn’t until he was 63-years-old that Charles Bradley recorded his first full-length record, 2011’s No Time For Dreaming. Bradley’s story is an epic journey. He was raised in Gainesville, Fla. until the age of eight by his grandmother. Bradley moved to Brooklyn to live with his mother, where his sister took him to see James Brown at the Apollo. The inspiration later led Bradley to a brief career as a James Brown impersonator, performing under the stage name “Black Velvet.”
As a young teen, Bradley ran away from home, spending years in the streets. He enlisted in Job Corps, which led him to a 17 year career as a chef. After moving back to Brooklyn in 1996, he fought for his own life after receiving a penicillin shot (which he was allergic to) and awoke to police outside his mother’s home arriving to his brother’s murder scene.
I had a chance to speak to Bradley for nearly 30 minutes. He often strayed from the starting point, but he always arrived at one point: his own authenticity. When I briefly mentioned his brother, it recalled parts of that story that had never been printed, and it recalled emotions from Bradley that are still difficult to overcome.
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Blake Ells 