Charles Bradley’s Unchanging Soul

Charles Bradley’s cover of “America” only lasts a minute and thirty two seconds. But once you hear it, you’ll never want to hear anybody else do it again. Bradley doesn’t just cover a song, he embraces it with all of his being, his raw bleeding heart and shattered soul on display for all to see

“Hello, this is Charles Bradley,” the vocalist says, as if that distinctive voice needs an introduction.“A brother that came from the hard licks of life. Just know that all the pains that I’ve been through … made me strong, to stand strong, that America represents love for all humanity and the world. I say it from my heart.” If his own voice wasn’t enough to drop you to your knees, the backing vocals by the Gospel Queens, (Edna Johnson, Christine Johnson, and Bobbie Jean Gant) take Irving Berlin’s patriotic ode to church, baptising it with gospel soul.

Bradley continues his patriotic praise on his latest release, Changes, with “Good to Be Back Home,” slipping into the James Brown persona with which he once made a living, under the name of Black Velvet.

“Nobody But You” has a Philly soul sound, with the brassy aid of tenor saxman Leon Michels. Trumpeter Dave Guy lays down a Memphis horns soundalike soundtrack to the mix, which is sweetened with the angelic voices of the Gospel Queens.

The big deal here is the title cut, Bradley’s reworking of Black Sabbath’s “Changes.”

Bradley totally transforms the tune, in tone and genre. Osbourne’s is a pop-flavored blues, while Bradley’s is gut-wrenching soul.

Even though the lyrics remain the same, the level of loss in the two versions is vastly different. Ozzie has lost a lover, but Bradley says he was thinking of the loss of his mother while performing the song. As powerful as his vocals are, his mute testimony on the video speaks louder, Bradley’s leathery visage looks like it’s about to split open, down to the bone, from grief.

Bradley comes off a as vicitm of love gone wrong on most of his compositions, but finally gets a chance to turn things around on “Aint It A Sin.” Borrowing the tonsils of James Brown and the attitude of Screamin Jay Hawkins, he warns would be-lovers who might try to add some more puncture wounds to his battered, bleeding heart, that he’s had enough.

“I try to be a righteous man / Talked to Lord, almost every day,” he says before offering an alternative to prayer: “If you ain’t gonna do me right/I might just do you in.”

Charles Bradley is the last of a dying breed, one of the very few old school soulmen still left. He’s sometimes criticised as borrowing heavily from James Brown, but Brown had no qualms about borrowing from many of his contemporaries in gospel and rock to put together a sound and an image. Bradley is the real deal — it’s written all over his face and burned into his vocals. Stop, look, listen … and marvel.