Charles Bradley lucked into the kind of third act that few people could ever imagine. His early years were filled with neglect and poverty, buoyed by his discovery of James Brown when he was 14. As an adult, he drifted back and forth across North America, working odd jobs and singing on the side. In 2002, Bradley finally happened to be in the right place at the right time—in New York City, just as Daptone’s retro-soul empire began to rise. Bradley heard about Daptone’s success with Sharon Jones, another singer specializing in soul from another era. He was in his mid-50s and moonlighting as a James Brown impersonator named “Black Velvet,” one of many monikers he used in service of his JB tribute. Bradley introduce himself to Daptone co-founder Gabriel Roth, who heard something within that gravelly rasp. He signed Bradley to Daptone, linked him with producer and guitarist Tom Brenneck, and released the single “Take It As It Come,” launching a partnership that lasted until Bradley’s death from stomach and liver cancer in September 2017.
Black Velvet rounds up the stray tracks Bradley made during his last decade, apart from his three studio albums for Daptone. Despite his illness, diagnosed just months after the release of 2016’s Changes, Brenneck didn’t abandon the idea of creating new music with Bradley. He wrote and recorded “Black Velvet” with his Menahan Street Band, the group that backed Bradley since his 2011 debut, No Time for Dreaming. But Bradley couldn’t muster the energy to sing it, so the instrumental plays here as a mid-album elegy: soft, slow, and sweet, a song in search of a singer.
The presence of the unsung “Black Velvet” suggests Bradley didn’t leave much in the vaults. Black Velvet runs a scant 10 tracks, just three of which are newly unearthed and completely finished: “Can’t Fight the Feeling,” “Fly Little Girl,” and “I Feel a Change,” each dating from a different phase of his brief career. Otherwise, the compilation gathers songs stranded on singles or released as bonus tracks; a deluxe edition contains “Stripped Down Mixes” of songs from Bradley’s first two albums, spare variations on the original recordings designed to showcase his voice. This may lessen the feeling of discovery for longtime Bradley watchers, but Bradley’s music was always about maintaining tradition, not discovery.
To that end, Black Velvet is a fitting tribute to the late singer, perhaps capturing the breadth of his appeal better than any of his actual albums. Black Velvet isn’t as cohesive or tight as 2013’s Victim of Love or the emotionally charged Changes. But its sampler nature showcases how Bradley could ease himself into any style of the classic soul era. The closest nod to Brown comes through the guttural growls of a deeply funky cover of Nirvana’s “Stay Away,” but the arrangement pulsates to fuzzy guitar more reminiscent of the paisley-bedecked Temptations than the Godfather Of Soul. Bradley leans closer to Otis Redding here, especially on a slightly stiff reading of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold.” Brenneck and the Menahan Street Band shake things up by adopting any number of sounds from the golden age of AM radio.
Black Velvet plays a little like a compilation of obscure vintage 45s. But listen closely, and the illusion dissipates. The production is a little too tidy, reliant on affectionate signifiers of classic soul that don’t necessarily allow the music to breathe. Paradoxically, the songwriting is loose. Bradley eschews lyrical precision for free-flowing imagery, as on “(I Hope You Find) The Good Life,” where he interpolates Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were.” The melodies can follow similarly elliptical routes. Such slips didn’t happen on stage, where Bradley could rely on the tricks he honed through years of hard work.
But that can be said of every one of his records: They’re crafted artifacts that never quite captured his live charisma. Still, his weathered, yearning voice provided a focal point for Brenneck’s retro fantasias and helped freshen them. If anything, this farewell helps preserve the singer’s charms by illustrating how his revivalism wasn’t pure. He could adapt to whatever Brenneck gave him, making music that sounds tantalizingly out of time—a quality that will not fade as the years roll on without him.
