1948-2017: Going Through Changes

Charles Bradley, The Screaming Eagle of Soul, died on September 23.

- Geoff Brown

Charles Bradley, The Screaming Eagle of Soul, died on September 23.

No soul singer of the modern era has been better equipped to sing of life’s pain, hardships, tribulations, redemption and ultimate triumphs than Charles Bradley. I was fortunate enough to interview him several times during the years of his late-arriving success, and on each occasion the gradual reveal of his life left me a little more astonished and admiring at his fortitude.

Soon after his birth in Gainesville, Florida on November 5, 1948, his mother left the family to be cared for by their grandmother, while she followed a man to New York. She returned for her children eight years later, taking them to New York as a means to claim welfare. By 14, Charles was living on the New York streets, sleeping on the subway. A route out suggested itself when his sister took him to see James Brown at the Apollo in Harlem. “The whole picture stuck in my mind,” he told me, still thrilled.