Charles Bradley is a great story – picked out of relative obscurity into a music career in his early 50s. Sadly he died (of stomach cancer) in 2017.

He worked as a Chef in Bar Harbor, Maine, as well as Seattle and Alaska, before becoming something of a James Brown impersonator (under the name Black Velvet) in New York in the later 90s, where he was “discovered” by Gabriel Roth of Daptone.

This was the second album on Daptone, recorded with the Menahan Street Band (some overlaps there with Antibalas, the Dap-Kings, and the El Michels Affair).

The song “Victim of Love” was also part of the soundtrack to Big Little Lies (following Cold Little Heart as track 2) which was hugely influential and I hope introduced lots of people to Bradley (and Daptone).

My copy is the Vinyl Me Please exclusive pressing on what they call “Purple in Black” vinyl – sounds great and is a nice quality package.