Charles Bradley: No Time for Dreaming [DAPTONE]

Why you'll love it

This Dunham/Daptone LP comes with lyrics and a download card. Metacritic averaged 79 for the album, and Paste said it furthered the argument that Daptone can do no wrong.

This edition

• Download card included
• Lyrics included

About the album

Charles Bradley was 62 when his first album came out. For years he worked odd jobs and played clubs as a James Brown tribute act before Daptone's Gabriel Roth heard him and paired him with Thomas Brenneck and the Menahan Street Band, who built these songs around his voice on Brenneck's Dunham imprint.

That voice is the whole show: a ragged, pleading howl straight out of 60s Memphis and Stax. "The World (Is Going Up in Flames)" was the first single and still gives us goosebumps, "The Telephone Song" and "Lovin' You, Baby" swing and simmer, and "Golden Rule" and "Trouble in the Land" carry a heavy heart. The title track and "How Long" show Brenneck's band at its tightest, and "Heartaches and Pain" closes the record in true, aching style.

PopMatters said you don't need to know his back story to fall in love with him, and AllMusic said contemporary R&B fans would be moved by every note. He made up for lost time in style; there are artists half his age who'd struggle to sing this hard before lunch.

Also at Kops: more Charles Bradley on vinyl · browse 70s Soul On Up

Tracklist

Listen

On Dunham / Daptone (cat# DUN-1001), a reissue of the 2011 album.