Traditionally, at the end of a rousing production, an audience tossing roses on the stage to laud the performers isn’t an uncommon practice. At a Charles Bradley concert, that flower-flinging wave of adoration swells; it just happens in reverse, and it’s a lesson instead of an ovation.
Towards the end of a show in Brooklyn last November, the 67-year-old soul singer halted his belting and gyrating to pick up a bouquet. His band, the Extraordinaires, vamped in the background as Bradley took to his mic as a preacher does a pulpit. Removing each bloom from the bunch, Bradley complimented the blossoms one by one, stressing that the red petals of a rose aren’t more or less beautiful than the yellow ones of the lily or the white ones of the carnation beside it. He condemned violence, police brutality, those responsible for the massacre at Le Bataclan that had taken place in Paris just days earlier. After hurling the bouquet into the crowd, Bradley continued to deliver his own gospel, circling the simple but profound point that people also should not be judged by the color of their skin.
“All those flowers is beautiful," Bradley says on a recent afternoon, calling from London, where he’s touring in support of Changes, his third full-length released last week. "I just brung it out the way I see it, to let people know that we are all colors, but underneath, we all got to drink water."
Bradley's pleas for colorblind acceptance in a world gone mad ring truer by the day, and he hasn't found much consolation in our current election cycle. He's frank when discussing candidates — namely, his disappointment in many of them.
“I’ve never in my life seen presidential [candidates] fussin’ and fightin’ the way they’re going today,” he says. “It’s just, like, wow. Revelation is very thick in this moment. It’s very serious.” He watches the debates when he can and finds the televised squabbles to be especially disheartening. “I’m glad I’m 67 years old, because I see the next 20 years… and the personality of mankind, it's getting very corrupted.”
For Bradley, the face of that corruption is easy to spot in the sour visage of Donald Trump. “If he wins, I’m moving out of the United States,” Bradley says of the Republican frontrunner. “I don’t wanna be in the United States no more. He’s a man that I will think will bring terror to the world.”
We have more than enough of that already, and Changes is a record that seeks to save the listener from the worst of it with calls to action and pleas for understanding. The album differs from 2013’s Victim of Love—the sophomore LP that solidified Bradley's "old man singing modern soul standards" act as an unlikely path to indie prominence—in that here he sings for mankind at large just as intensely as he does the specific objects of his affection. And he wouldn't have to do that if he didn't see such violent muses around him.
“A lot of the things I’m seeing—what’s going on with the shootings, the police, the way they’re doing things nowadays—it’s a ball of confusion," he says. “That’s why, for a long time, if I don’t have no reason to be outside, I’m in the house, because I try to keep away from the madness. I don’t want to get myself inflicted in it. I just try to keep myself away and think positive things. When I have the chance to put [these feelings] out in my music, I can open my heart and talk to the world.”
Bradley does this, literally, within a minute of dropping the needle on Changes. On “God Bless America,” which borrows the chorus from the patriotic standard, he addresses the listener directly before singing a note: Hello. This is Charles Bradley, a brother that came from the hard licks of life that knows that America is mine. America, you’ve been real honest, hurt, and sweet to me, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. Just know that all the pains that I’ve been through, it made me strong, to stand strong [and] know that America represents love for all humanity in the world. I say it from the heart.
Brassy blasts and rambunctious beats carry over “Good To Be Back Home” and the first half of the record. His frustration then spikes on “Ain’t It A Sin,” where Bradley howls, “I try to be a righteous man!” as his band revs their engines behind him. The flirtatious fare we’ve come to expect from Bradley follows—“Things We Do For Love,” “Crazy For Your Love,” “You Think I Don’t Know (But I Know)”—before “Change For The World” smolders. It is here that Bradley offers up firm decrees as wake-up calls: “Put away the guns and take this love," he urges; then, “Stop hiding behind religion/ Hate is poison in the blood” and finally, “If we’re not careful, we’ll be better segregated.”
When asked if he thinks we’re living through another Civil Rights Movement, Bradley’s affirmative answer is immediate.
“When I’m at home … I just back up, and be quiet, and watch, and I say, ‘My God, is this coming again?’” he says. “I wonder, ‘How we gonna make it through this time?’ If we don’t change this world and look inside our differences inside of us, we gonna bring this world back to a hard point."
Despite this bleak survey of the state of the nation, he finds hope for the future in one candidate. “Yes, it is time for a lady change,” he says, offering up his endorsement for Hillary Clinton. “Give a lady a chance. Then it will be a whole circle picture. I think she has a lot of positives inside of her, being a lady, and I think the world is ready for a change. The ladies haven’t had a chance in the United States. It’s time to see what she’ll do.”
In the meantime, Bradley will keep putting forth the call for Changes. He’ll keep throwing flowers and begging those listening to discard their guns and hatred for the sake of the greater good. Love is still his gospel of choice, but honesty, for him, is the real vehicle of change, and it’s one that leaves rose petals in its wake.
“If you want to give a show, make it real, and people will listen to you more carefully,” he says. “I’m singing the truth; I put my heart and soul into it. If you’re gonna sing, sing from your heart and the world will hear you.”