Paying dues doesn't even begin to describe R&B singer Charles Bradley, who got his music-biz break after he turned 60. The genuine soul survivor never met his father, was abandoned by his mother and has battled poverty throughout his life.
He has since reconnected with his mother, but the family was dealt a tragic blow when his brother was murdered a few doors down from their mother's New York home.
"With the things that I've been through, if I didn't have a faithful belief in God, I don't think I would be on the stage," said Bradley, who performs Tuesday at Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. "I would be in somebody's jail; I'd be in somebody's graveyard."
The Florida-born soul singer's journey from homeless teen to lauded artist on retro-soul label Daptone Records — its co-founder discovered Bradley doing his James Brown impersonation show — was chronicled in the inspiring documentary "Soul of America."
Like his newly released album, "Victim of Love," the film is filled with both heartache and joy, as Bradley struggles to support his mother while living in the projects and finally gets his first taste of success in music.
But Bradley can't bear to watch it. The wounds are too deep.
"I watched part of it and had to walk away," he said. "Let's go back in your life when you're about 16, 17 years old and you watch all the pain that you've been through. You feel it in your heart, you moan in your heart. Then when someone takes it and shows it to you in a picture and you look at it, at those memories — it hurts. It hurt deeply."
Through the adversity, drowning in despair would've been easy. But instead Bradley channels those emotions on his funk-laced, soul-reviving records and exuberant live shows.
