Charles Bradley: Soul of America Page #4

That's when I went to Job Corps. I tried to get my mother to sign me to go to Job Corps.

She was mad with me, she wouldn't sign, so I got my sister to forge her name.

I learned to cook. For two years, I was a cook trainee up in Bar Harbor, Maine.

That's when I started doing James Brown on the Job Corps.

They'd say, "Man, you see that new guy that came in?

"He looked just like that guy they call James Brown."

And then they got me fired up one day. They gave me some gin.

In the Job Corps, you were sneaky.

They gave me some gin, they got me really high and they gave me the microphone and said, "Sing!"

And I went crazy.

They told me they'd take me to a girls' Job Corps centre to perform.

I said, "How many people is there going to be?" They said, "20 or 30 people." I said, "OK."

And they called me on stage.

And I looked out from that stage and I saw all those people.

I froze. I said, "Uh-uh, I ain't going out there! Not me, not me."

So, this guy named Moody came behind me and gave me a push.

I see all the people just happy, they love me.

They love me giving them my heart.

And I said, "Wow, this is where I want to be at!"

And I never stopped.

I want to taste it when you open that...

- The one that's pumpkin?

- Oh, yeah.

- I got to taste that.

- We can open it now.

- I never heard of pumpkin beer.

- We can drink some of that.

- I sure want to taste that.

Oh, my God, this is delicious!

- Seriously. This is unbelievable.

- That's the pumpkin?

- Yeah.

- That's the pumpkin?

- It is like uncarbonated. It tastes unbelievable.

You like it? No? You don't like it?

- I don't like it.

- I think it's delicious.

- I'm going to taste the pumpkin in there.

Working with Charles Bradley as opposed to working with Sharon Lee

or the other singers from New York that I so often work with, Charles has got the craziest stories.

Craziest stories.

So, you know, as a songwriter, I just sit around and I hear Charles tell these stories

and you're like, "We've got to write a song about that."

So usually before we do the vocals on the track, I'll play Charles' song

and just ask him if he likes it first of all.

I'll sing him my ideas and say, "This is how I think it should go."

Not that he disregards my ideas, but he's got his own ideas and he instantly starts expressing them.

He'll just start singing and then we'll stop and get away from it for a second and just talk.

If you talk with Charles long enough, a story comes out about something.

Without me asking him, he'll start singing about what we spoke about.

Then I'll just grab a pencil and paper and let him freestyle over the track over and over again.

Then we'll go back and that'll become a song slowly, over the course of a couple of hours,

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