Charles Bradley: Soul of America Page #4

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- I'm just loving you, baby

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- Oh, I can't get enough of you, baby

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- Can't get enough of you

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- I was crying

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- When I felt your love

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- This time I know it's for real, baby

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- I...

Bring it down a little, fellas.

Ladies and gentlemen,

may ever who you are...

I lived here. I came here, about Poughkeepsie,

about 1968.

And I lived here for nine years.

You know,

this is like home to me, so I'm giving you my love.

You know... Bring it down a little softer, fellas.

And I worked in a little town they called Wassaic.

I worked at a little centre. I was cooking for 3,500 people a day.

There's a friend in here, two friends, I knew when I came here.

They was with me.

And their names are Mr and Mrs Ernest Washington.

Ernest Washington, I can't see you. Where are you at?

But thank you, brother, for the ride.

Thank you, Jackie.

Thank you for being my friends through the years.

And ALL of you out there.

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- I LOVE you

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- Aaaaaah, hey

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- I love you

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- Forgive me

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- Aaaaaah

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- Ooooh...

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Thank you. I love you.

CROWD CHEERS:

We love you!

I got a touching moment

when I got down and started talking to people. It got touching.

So I said, "Leave it alone, Charles. Getting too deep now. Get off it." Cos it started getting touching.

But that was the beautiful thing about Ernest Washington and Jackie. Oh, man.

This is the first time they saw me in many years.

This is the house my brother was killed in.

That's why I don't like to come in this block no more.

I looked out the window and I saw all these policemen and fire trucks

so I came outside and I thought I've got to go see this for myself.

I saw this thing says Morgue. And when it says Morgue

what I did, I just saw... I came out to go in my brother's house and the detective let me in there,

but I told him, "That's my brother and you can't stop me." So I pushed my way in.

But I wish to God that I never did.

Yes, I will, son.

I think Charles depended on Joseph like his mother depended on him.

Charles went out of his mind when Joseph got killed.

I mean, he...

For a while, he thought he was going to go crazy about him.

'I'd really like to find the truth of why he got killed.

'He was too young.

'He was 48 years old.'

There's a mic for you right here.

You want to try that one or you want to play something else?

We can come back to that. He always goes...like that.

- Oh, you want to do Heartaches and Pain?

- Yeah.

All right.

BAND PLAYS INTRO

'Heartaches and Pain is by far the deepest song'

on the Charles Bradley record. It was probably the third song that we had written together.

Charles tells me this story about his brother and says to me,

"I want to write a song about my brother Joseph."

I said, "OK, I will help you do it." As a friend.

And I said, "That song on the piano you've been playing your whole life? That's the music to the song."

Brought Charles in, added a couple of things to his piano. "This is the song for your brother."

And he did his thing then. He started screaming, running around, "This is beautiful. Oh, my God!"

And then we started working on it and it was hard, man.

It was really hard. That is a really personal, deep, deep, dark, haunting story

about Charles's older brother, that he admired and loved, that he needed to tell.

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- Life's full of sorrow

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- So I have to tell you this

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- Your brother is gone

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- Yeaaaah

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- Heartaches

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- Heartaches and pain...

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So the mortgage is hard on me and I don't think it's fair to me.

I never missed a payment. They told me if I did, they'd go up 18% on my interest rate.

I tried to get it remortgaged. They tell me I don't make enough money.

I said, "Well, how don't I make enough money and I'm paying all this high mortgage out?"

I'm going out to get every little penny I can get to keep this going.

When Joseph got killed Charles went on and took on the full duty of taking on what Mother needs.

Cos none of them would do it. Charles is doing it,

a lot of his personal money he puts into the house to help her to stay there.

He's in the process, I would say, almost of buying this damn house for his mother.

And his older siblings that live there in the house don't want him there.

And so he is largely responsible for

taking care of all of my sister's...

..affairs.

RINGTONE PLAYS:

Hello?

Yes?

Oh, hi. How you doing, Paul?

She says if she won't be able to do the remortgaging... the refinancing of the house,

I'll have to wait for two months until the income tax come.

She'd like me to give up my apartment, but I don't want to.

I'd have to move over to my mom's house.

Yeah, cos this apartment is the only place I have to run to when I get depressed.

And there's pieces only of me here.

Whatever you decide, cos I know that you're trying to help me and I appreciate that.

All right, Paul. Thank you, Paul.

What's left for me to do is my life, take my life away.

Sometimes I do, I say, "God, just call me home."

Because every day I get out and I fight and fight to keep the honesty,

the decency of a human being walking the planet. And loving everybody as God asked you to love.

But today they look at it as a weakness, I think.

How much more can one give before they find love on the planet?

How much more can you give?

I say, "Father, whatever time and hour you want me, I'm ready to go."

That's the way I feel about life.

And before I leave this world I said I'd let the world know. They can't change me.

I don't give a damn what you give me, there's no money on this Earth

can take the love that I've got for God in my heart. I love everybody.

I never do nobody no harm.

All I try to do is just walk my straight line.

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- Why is it so hard

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- To make it in America

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- So I said to myself

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- I... I gotta move away from here...

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Me and Homer were travelling around Europe with Sharon Jones and we had hung out one night

and met some girls in Paris. They were like, "Is Sharon Jones as big in America

"as she is in France?" And we were like, "Nobody knows about Sharon." This was years ago.

We played around Brooklyn and small clubs, but at the time we were playing theatres in Paris

and it was a bigger thing in Europe.

So that led to us writing this little tune that night called

# Why is it so hard to make it in America? #

The second that Charles sang, "Why is it so hard to make it in America?"

the song's meaning completely changed.

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- Why-y-y

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- Is it so hard

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- To make it in America?

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- I try-y-y

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- So hard now

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- To make it in America...

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Beautiful, Bradley.

RINGTONE PLAYS:

Oh, Tommy.

OK, I'm definitely... I'm definitely going to get it?

All right, Tommy.

Page six? OK, Tommy.

OK, Tommy.

I owe so much to you guys. You just... Oh, Tommy!

I'll see you.

Your bad self.

All right, Tommy.

Tommy said they got me in the Post on page six.

Ohhh...

Lord have mercy.

What can you say?

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