Anyone picking up Charles Bradley's singles with the Menahan Street Band these past few years would've expected something special from the No Time For Dreaming album. But this much? This good? Only in our dreams.
Drawing on the raw power of Otis Redding, the high drama of James Brown, the strutting soul of Tyrone Davis and the downhome funk of Bobby Byrd, No Time For Dreaming is - and I don't say this lightly - a classic.
There have been some great albums in 2011 that I'll be listening to for the rest of the year (take a bow Mr President, Sweet Bulbs and Help Stamp Out Loneliness) but there's only one that's got so far under my skin I know for certain that I'll be playing it in ten years' time.
Favourite track? There are many, but I keep coming back to the damning indictment of the American dream that is Why Is It So Hard. Charles Bradley is 61. He saw James Brown at the Apollo in 1962. This is his first album.
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