Robert Bradley Live Review

Robert Bradley
Dancing in the District concert
Nashville, TN
Wednesday, July 17, 2003

"When you get to Hollywood and get a triple platinum and a Lamborghini, please call my daughter.”
-- Robert Bradley, quoting an Alabama girl’s father

There won’t be any more deep soul singers after Robert Bradley. He’s the last of the line. I finally got a chance to see Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise (see my review of their 1996 debut CD below) last night at an outdoor, radio-sponsored show for $3! There were a couple of moments when I (as Neil Young might say) “got all choked up” watching and listening to this thin, blind black man, with prematurely gray hair, from Evergreen, Alabama, singing his emotional autobiography of rain, the Golden Gate bridge, music in the park, the Viet Nam War, and lovers who could make a blind man see. There’s definite a sense of longing and tragedy about him as well as an endearing sort of everyman-elemental essence.

His band, the Detroit-based Blackwater Surprise, some of whom actually discovered him singing on the streets of that city, is good. In fact, very good--but it’s still all about Robert. Standing there listening to a talent of his caliber, name checking Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, and Sam Cooke, I couldn’t help but wonder if his own good fortune will continue. I hope so.

Originally posted to SteveForbert.com in August 2003.