Get your April Fools’ Day on with some rich soul from two of the Daptone Records family’s hottest artists. Charles Bradley is a vocalist of incredible caliber, with that smoky rasp that echoes James Brown but with a sentiment that is way more Al Green, all impassioned pleas for love and understanding.
On the recent No Time For Dreaming, Bradley is augmented by the Menahan Street Band, a crew of razor-sharp funk doctors whose members moonlight in the Budos Band, Antibalas, and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings. Highly sampled (Jay-Z, Kid Cudi, and 50 Cent, among others) and impeccably recorded, this dream team of vocals, horns, and thick rhythms comes across like something shot out of a time machine from 1971.
Also on the bill: Lee Fields & the Expressions who mine the same vein of dirty R&B — the reissue of their 2002 album Problems on Truth & Soul records is another gem of booming kick drums and grimy basslines peppered with horns and strings. -Finn Cohen
Charles Bradley & the Menahan Street Band
Friday, April 1
8 p.m. (doors)
Music Hall of Williamsburg
66 North 6th St, Brooklyn
Tickets $17 (advance); $20 (at the doors)
