Charles Bradley - Changes

Charles Bradley's Changes is soul music sung with every scar showing, a 2016 album that found the Screaming Eagle of Soul at his most moving.

His third album was produced by Thomas Brenneck, with the Menahan Street Band providing most of the backing and The Budos Band and the Gospel Queens lending a hand. Having found fame late in life after decades of hard work and hard luck, Bradley poured gratitude, heartbreak and faith into every performance, and you can hear all of it.

God Bless America opens the album as an unexpected, heartfelt hymn, setting the tone for what follows. The title track reimagines Black Sabbath's Changes as a slow-burning soul ballad, his voice cracking with grief, while Good to Be Back Home struts with funky swagger and a real sense of relief.

Brenneck's warm, vintage-minded production gives the songs the feel of a lost classic, with horns, organ and rich backing vocals framing Bradley's raw, pleading voice. Nothing is polished to a shine, and that is exactly the point: this is a record that sounds lived in, sweated over and deeply felt.

The last album released in his lifetime before his death in 2017, Changes stands as a powerful final statement from one of modern soul's most beloved voices.