Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise

Robert Bradley's Blackwater Surprise (RBBS) was an American band from Detroit, Michigan. The group was a collaboration between Robert Bradley and three other rock musicians.

History The band was formed in 1994 when former members of the band Second Self met Bradley, a blind street performer. Bradley was born in Alabama, and gained musical experience by singing as a child at The Alabama School for the Blind. He had been in Detroit for several years by 1994, occasionally playing music on the streets, and playing on Saturdays in Detroit's Eastern Market, when guitarist Michael Nehra, his brother and bassist Andrew Nehra, and drummer Jeff Fowlkes overheard Bradley through an open window while rehearsing for a new project. After listening to Bradley sing for an hour, they invited him up to Nehra's studio, The White Room, to record several acoustic songs, and then asked him to become their vocalist. On September 17, 1996, RBBS released their 11-track debut. The result was marked as "an effective collaboration between a blind blues musician and a sympathetic Detroit rock trio." The album was produced by Michael and Andrew Nehra, and engineered and mixed by Michael Nehra. It was followed...