Discovering the D, vol. 1 chapter 2

Back to Eastern Market (as I said, I'd return to this), I was amazed at the vastness during our super-quick trip this weekend. It's billed as the "largest open-air wholesale-retail market in the United States." (Cited from the Detroit Almanac.) Eastern Market has been at its site since 1891. (Before that it was a city graveyard.)

I can't wait until the third Sunday in May, when the market holds its annual Flower Day and when families apparently bring strollers, red wagons, carts, anything to haul their flats of flowers back to the car.

One of my few memories about Eastern Market from childhood was a trip there with my dad. We saw a blind man winding his way through the masses and then later singing haunting, raspy blues on a corner there. It left a great impression on me. In high school, I actually won a writing contest for a story about that blind man who sang the blues at Eastern Market.

That was 15 or more years ago.

Now, this is weird because I just googled this topic on the off chance I could find something on the aforementioned blind man. Believe it or not, I found several references, including some stories about a blind man who used to sing the blues at Eastern Market and later got plucked from obscurity.

Here's something from the Metro Times:
The legend of Robert Bradley is one that’s told often – whispered by music journalists for the past four or five years in music and pop culture mags such as this one. Bradley’s ascendance has become a minor myth. It goes something like this: It seems that Bradley, a street musician – and a blind one that sang the blues, to boot – was performing in Detroit’s Eastern Market as he had done for years when his sweet soulful strumming and singing drifted into the studio of local rock veterans Chris and Andrew Nehra. They invited Bradley up to the studio, formed a musical bond and became Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise, a full-fledged blues-rock band signed to RCA Records.

Robert Bradley has toured with the likes of the Dave Matthews Band and others.

Not sure how or when he ascended or if this is the same person, but how strange, huh? Wonder if it's the same person I wrote about all those years earlier. I love when such memories come full circle.

Anyway, I can't wait to return to the market. I'm sure there are so many memories to recall and new ones to make.