The music scene has been through Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder. Next up — Robert Bradley.

With the constant barrage of new bands that seem to rehash the same old sound, it is almost painful to hear the name of another.

Here comes a band that strips its music down to the core, trying to find the essence of sound.

From the land of motor cars and Motown music comes Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise.

Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise hails from the streets of Detroit. Not from the streets figuratively, they have actually been forged by the streets of cities around the country.

Robert Bradley, the band’s front man and primary song writer, began playing on the streets.

Bradley, a blind musician, played street corners, markets and parks, passing the hat to keep fed and clothed.

The 46-year-old musician became a mainstay on the streets of Detroit and would draw crowds of 100 almost every time he played. “Some days when it was really going, well, I’d get 200-300 people standing on the corner … the police had to break it up,” Bradley said.

“I wasn’t on the streets because I was hungry, or homeless. I was there because I was a player. I wanted to sing,” Bradley said in a press release.

Bradley spent most of his life on the streets playing his guitar and singing. Originally from Alabama, Bradley moved to Detroit in the early ’60s. He dropped out of high school and began traveling the country with his music.

Bradley came back to Detroit in 1986 and settled there for good.

Andrew Nehra, the band’s bassist, said it must have been fate that brought the group together. “Robert was playing outside the studio. I told my brother, you ‘ve got to come hear this guy,” Nehra said. They brought Bradley into the studio and recorded some things acoustically. “We just started playing together and instantly knew that it was magic,” Nehra said.

The band worked for three years fine tuning and getting the chemistry right.

Now, with the release of their self-titled debut 11-song album, the band is ready to show off its hard work.

“There’s a lot of love on the album,” Bradley said. “There’s a lot of hate, too.”

The hate Bradley referred to comes through on a track called “Governor” in which Bradley sings about his problems with government. “I hope they don’t find me,” Bradley said jokingly.

Nehra said the band was striving for a natural feel on the album. “We didn’t record it in a well formulated way,” he said.

“It was all about feel when we recorded, ” Nehra said. “We were just trying to capture the moment and left a lot of room for spontaneity.”

Nehra said Bradley brought a lot of his own experiences to the rest of the band. Bradley had written many songs over the years which the band focused and developed for the album.

“I probably brought six songs to the album,” Bradley said. “The others, the guys would just have a groove going and I would come in and play.”

Bradley said it took some time to get used to all the schedules of performing, touring and recording.

“On the street, I could take time out for a cigarette. On stage, you just can’t do that,” Bradley said.

“Robert had a bunch of stuff he had written. God, some of them since the ’60s,” Nehra said of the songs the band adapted. “Robert’s got really good vision, and we just helped him develop it.”

Blackwater Surprise, the name, just kind of happened much like the band itself. “We are the surprise,” Bradley said. “The surprise is that these young guys are with me. They never expected anything like this, and neither did I.”

The band is set to begin a long season of touring. “We have already been on the road for months,” Nehra said. “Now we can get up in front of a crowd and not be spinning our wheels.”

The band thrives on improvisation. Many of Bradley’s songs are made up on the spot. “You never know what you’re going to get,” Bradley said. “Sometimes we don’t even know.”

Robert Bradley’s Blackwater Surprise opens up for Big Head Todd & The Monsters Sunday, Oct. 20 at the Iowa Memorial Union in Iowa City.

The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $21 and all seats are general admission.