From the back field to the band room, Willie Bradley builds futures through music at SC State
Preparing students for music industry careers, the Grammy-nominated musician explains why sustained support is critical to their success.
“My mom put me way in the back of the field when I was starting out,” Bradley said. “And then, graduate, you know, she would say, ‘Come a little closer to the house.’”
By Thanksgiving, he was on the back porch. By Christmas, he was playing in the living room for family members.
“I’ve never quit since then,” he said.
That same persistence now shapes how Bradley works with students at South Carolina State University. In addition to his classroom instruction, Bradley performs with a small ensemble of students at campus and community events, giving them professional-level experience while they are still in college. The performances place students on real stages, with real expectations, under the guidance of an artist who continues to work at a high level in the music industry.
Today, Bradley is a Grammy-nominated jazz trumpeter, a South Carolina State alumnus and a full-time instructor in the university’s Music Industry Program, where he is using a lifetime of lived experience — on stage, on the road and in the business — to prepare students for careers beyond the spotlight.
“Of all the great things that have happened to me, being a three-time Grammy-nominated artist is meaningful, but being hired to come back to South Carolina State as an employee in the Music Industry Program has been the best thing that’s happened to me,” Bradley said.
As that work expands beyond the classroom and onto stages across campus and in the community, Bradley has emphasized the need for continued support of the Music Industry Program. That support helps provide students with scholarships, performance opportunities, industry exposure, travel, equipment and resources critical to preparing them for professional careers.
A foundation built at home — and earned the hard way
Bradley was born in Sumter, South Carolina, but grew up in Orangeburg. His mother worked as a teacher assistant for Orangeburg Consolidated School District 5. His father was a custodian at the high school.
He was the first in his family to graduate from college.
“I’m the oldest child and the first one to graduate from college,” Bradley said.
Music filled their home. His father owned records spanning generations of jazz greats.
“We had everything from Lawrence Welk to … Dizzy, Miles Davis, Jimmy Smith, Cannonball Adderley,” Bradley said. “It was mostly jazz.”
Saturdays were reserved for chores — and listening.
“Before we could go outside or turn the TV on, they allowed us to listen to the stereo,” he said.
But when Bradley wanted to join the school band in seventh grade, he was told no. Like many fathers, his father had a different vision of what his son should become.
The following year, Bradley found a way. His mother bought him a lawn mower. He cut grass all summer and saved $250.
“I had a Pro-Ked shoebox and a Mason jar,” he said. “$250 rolled up in the jar with the names of the people whose grass that I had cut.”
That money bought his first trumpet — a Bundy silver horn — and a promise.
“She made me write her a note to say that I was never going to quit playing,” Bradley said.
From SC State to the world stage
Bradley earned a full music scholarship to South Carolina State and became lead trumpet player in the jazz ensemble. Spring break tours helped him realize music could be a career.
“We were touring like we were professionals when we were only college students,” he said.
Then came a defining moment.
Bradley shared a birthday with Dizzy Gillespie. While Gillespie was visiting campus, Bradley was invited to perform “A Night in Tunisia” with him.
“That was life-changing for me,” Bradley said.
He later toured with Gillespie before returning to SC State to finish his degree in 1990.
But life offstage was not without struggle.
Without consistent support, Bradley carried childhood trauma into adulthood, where it led to addiction to drugs and alcohol. The addiction worsened, upending his life and resulting in multiple car accidents and a return to rehabilitation for a fourth time.
“I was court-ordered for six months, and I ended up staying 22 months,” he said. “And I feel like that was the time that the Lord set aside for me to get my life together.”
During that time, Bradley said he received professional counseling and began confronting the emotional toll from childhood he had carried for years.
“I’d gotten the professional counseling and help that I needed to work through the trauma from the physical abuse from my dad,” he said.
When he left rehabilitation, Bradley said his mindset had fundamentally changed.
“My whole mindset had changed,” he said. “And I decided at that point that I was going to follow my dreams.”
Learning the business, and the road back to campus
Bradley rebuilt his life through music, recording albums, earning Grammy nominations and learning the mechanics behind success.
“I learned how to live off of those four residual forms of income,” he said.
He learned the industry from every angle — as a touring musician, a Department of Defense music teacher at Fort Bragg, and a band and orchestra instrument salesman.
“I didn’t have a booking agent,” he said. “I was my own booking agent. I was my own manager.”
Bradley has performed internationally at many engagements and major jazz festivals. He also has worked with such famed bands and musicians RJ & The Original James Brown Band, Ronnie Laws, Alex Bugnon, members of Sly & the Family Stone, Marion Meadows, Walter Beasley, Gerald Albright and David Sanborn.
His return to SC State came unexpectedly. Bradley said he stopped by the Department of Visual and Performing Arts in 2021 while visiting Orangeburg to check on his father after his mother’s death. While there, he ran into a former classmate, SC State’s Dr. Rosetta Dingle, and left copies of his CDs with her.
“She said, ‘Willie, what are you doing now?’” Bradley recalled. “I was like, ‘I’m just touring full time.’”
When she asked if he had a master’s degree and would consider teaching, Bradley said he initially dismissed the idea.
“I told her, ‘I don’t have time to go back to school,’” he said.
Days later, Bradley said he received a call asking him to return to campus.
“They figured out how to get me here,” he said. “They brought me here as an artist in residence. This was not on my radar whatsoever.”
Shortly after joining his alma mater, he was named the 2021 Artist of the Year by the Smooth Jazz Network. His song “It’s My Time” was featured on the Top 30 Smooth Jazz Network chart for best songs of 2021 and also held the number one spot on Top 20 for two consecutive weeks.
After his first year at SC State, Dr. M. Evelyn Fields, dean of the College of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences. provided him with a full-time position. He has been building the jazz program and modeling success ever since.
Teaching by example with credibility earned the hard way
“The students’ perception about success in the music industry is not how it is in the music industry,” Bradley said.
His focus is preparation.
“My job and my mission is to make sure that the students have a good foundation, a solid foundation before they leave South Carolina State University,” he said. “Because if they don’t have a solid foundation before they leave here, the chances are they will not be successful because it’s brutal.”
Bradley continues to tour while teaching, by design.
“One of the conditions,” he said, “they said, ‘We want you to continue to tour.’”
That visibility matters.
“We want you to continue to do everything that you were doing so that students can see a successful artist and alum from South Carolina State University who’s actually doing it,” he said.
Through performances, rehearsals and mentorship, Bradley shows students what professional standards look like long before they enter the workforce.
“You can be the most talented person in the world,” he tells them, “but if you can’t show up on time, you can’t be prepared and dressed for the occasion, you will not be successful.”
Watching students cross the stage
Seeing students graduate is personal.
“That means the world to me,” Bradley said. “It means they did their work.”
He recalled the feeling when one of his first students walked across the commencement stage.
“We became very close,” he said. “I actually broke down in pride when he graduated.”
Now, Bradley is taking students to national industry conventions and opening doors he once had to knock on himself.
A legacy beyond the classroom and a father’s pride
Away from campus and the stage, Bradley is also a father whose children reflect the same emphasis on education and discipline he brings to his students.
He has three children, all college graduates. His oldest son, Kyle Bradley, 34, is a mechanical engineer with John Deere and lives in Evans, Georgia. His second son, Kameron Bradley, 33, lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he owns a media videography business. His daughter, Kristen Bradley, 24, is a registered nurse in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. All three graduated with honors.
Bradley also is a grandfather, with one grandson and another on the way — milestones he said carry deep personal meaning given his own journey as a first-generation college graduate.
Building what comes next
Support is critical, he said, to provide students with travel opportunities, instruments, master classes and scholarships — resources that help bridge the gap between talent and professional readiness and ensure the next generation of artists and industry professionals leave SC State prepared to compete at the highest level.
“We have a dynamic music industry program,” Bradley said. “And we are preparing the next Grammy winners here at South Carolina State University for tomorrow.”
The university’s music programs are part of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts within the College of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences. Visit www.scsu.edu/music for more about SC State’s opportunities in music. Reach Bradley at wbradle3@scsu.edu.
To support the Music Industry Program, visit https://www.scsu.edu/give/now.php and select “Music Industry Program” from the dropdown menu.