Patriot Act

Prodigal showman John Legend returns to Philly for the Fourth.

by A.D. Amorosi

	print	email	reply

Published: Jul 2, 2008

John Legend.

It's a name that, when you first heard it, sounded like one of those great old rock 'n' soul monikers.

Michael T. Regan

It could've been the name of some greaser in a rockabilly band from Encino playing biker fests throughout his retirement years, or the crooner in some rhythm 'n' blues act playing Rotary Club functions long after their hits stopped coming.

But that's not the John Legend Philadelphia knows.

Ours is pretty, elegant even. Ours is the standard-bearer of American R&B and smooth pop ballads.

That's why Sunoco Welcome America! is welcoming its former son (he lives in New York City now) back to Philly for its biggest possible venue: Fourth of July on the Parkway, fireworks to follow.

The John Legend we knew first was a University of Pennsylvania student who could be found running an a cappella vocal group named Counterparts. Or singing his own lilting folksy soul songs and silken jazz melodies at the Five Spot. Or playing piano in the window of North by Northwest. Or leading and directing the choir at the Bethel AME Church in Scranton. That's how Philadelphia knew Legend during the '90s.

Only then, he was John Stephens, not yet a Legend.

Stephens was a nice guy with long fingers, an easy smile and a quiet demeanor who could rock and could roll. The music was diverse and raw like D'Angelo without the sweat stains, or Lenny Kravitz without the Kravitz-ness.

For all the smoke his music made, there wasn't much fire. Stephens seemed to keep soul's quivering passions at bay. His best tunes such as "Sun Comes Up" were good, but cool. Stephens' sound was distinct but distant.

At a time when there was a neo-soul tag to be had and records to be sold, Stephens could've been the next "it," but he seemed to be hedging his bets.

Sure, Stephens released his own records, such as Live at SOB's New York City. It wasn't as if he didn't want to succeed. If you saw Stephens play, you sensed that he wanted more. But maybe he hadn't quite figured out how to do it or with what sound.

Playing keyboards during recording sessions for Lauryn Hill, Common, Black Eyed Peas and Alicia Keys helped him find his groove. So did working with his Penn roommate/producer, Devon Harris, who introduced him to cousin Kanye West. It was a match made in music heaven — corny as it sounds.

Creating music alongside West was crucial for Stephens. At that time, as both artists were coming up, they leaned on each other: West for Stephens' technical musicality, Stephens for West's production largesse and personal confidence. Next thing you know, Stephens becomes Legend, West signs him as the first artist to his G.O.O.D. Music label, and — on a spring night in 2004 — brings John Legend onto the stage of the Wachovia Center during West's own opening set for Usher. This is before West's College Dropout comes out. This is before Legend's Get Lifted.

To say that the rest is history is a cliché, but since that time, Legend has sold millions of copies of Get Lifted, created one true standard in "Ordinary People" and made a successful second album in Once Again.

At 29, he's turned himself into one of pop music's most well-heeled lover men — sartorially composed, forever dapper and a fave among GQ readers. He's used his business acumen (he spent some time in Boston and New York working as a management consultant) and his good taste to start his HomeSchool record label without rushing into a dozen signings. His first, Estelle, is selling well.

Legend's doing good civic work, too, with his Show Me Campaign organization. Based on Jeffrey Sachs' book, The End of Poverty, Show Me is dedicated to combating what he calls "economic and spiritual poverty" in Africa.

He's dueted with Tony Bennett. He's played halftime for an NBA All-Star game and sang "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch at an MLB All-Star game. He sang pre-game at Super Bowl XL and opened WrestleMania XXIV with "America the Beautiful." He's also been part of more than a few of Steve Jobs' keynote presentations for Apple and represented for Barack Obama in a "Yes We Can" music video. And he's been on The Colbert Report twice — once in March 2008 where he sang "The Girl Is Mine" with Stephen Colbert and again in April when the show came to Philly for the Democratic Primaries.

Their song this time? "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Legend knows his anthems — the big ones and his own personal anthems. He was working on a few when I caught up with him last week at a studio in Manhattan where he's still tinkering with the track listing and sounds of his third album, Evolver.

A.D. Amorosi: Are you an ambitious man?

John Legend: [laughs] I am. I think I've been so since I was a kid. I've always strived to be successful no matter what I've done. And it's never been just one thing.

A.D.A.: This isn't the kissing-your-ass-you're-so-beneficent question. But you seem to have something going on beyond music what with your charity stuff, and making a video for the Obama campaign. What do you want to be when you grow up?

JL: I don't want to be senator or president. I want to make an impact. I don't want to run for office. But I want to be influential within a political realm.

A.D.A.: So you have an ambition beyond getting album No. 3 to go platinum, while sounding all sexy with singles like "Green Light."

JL: There's always been more to me. That why the new album's called Evolver. It's about making progress.

A.D.A.: Let's duck back. What brought you to Philly from Springfield, Ohio, in 1995?

JL: I came to go to University of Penn. I'd been accepted at Harvard, too. But Penn's financial aid package was better. The admissions staff was aggressive about getting me. Plus I had family and friends there. I just felt more comfortable there. Even now, I can take the wheel from any driver and know where I'm going if they're not getting around fast enough.

A.D.A.: You were a good student in high school and college. You were an English major at Penn and had Counterparts, that a cappella group. All this is rarely associated with a happening career in music. Did you ever get grief for those corny beginnings?

JL: [laughs] Yeah, I'm definitely nerdier than the average rapper or R&B singer. I'm proud of that. I embrace it. That's who I am. I went to an Ivy League school. But I didn't grow up with a silver spoon. I know what it's like to struggle from week to week, to come from a family that didn't have money.

A.D.A.: I always thought you came from money.

JL: Tricked you. My family comes from the church. I know the music of struggle and inspiration very well. My father is a retired factory worker at a truck plant. Real Rust Belt, union, working type. But on the side — which is where I get my side hustle thing — he was an artist. He painted and did sketches. He made clothes, as did my mother. She was a tailor and a stay-at-home mom.

A.D.A.: That's where you get your fashion sense.

JL: All of my family was artistic. And well-dressed.

A.D.A.: Are you still religious?

JL: Not particularly, no. I don't go to church regularly and to be honest I think I'm in question mode at this point in my life right now. Religion often defies logic. It's hard to reconcile.

A.D.A.: John Stephens wasn't just soul, funk or rock. Wasn't merely Tin Pan Alley, jazz or hip-hop. He was all of that. Why? What were you trying to do?

JL: We really didn't know specifically what we were doing other than just making good music. We were experimenting. Still am.

A.D.A.: Any particular shining moment at the Five Spot?

JL: That place was a howl. It's where you wanted to be if you we're going to do Philly right. C'mon, the Black Lily shows. How's the place doing?

A.D.A.: It burned down.

JL: I have fond memories of that place.

A.D.A.: I've a funny feeing that you've got a keen sense of how to market yourself. I say that because, in my mind, I'm betting that you purposely avoided the neo-soul tag or being lumped in with the acts associated with it.

JL: Yes. I still see my name associated with it. People don't know what to call black singers with an independent streak. They know we're not Usher — all due respect, but we're clearly not him. And we're clearly not making the jazzy groove music associated with neo-soul. I was never trying to fit a definition. At the time, I had a feeling that the tag was played out and that it was limiting. Though I had a lot of respect for the people who pioneered the brand — D'Angelo, Erykah, Ahmir and The Roots — and enjoyed the music, the tag was a burden. Plus I don't think my music fit that tag ... less so now.

A.D.A.: To your credit, you still sell your John Stephens records on your Web site.

JL: Yeah, why not?

A.D.A.: Because a lot of artists who no longer use their original names might not do that.

JL: My thing is that you should never be ashamed of any records you made before. They were what they were, an expression of where you're at in your career and art at that time.

A.D.A.: Were you disappointed that you didn't succeed as John Stephens or were you not ready?

JL: Now I know that I wasn't ready [laughs]. But then, hell, I thought I was ready to go and should've been signed in 2000. I made my first effort in 1999 and every year I thought it was just around the corner — gonna happen, gonna happen. It didn't happen. Not until 2004. So for five years I thought it was always coming within the next six months.

A.D.A.: By that time you were doing sessions, like Lauryn Hill's "Everything is Everything" in 1998.

JL: Yeah, I was a junior and working at the church and one of the singers that was part of our choir was also a friend of Lauryn's, Tara Michel. Tara still sings with me. She brought me to Lauryn's studio one day and I wound up on the record — just on a whim. Tara told her I could play and sing. I did a few numbers and my claim to fame for my senior year was that I played on the biggest album of the year.

A.D.A.: You did a bunch of session stuff after that.

JL: Mostly in '03 under Kanye when he was still busy producing a lot of people. I was just around all the time so I played the stuff he was doing, him working on my album and me on his.

A.D.A.: If success would've eluded you, would you have been happy staying a session musician? Personally and professionally, would your ego have allowed that?

JL: No, it wouldn't've been OK. Even as I was doing it, I didn't think I was a session man. I thought I was a solo artist who happened to do session work. I never even considered the thought that I'd just be a session man. "I'm about to get a record deal" is what I kept thinking. Besides, I wasn't even that well known of a session guy. I was Kanye's session guy.

A.D.A.: The Legend thing?

Michael T. Regan

JL: It was a nickname that I got from a Chicago poet in Kayne's camp. I wasn't sure why he started calling me that but it caught on. It just happened. It got to the point in that circle — which was ever-expanding at that point — where people didn't even know my real name. It clashed with the underground marketing I had done as Stephens, but that expanding group was in the industry. I was in contact with them every day.

A.D.A.: So they won.

JL: I thought it was a silly name, man. No way I'd ever use it. But at some point I had to seriously contemplate it being a good stage name. Kanye was the main proponent. Likes bold statements. The only reason I hesitated then was that if I fucked up, everybody'd say I was whack [laughs]. But I wasn't whack. ... I had to believe I'd make great albums or I shouldn't come out in the first place. So fuck it.

A.D.A.: Legend it was.

JL: Now I gotta spend the rest of my career living up to it.

A.D.A.: You mention the industry. Whether you're singing with Tony Bennett or doing the anthem for the WWF — you always seemed eager to be seen, eager to be part of the mechanisms of the biz.

JL: I've been thinking about that seriously. I do wonder if I haven't done too many events and spread myself thin. Part of being a smart marketer is knowing when to say no. I have to think, on an individual basis, is this net positive or net negative to do this? What kind of audience will I reach and is it one that I haven't reached before?

A.D.A.: Combine that with the old-school show-bizzy elegance you seem to radiate, and you seem part of entertainment's traditionalism. No one sees you and goes "gangster."

JL: They're all individual decisions. Is it a cool project: uh huh. So why not do it? I'm obviously not gangster and if I tried to be, people wouldn't believe it. It's not where I'm from or what I represent. So the picture people get of me is a pretty accurate reflection of who I am.

A.D.A.: There's something I've noticed. I hear it more live than on record and hear it more now than before. This dramatic quaver in you voice — it's fucking operatic. Where did you get that?

JL: [laughs] Oh yeah. There's my vibrato at work — a rounder tone than when I first came out. I'm not sure what made that happen. I know I took vocal lessons. I found the sweet spot in my voice that I like. Draw from this what you will — my favorite singers are Nina Simone, Jeff Buckley, Marvin Gaye, Ella Fitzgerald. I'm stealing their mojo. But if you're looking at vocal timbre, mine is not like any of those; mine is raspier and deeper than those — except Nina.

A.D.A.: "Ordinary People," Get Lifted. Everyone knows those. But Once Again, a good record with strong songs, didn't have the same impact. I'm not talking about sales, necessarily. I'm guessing people didn't understand it, feel it. It doesn't have the same swagger of the first one. Am I wrong?

JL: You're not. I've read something, maybe from Ne-Yo, where he thought it went over people's heads. Musically, vocally and lyrically it's better than the first one. But what people loved on the first one that's missing here is the hip-hop influence — the swagger, I guess.

A.D.A.: So is there premeditation, to an extent, for Evolver to get back that swagger, to answer those people who wanted something closer to Get Lifted?

JL: It's me trying to pick the things that I like about both albums. But do something I didn't do on either album. And go beyond that. You have voices in your head, correct?

A.D.A.: You have no idea.

JL: If Once Again was me saying I could make an artistically beautiful record, I didn't think Get Lifted was that. But it was groovier. I answer my own critiques. The second one had less urgency. But it didn't make you stand up and pay attention.

A.D.A.: We know Evolver has "Green Light," featuring André 3000 of OutKast. What else?

JL: "Green Light" is the danciest song I got going here. There's still the slow jam ballads people expect to love from me. Some hip-hop you missed. Some of the attitudes are harder and darker, some of it's more romantic than usual. I even got a political anthem on this — "If You're Out There." It's a progression. It feels bigger than the other albums. It's hard to say exactly what that means. It just feels expansive.

A.D.A.: And if it fails?

JL: It's still me, my voice, my style — it's just a different beat and has a little more synth in the production. If they critique it like I'm going pop ... well, there's no way I'll please everybody. I just need a couple people, then a couple million more to buy it and tell their friends.

A.D.A.: You could always bug Colbert. How did you get with him?

JL: I love that show. He's one of America's true comic geniuses. So first I'm a fan. So when they asked me I said "hell yeah." We did that duet on "The Girl is Mine." Obviously he played Paul and I played Michael. Well, not obviously. We got a lot of buzz out of that.

A.D.A.: And you sounded sweet together.

JL: Since I went to Penn, he asked me to come back when he did the National Anthem this last time out. So now we have a two-song series.

A.D.A.: You've sung "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America" and the "Star-Spangled Banner" in public. You're doing the Fourth in the cradle of liberty. How do you feel singing these songs, about being some sort of symbol, repping for freedom?

JL: The thing is, there's always been a tense relationship between America and the standard-issue patriotism. Toward America and the black experience — to the point where we can't be patriots in the same way other people can. Because a lot of us have seen it — racism — up-close and personal. Or we've had close relatives who've seen the bad side. But what those songs represent to me — what the ideal of America represents to me — is something that we've not quite perfected yet as a country. We have aspirations. We have documents that say all men are created equal. But they weren't equal when it was signed. Black Americans were three-fifths of a person. Women didn't have the right to vote. America always had a promise that hasn't been fulfilled. True patriots are people who love the country and the idea of it so much that we want to see the promise fulfilled. That's why Barack Obama made that speech about the more perfect union. He wants it. We want it. We've made progress. A true patriot tries to get there. That's what those songs mean to me.

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

All reader comments are subject to our Terms of Use. By clicking Post Comment, you acknowledge that you have reviewed and agree to these Terms.

Name	please enter your name
Email (will not be published)	please enter a valid email
Comment	please enter a comment
Enter the security code on the right in the textbox below.
Security Code	please enter the code
	Join the City Paper Mailing List