Tony Cowell speaks to Gregory Porter
BEST’S CELEB INSIDER TALKS TO GREGORY PORTER
Grammy award-winning jazz singersongwriter GREGORY PORTER burst on to the music scene in 2014. His distinctive, gravelvoiced baritone has won him fans on both sides of the Atlantic. Here, he tells best how he was inspired to sing by his late father - who he saw little of growing up - and how his mum sacrificed everything to bring up eight children single-handedly, while instilling in the young Gregory her love of gospel music...
You started writing poems and songs aged eight, didn’t you?
I did, yes – even though I had no place to put them, because nobody was listening back then! I would just sing them out of my bedroom window. Sometimes, I would write them in the back of the car while Mum drove us about. She loved her gospel music, so that was how I came to discover music.
What’s the inspiration behind Dad Gone Thing, one of the songs on the new album?
I think I’m still chasing my father Rufus’ memory, and I only learned everything about him at his funeral. He was in the army. He was an incredible singer and I owe him a lot, because I inherited his voice. I didn’t know he was a singer, until someone spoke about him at the funeral. My father wasn’t in my life much at all when I was growing up. So maybe that song is a kind of self-medication for me.
Tell us more about your deep love of gospel music...
Ah, that was my mum, Ruth.
She had a big collection of gospel records and, of course, Nat King Cole and Louis Armstrong! When I was about eight years old I wrote a song called Once Upon a Time
I Had a Dreamboat, and I played [it] to my mum and she said, ‘Boy, you sound like Nat King Cole!’ She was the foundation for my love of gospel music. She had her own little church in Bakersfield where we lived, and I would sing to the people on the streets there. They were street people, prostitutes, drug addicts – but Mum treated them normally, she wanted me to sing for them. She always looked after these people.
She had a strong work ethic – have you inherited that same drive?
I think I have. Once I found my way in life, I gained that same work ethic. I play sometimes 250 shows a year, but I still feel I don’t work as hard as my mum did. So, I never complain – for here was a woman who brought up eight kids, and somehow found the food to cook for all of us every day of our lives. That memory always gives me strength.
Did you have a tough upbringing?
Sometimes, when you are in it, you don’t realise it was ‘ hard’. When I look back, we were always moving to a new house – but she kept us all safe. There were often racial tensions in those days. People didn’t like having us live in what was a ‘white’ neighbourhood, but we always came through it all.
You won a Grammy in 2014 for album Liquid Spirit – did life change, then?
I suddenly got all this attention because of that album – but I don’t think that changed me. I still do what I think is best for me. I’m doing it my way, and I’m very proud of that. I never let the fame go to my head. I never took drugs, I just kept working. There were more people stopping me on the street to shake my hand, but in a way, I like that. Without them, I would still be that guy singing on the street.
‘My faith is in my DNA. It was planted there all those years ago, in that church where my mum preached and sang’
Is your faith important to you?
It is. On the new album, I sing about my heavenly father and, I talk about my actual father who is now in heaven.
My faith is in my DNA. It was planted there all those years ago, in that church where my mum preached and sang those gospel songs.
You have a seven-yearold son, Demyan. Did fatherhood change you at all?
Yes, I’m always thinking about being able to leave him something. I think about my own childhood, so I want to be present in his life. So even when I’m on the road, we talk every day. When I’m home, I still read his bedtime stories – that’s important to me. I often think about him in my songwriting, and consider whether he will ever listen to a certain song, when I’m dead and gone. I want him to remember me as a good person.
You start a UK tour in May. What can fans expect?
Well, I’m lucky enough to be playing four nights at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra, which will be awesome. I will also have my own band with me, so we can get to play some songs from the new album. I hope you guys enjoy it.
New single Revival is out now on Decca Records. New album All Rise is out 17 April. Gregory is at Cheltenham Jazz Festival on 5 May, then tours the UK from 9-26
May.