USA TODAY International Edition
For a smitten John Legend, ‘ Love’ is all you need
And the artist likes to spread it around
NEW YORK You wouldn’t necessarily peg John Legend as a happy- go- lucky guy.
Arriving at his record company’s offices, the singer/ songwriter is dressed entirely in black. He is warm but hardly effusive, speaking softly and maintaining a mostly sober expression. Every so often, though, his eyes will brighten slightly, and his lips curl into a gentle smile.
“I’m an optimistic person,” says Legend, 34. He’s also a man in love, and those qualities are in focus on his new album, Love In the Future, out today.
Only an excerpt of the title song appears on the album, “a chorus that I use in the intro. The lyric is about the anticipation of beginning something new, and forgetting about all the loves that didn’t work out before.”
Legend came by this positive view naturally: He and his girlfriend, model Chrissy Teigen, 27, are engaged. “We’ve been together almost seven years now, and we see ourselves being together forever. So we thought we’d make it official.”
Asked when the big day is, Legend simply says, “Soon.” He’s not the sort you would picture gushing about floral arrangements or exotic honeymoon destinations. The romance in his music, too, avoids overstatement; there’s a measure of reserve in its lush intensity.
To achieve that balance, Legend enlisted longtime collaborators Kanye West and Dave Tozer, his coexecutive producers. “Kanye obviously has a brilliant creative mind; you can see that by all the contributions he’s made to popular culture. He always knows how to bring out the best in the raw material.”
Legend has been pleased with early reaction to the album on social media, particularly the current single, the moonstruck ballad All Of Me. “A lot of people are saying they cried when they first heard it, which is cool. Chrissy cried when I sang it to her for the first time.”
Rolling Stone senior editor Simon Vozick- Levinson sees Legend’s strengths as traditional ones: “He’s got an impeccable voice and a strong presence, and he constructs these classic songs that have a vintage sound. In what’s been a very good year for soul music, those strengths should serve him well.”
Legend, too, has been impressed by the progress made by fellow spirits. “When you look at Miguel, Frank Ocean, even Justin Timberlake and Robin Thicke, there’s clearly some quality music by male R& B singers right now.” Still, Legend concedes, “radio programmers can have a difficult time with my music, because it doesn’t fit in any one format. But that’s what we try to do: to challenge ourselves to make something unique.”
Legend also is working on a screen adaptation of Baratunde Thurston’s best seller How To Be Black, and he’s producing the soundtrack for 12 Years A Slave, which stars Brad Pitt and arrives in October.
But music is still his greatest source of satisfaction.
“My role as an artist is to put out beauty in the world and to spread love,” he says. “That may sound cheesy, but I think it’s part of an artist’s job — or at least my job.”