December 16, 2025 • 45 mins
John Legend joins Norah to talk about his life in music and the ways their journeys overlap. The multi-GRAMMY-winning EGOT artist shares where things really began for him, tells the story behind one of his most adored songs, and notes the 20th anniversary of his debut album Get Lifted. The episode features moving duets on songs you’ll recognize and ends with a touch of Christmas spirit. Recorded 10/14/25.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is also available as video on YouTube. You
can visit Norah Jones channel and be sure to subscribe
while you're there. Hi, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm
playing along with John Legend. I'm just playing Louy, I'm
just playing lone.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I'm Norah Jones. Welcome to the show. This is my
co host and friend Sarah Oda. Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Our guest today is the singer, songwriter, producer, and E
Got artist. Oh my gosh, that's right, John Legend. Sorry, right,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I forgot about the you Got.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Part E Got Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, you got them all?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Somebody ever made that joke before? I don't know, but
I felt pretty good about it.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
He's also a longtime coach on the Voice and founder
of the skincare line Loved One. He's currently celebrating the
twentieth anniversary of his debut album, Get Lifted, with special
tour and performances.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Which we went to last night. M Yeah, and we
Got Lifted. We Got Lifted. We went to see him
play in New York City and it was really special.
He's so incredible. I only met him for the first
time last year, and when we recorded a song together
called Summertime Blue, which we may do in this episode.
(01:31):
And I was surprised I'd never met him before that
because we've both been like in the business for so long.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, And in this episode, you're going to hear about
how you kind of have a parallel coming out moment
as artists. You're also gonna hear about the story of
one of his most beloved songs, and also how you
got the nickname track thirteen. And the episode wraps with
a little holiday nugget.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I don't know if I would want to call it that.
The episode wraps of the little holiday treat I like
that better. Yeah, a little bit of Christmas at the end.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode. We had so
much fun, the one the only John Legend.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Oh, summertime, summertime, summertime, you took home.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
My love, summertime, summertime, summertime. It's true.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I'm still thinking of you. Left you in a day dream.
Now you lasson.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Summer time, summertime, Soler's time.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
For hours, feeling good. I was on the road. Didn't
let it show.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
That I was falling for you, specially laughing love and just.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Like a fool was ever an undertone.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
When a pooled and closed.
Speaker 7 (03:24):
I now I'm wondering your castles come in too.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Summertime, summertime, summer time. You took all my loby.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Summertime, summertime, summertime.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It's true. I'm still thinking love here, hold you all day?
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Now you wash a me.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Summertime?
Speaker 8 (04:03):
Do you get you.
Speaker 9 (04:08):
Still see there's some lie dancing off your hair, But
at didn't.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Let you catch me dream.
Speaker 7 (04:19):
My mind was running wild heat off your smile.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
I was spent a while.
Speaker 10 (04:29):
Since I've heard of you, and now wondering where you
just passing through?
Speaker 5 (04:44):
Summertime, summertime, summer time.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You took on my love.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Him, summertime, summertime, summertime.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It's true.
Speaker 7 (04:54):
I'm still thinking out to lead that day.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
Now you wash.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Summertime.
Speaker 6 (05:11):
I feel it too, summertime smut SEMTI is too.
Speaker 7 (05:23):
I'm still thinking of June day, j now you washy.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Summertime all because of it?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah, yes, yes, that felt great, great, Yay, all right,
I'm gonna move over there all right. Sorry, Yeah, so
thanks for doing it, thank you. Yeah. So we did
this song together. We released it this past summer with
Greg Wattenberg. Y. Yeah, I've only known him like maybe
(06:11):
a few years. But how long have you known him?
Speaker 8 (06:14):
It's been quite a few years. Greg is a wonderful
producer and songwriter. He's just a lovely guy, and we
had done a few songs together over the years. My
favorite is probably a song called Conversations in the Dark
Nice that I did with him on which album was.
Speaker 11 (06:30):
That Bigger Love album.
Speaker 8 (06:31):
And he was working with you and he was like,
I would love for you to to do something together.
And you guys had written this song or you had
started writing it, and then we got together at my
studio here in Los Angeles and finished writing it together.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
That was fun.
Speaker 11 (06:49):
That was so much.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, was there?
Speaker 8 (06:51):
Yes, yes, so you Our studio is also in office
and like the headquarters for her company, Cravings, and they
just make food for a living. So they make food
that goes in grocery stores, and they make cookbooks and
all these things. So the house where we work is
just always brimming with food and music all the time.
(07:12):
And that's like our work house. And so you got
to come to our workhouse have some rose with Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
It was fun. I felt like I was at your house.
And then I realized, no, this isn't their house house.
Speaker 11 (07:24):
Yes, no kids there.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
Yeah, but the kids school is actually down the street
from there too, so they're there a decent amount to
Sometimes we'll just walk to school and pick them up
and have them come to the office.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And great. Yes, that's the way to live.
Speaker 11 (07:37):
I think it's a great way to live live.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's great. I have a studio in my
basement in New York and it's awesome.
Speaker 11 (07:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (07:47):
I've once had a studio in the place where I
actually lived here in Los Angeles, and I liked going
away to feel like I was going to work, and
so this is like away from home, but it feels
like home too at the same time.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, I know what you mean. It works well, it's
a nice balance. That's awesome. I can't believe we've never
met until we did that song in that wild we've
never even met in past.
Speaker 8 (08:12):
Yeah, you know, it's crazy not to be dark. But
I was thinking that about di'angelo today, because you know,
we're filming this on the day that di'angelo passed away,
and I was like, I feel like we know so
many people in common, but I never talked to D'angela.
I never spent time with him. I looked up to
him and listened to his music a lot. But some people,
you just your circles are really close to each other,
(08:34):
but you just don't run into each other for one
reason or another. But I'm so glad we finally did
run into each other and that it was in the
service of creating something beautiful together.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Awesome because my first album came out in two thousand
and two. What year did your first album come out?
Speaker 11 (08:53):
Two thousand and four, so it was not long after you.
Speaker 8 (08:57):
We both were kind of like Grammy Darlings when we
came out, and I think we both kind of had
a certain amount of credibility because we played our.
Speaker 11 (09:08):
Own instruments and we were writing our own songs.
Speaker 8 (09:11):
And I feel like in a lot of ways, our
careers are paralleled in some ways, but they just never
intersected for some reason.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I know, I love the way you play pianos so much.
That's so beautiful. And I wanted to ask, because you've
been in this business since since long before your first
album came out. I didn't know that you played on
Miseducation of Mill until maybe like a year ago. I
didn't even know that, Yes, how did that all happen?
Speaker 11 (09:38):
So I started playing in the church, so I grew up.
Speaker 8 (09:41):
So a lot of my style is just like old
school gospel style. I learned a lot for my grandmother,
my mother's mother, and so a lot of my style
came from her, and then I grew up. Our job
at church was basically like playing by ear all the time. Yeah,
You're like learning songs from CDs or tapes so you
(10:03):
could play them with the choir and then if someone
just starts singing in the middle of service, you got
to find the key play along with them.
Speaker 11 (10:12):
So you're just it's like a major ear training.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I have a question about that because I went to
high school with a bunch of guys who learned in
church that way.
Speaker 11 (10:19):
Robert Glasper Yes, all.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
These guys from Dallas High School as well Sean Martin
who's now passed passed away, and they were telling me
about it. Is it a specific type of church that
does that, because that's not so.
Speaker 8 (10:35):
A lot of Black churches are like this, but there
are some more like kind of traditional kind of old
school churches that are more liturgical in the services. But
then I grew up in the Pentecostal church, and our
church is much more informal when it comes to like
the liturgy of the service. There's not a lot of
like written hymns that you play, and it's a lot
(10:57):
looser and it's more fun musically, honestly, but it develops
your ear in a way that it's just perfect ear
training for anybody that wants to be able to on
the fly kind of adjust. And so a lot of
the best black musicians that you'll meet grew up in
the church because that's where they developed their chops and
(11:17):
it just served them well throughout, you know, whatever music
they end up playing later in life, that foundation was
where they built their chops as musicians. And you know,
Jermaine dupri did a post that got circulated pretty widely
in kind of the black music circles. He was basically
(11:39):
lamenting the fact that not enough black musicians.
Speaker 11 (11:42):
Go to church anymore.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
So we're losing, Yeah, we're losing like some of that
tradition in that training ground for young musicians, and so
you're just a generation that's less churched, which means, as
a side effect, less of that ear training and that
musical foundation.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
That's really interesting. Yeah, I went to high school with
this group of people who were just the most incredible
musicians I've ever known in my life. Yeah, and yeah,
it's exciting. You're going to Dallas.
Speaker 11 (12:14):
Yeah, I'm going to Dallas.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
You probably know some of them.
Speaker 8 (12:16):
Yeah, and if you if you look at my band,
almost all of them grew up playing in church. They're
mostly from Philly and black gospel scene there is very
big and almost all of them are like preacher's kids
or grew up playing in the church in someway or another.
And you can just tell, you know, stylistically, but also
(12:37):
just again the level of just chops are able to
develop at a young age.
Speaker 11 (12:42):
There.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
It must be fun on the road too to have
that kind of a musician on stage, because you could
just be loose.
Speaker 11 (12:47):
Yes, you can.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Go anywhere and they'll follow. Yes, they have to be
over rehearsed or.
Speaker 11 (12:51):
Absolutely you know.
Speaker 8 (12:52):
Yeah, and you know, we we have a plan going in,
but it's nice that you have people that can adjust
on the fly in case we deviate from the plan.
Speaker 11 (13:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
I love that. When you started when you played on
that Lauren Hill record, how did that come about?
Speaker 8 (13:09):
Okay, so the Lauren Hill record, Sorry I got derailed
from my story. No, So it actually because I was
playing in church is why it happened.
Speaker 11 (13:18):
Because I was going to school in Philadelphia.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
I went to UPenn and then on the weekends I
found a gig playing for a church up in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 11 (13:28):
Which is a couple hours north of Philly.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
And so I would drive up to Scranton every weekend
and played at this am church, African Methodist Episcopal Church,
and their church is kind of a blend of the
more improvisational style and the more kind of classic liturgical style,
where you know, there are certain beats in the service
that happened every week, but then there were things that
you did that were a little looser as well.
Speaker 11 (13:52):
And so I played for this church.
Speaker 8 (13:53):
I directed the choir wow, and I would teach them
music every weekend and we would sing it on Sundays,
and I would arrange for them, play for them, do
all that. So basically they call you the minister of
music in that setting. And so I was the minister
of music for that church. And one of my choir
members had gone to high school with Lauren Hill, and
(14:17):
so Lauren grew up in the Jersey area, like North
Jersey around Newark, East Orange, South Orange, West Orange, all
the oranges. I forget which orange, but one of those
oranges she grew up in. And my friend Tara went
to high school with her and was a little older
than Lauren, but she was kind of like a friend
and collaborator and mentor, and she ended up touring with
Lauren for the first couple tours after Miseducation came out
(14:41):
and she sang on the album, and so she was like,
why don't you come to the studio with me. Lauren's
working on her solo debut, which you know, was coming
after the Fujis and the huge you know, Killing Me
Softly and all that, and so I was like, yeah, I.
Speaker 11 (14:57):
Want to go.
Speaker 8 (14:58):
I want to see what she's up to, because everybody
was like, when's she gonna go solo? And so she's
making this, you know, epic solo album that ended up
being one of the great albums of all time. But
you know, we don't know what's happening until we get there.
We get there and they're working on a song and
we're in a studio and I'm just sitting there just
kind of watching, trying to stay out of the way.
(15:19):
But eventually I'm like, you know, my friends like Johnny,
you gotta play something for her, show her what you
can do. She's like, this is your moment, show her
what you can do. So I get on the piano
and sang a couple of songs for her. One of
them was this original song that I've written called too Late,
and Lauren was like, why don't you play on this
(15:41):
record we're working on now? And it didn't exactly sound
completely like it ended up. They changed the lyrical bit
and rewrote some things, but the basic musical foundation for
Everything is Everything's Crazy was built in that session and
I played piano on it, and the you know, the
interesting part is you never know what's going to happen
(16:03):
when you just you just play on something.
Speaker 11 (16:04):
You don't know if it's going to come out.
Speaker 8 (16:06):
You don't know if your parts are going to be
still included when it comes out.
Speaker 11 (16:12):
You just don't know.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
And then a few months later I got a call
from a record label asking how to spell my name
for the for the album credits.
Speaker 11 (16:20):
I was like, Okay, it's gonna come out.
Speaker 8 (16:24):
It's gonna come out, and so I'm like, my name
is John R. Stevens, which is my real name, and
I'm like decided to give them the R in my
middle initial for some reason, even though it sounds more
like a lawyer or an accountant.
Speaker 11 (16:38):
Or something, but I tell them it's John R. Stevens.
Speaker 8 (16:41):
And that's how it ended up in the credits on
track thirteen of Mis Educational Barn, John R.
Speaker 11 (16:47):
Stevens on piano.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's amazing. It's so wild. I know that album linked
the back of my hand, and I had no idea.
Speaker 8 (16:54):
So many of us know my album so and I
think you know, if you talk to any musician that
came out right after that, Like we were all listening
to that album so much. We were also inspired by it,
and it was like one of those albums that kind
of showed us what we wanted to do, Like it
kind of gave us like a north star of like
(17:15):
what music is supposed to sound like, and how to
make it eclectic and multi genre and honest and soulful
and all those things that she was able to do.
It blended, you know, soul and hip hop and reggae
and all these different sounds so beautifully and seamlessly. And
it was just one of those great albums that inspired
(17:37):
all of us young musicians, and we all know it.
Speaker 11 (17:40):
Like the back of our head. We know the skits
in between.
Speaker 8 (17:45):
And the songs are so good they still hold up
so well, so good.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, I think that's also what it's all about. Yeah, Yeah,
And you're such a great songwriter. This song from your
debut we were talking about doing Order People. The song
is so moving, thank you, and it's got energy, but
it's solo. I mean, it's just it's such a great
(18:10):
first thing to hear of you when you came out.
Speaker 8 (18:14):
Yeah, it was wild making that song because I was
originally writing the chorus for The Black Eyed Peas. So
I'm friends with who I Am and the recipes, and
we had the same manager at that time, and sometimes
they would just we had written together before for my album,
but this session wasn't supposed to be for my album.
(18:35):
It was supposed to be for the Black Eyed Peas,
and he would just play me beats that he had
made and I would hum whatever ideas came to my head.
And one of the ideas I hummed was the chorus
for ordinary People. And so it had like a backbeat,
It had a hip hop kind of kind of energy
to it, and a couple of days later, I had,
(18:58):
you know, written this idea with him, and I was like,
you know what, I feel like those other ideas work
really well for you guys, but that ordinary People idea
I feel like would.
Speaker 11 (19:08):
Work better for my own project.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
And I was finishing up Get Lifted at the time,
and I had just gotten signed to Columbia Records, and
I was like, you know what, I should probably keep
Ordinary People for myself, but I'll let you produce it.
And so the original had a beat to it. It
hadn't it was kind of mid tempo, but it was
it had energy to it. And I went on tour
(19:31):
with Kanye, and Kanye was touring in Europe at the time.
I was signed to his production company and he was
executive producing my debut album, and so as we were
finishing the album, I took a break to go on
the road with Kanye for like a few weeks, and
we were in Europe and I just would write all
the lyrics to ordinary People every sound check, and I
(19:55):
come back home and I record a demo of it.
Speaker 11 (19:59):
It's just me on the piano.
Speaker 8 (20:01):
But I was going to send it to Will for
him to like arrange and produce up, but we decided
eventually that we just liked it better simple, just me
and my voice on the piano, and we ended up
putting it out as the demo.
Speaker 11 (20:18):
Basically, the demo is the version that came out.
Speaker 8 (20:22):
And it's crazy because my first single was an up
tempo song.
Speaker 11 (20:28):
It's called used to Love You. Kanye produced.
Speaker 8 (20:32):
It is, you know, up tempo, soulful, hip hop, kind
of grounded, and we were promoting it and that was
the song we were going with and the label was
going with.
Speaker 11 (20:44):
But my A n R KP Kawan Praitha.
Speaker 8 (20:48):
He had decided to slip a full version of Ordinary
People onto the back of this sampler that we were
giving out to radio stations and to fans at a
small shows I was doing. And this station in Chicago
WGCI got ahold of it and they were supposed to
(21:08):
be playing used to Love You, my first single, but
they decided they loved ordinary People more and they started
playing Ordinary People just out of the blue, without you know,
getting permission or without it being promoted to them. So
Ordinary Peoples on the radio in Chicago and it just
takes over the city, like all the R and B
fans like it. Blew up in Chicago, and that was
(21:33):
the first place it blew up, and then it just
caught fire all around the country because they would get
all they called it research back then, so they get
the research where they would, you know, see how well
it was doing in the in the area, and it
was just killing in Chicago, and basically the radio promoter
from the label was like, we need to launch this
(21:56):
everywhere and let this be the next single and move
off of you Used to Love You Ordinary People as
a song everybody wants to hear, and so it became
my signature debut single.
Speaker 11 (22:06):
But it wasn't the first single.
Speaker 8 (22:07):
But it was, but it was it was a lot
of people's introduction to me.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Really it was mine. Yeah, and I wonder if that
that stuff doesn't happen like that anymore, like for things
to be played on the radio in one city.
Speaker 8 (22:20):
Yeah, things are just well, radio is just less determinative
in general of anything right now. Now it's still it
still can be kind of audience driven in a way,
but it's just a different way of the audience driving
it based on their streaming and you know, what they're
using on TikTok or just them seeing it in a
(22:42):
movie or you know, there's all kinds of random ways.
And it's also interesting because it kind of flattens time
in some way, because songs can become huge now that
came out like forty years ago, I know, And so
it's so random sometimes how songs blow up now, and
it's less determined by radio. So it makes it kind
(23:04):
of hard for artists to promote themselves and for record
labels to figure it out, because sometimes it feels like
there's no rhyme or reason to it, and there's so
much music out there that it seems hard to break through.
Sometimes I feel like it was a simpler time, simpler
when we were breaking Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, Yeah, it's a weird world out there. You have
to get good at doing all the jobs for yourself,
you know.
Speaker 8 (23:29):
Yeah, And you know, once COVID happened, we just got
so used to creating our own content.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Now you don't want to leave your house.
Speaker 8 (23:38):
Yeah, you're like, you do all your own interviews from
from your laptop at home.
Speaker 11 (23:43):
You got a room set up.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
I don't have to go there.
Speaker 11 (23:46):
I can do this at home exactly.
Speaker 8 (23:48):
So so much has changed. It's it really is a
lot different from when we're.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Started it is well, I would love it if you
could play this song.
Speaker 11 (23:57):
Yeah, let's try it.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Would you be okay? Saying something? Do you say something
like harmonies? I got some crazy harmony.
Speaker 11 (24:04):
Ideas in the original key and then see.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, I'm good with that.
Speaker 12 (24:07):
Yeah, oh oh.
Speaker 9 (24:36):
Girl, I'm in love with you with this, ain't the honeymoon,
with past, the infatuation.
Speaker 12 (24:44):
Fame.
Speaker 9 (24:48):
Ride in the thick of love times we get sick
of love. It seems like we are you every day.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
I know, I Misspeaka, you made your mistakes.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
We bolls goden room left to grow, though loves sometimes hurts.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
I steal but you first.
Speaker 11 (25:17):
And we'll make this thing work.
Speaker 9 (25:20):
But I think we should take it can slow wiz
is all and learnty people.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
We don't know it's trying to go call her people
baby rings should take it, So take it sow beside
(25:57):
it's long. Take gets slow.
Speaker 9 (26:02):
Oh oh, the tide will take It's.
Speaker 13 (26:10):
Slow the same movie though, no very's out conclusion, y'all,
I guess my confused who's in every day?
Speaker 10 (26:25):
Sometimes it's heaven seen and we head back to hell again,
kids saying we may go on the way I.
Speaker 14 (26:38):
You call We ride and weave walk and we've feel
jahs walk in the hard way.
Speaker 15 (26:48):
Out learning bats we a second chance.
Speaker 7 (26:55):
It's not the fast see I storm you to say, will.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Them people.
Speaker 7 (27:08):
We don't know?
Speaker 16 (27:09):
It's trekcause we are there people, Baby week.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Should take it? So we of Lord, people.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
We don't know try to go.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Because we are There's people. Maybe weeks should take it.
So take its loss.
Speaker 15 (27:51):
Oh this timeity, it's long, take it slow.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Oh oh this side it's slow.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Take its slow.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Slow.
Speaker 8 (28:21):
This line will take it slow, take it slow.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Oh this side will take.
Speaker 11 (28:38):
It's slow.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
That's so pretty.
Speaker 11 (28:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 12 (28:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I was gonna play, but then I was just like,
I know, I don't think so.
Speaker 8 (28:55):
I still love doing that song. It's still one of
my favorite songs to perform. That's great twenty years later.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Well, you know, it's a great song, first of all.
Second of all, I feel like when the audience responds
with such excitement when they're excited to hear something, which
I'm sure they always are with the song.
Speaker 8 (29:13):
Yeah, it's infectious, right Yeah, And it feels like I'm
just really grateful for the song too, because it changed
my life and it's like so meaningful to me, and
it means a lot to a lot of people.
Speaker 11 (29:25):
People would always tell me like they stopped what.
Speaker 8 (29:29):
They were doing the first time they heard it, and
we're like, what's this Because if you look back at
what the sound of like R and B and hip
hop radio was at that time, it sounded so different
from everything else that was on it, and so people
always describe this feeling of like whoa what is this?
Speaker 11 (29:46):
And it stopped them.
Speaker 8 (29:47):
In their tracks a lot of times, and so it
always feels like, Wow, we captured lightning in a bottle.
It was like a special, like lucky moment that we
wrote this song that was supposed to be a hip
hop song that ended up being the stripped down demo version,
and that we put it out sounding so different from
everything else and it worked.
Speaker 11 (30:08):
It worked.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It's also just a great song. Like the lyrics, it's
a very it's it's I don't know, it's just deep.
It's a deep sentiment.
Speaker 8 (30:19):
Well, what's crazy. I was single at the time. I
wasn't even like going through like any kind of well.
I was dating, but I wasn't like serious with anyone.
And what was happening in my family was my parents.
They were like going back and forth. So they had
gotten divorced when I was like ten, and then they
(30:41):
got back together. They got remarried, like literally like did
the whole thing, walked down the aisle again.
Speaker 11 (30:47):
White dress, everything.
Speaker 8 (30:48):
And that was like right around when I graduated from college,
right around like ninety nine, two thousand and then right
as I was finishing get lifted, decided to get divorced again.
And what does that do to you, Rixy or people?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Oh yeah, well that's heavy.
Speaker 8 (31:09):
So I was like writing about like what my family
was going through, but it wasn't me personally, like you know,
in my own dating life at the time.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah. Oh that's really Yeah, that's pretty deep. I love
the little bridge section. We didn't do it.
Speaker 14 (31:23):
Oh yeah, maybe we live and learn. Maybe we're crashing by.
Maybe you stay, maybe lee, maybe you returned.
Speaker 11 (31:36):
It's high.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Maybe you're on a fight.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
Maybe we want s rive, Maybe we'll grow never know.
Speaker 11 (31:48):
Maybe.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah, well that speaks right to that situation. Oh my gosh,
that's great. Well that's insane. That's a crazy little family
story there.
Speaker 11 (32:01):
Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about bridges.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Bridges. Bridges, that's a bridge.
Speaker 11 (32:06):
It's a lost art, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Yeah, I never write bridges I don't come from that
school of songwriter.
Speaker 8 (32:11):
Yeah, I pretty much do come from the school of
writing a bridge. I don't always do it, and I
feel like a lot of songs don't have them anymore.
Speaker 11 (32:20):
But I like it.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
If it's a good bridge, I love it.
Speaker 8 (32:23):
Yeah, and figure out a way to make it feel
like it elevates the song and like it creates like
a new twist and gives it a new tension.
Speaker 11 (32:33):
It can be cool.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, well that's a good bridge. Yeah. I just love
your playing. It's so pretty.
Speaker 11 (32:42):
Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Did you ever play jazz, like really get into playing jazz?
Speaker 11 (32:49):
I never properly really played it.
Speaker 8 (32:51):
So I did have one of those jazz fake books,
and I would like learn like some of the standards
and things like that. And I loved listening to jazz vocalists,
particularly especially like kind of the old school jazz vocalist
like an Ella and a Saravon and Na King Cole,
and really that music was kind of the pop music
(33:12):
of its era in a lot of ways. So in
the Grammys they call it traditional pop now basically, Yeah,
but you know, it was it was you know, some
of it was you know, show tunes and and in film,
and it was it was the mainstream music of that era.
But these vocalists were just doing beautiful, like wonderful things.
(33:35):
And I loved those vocalists and I still listen to them,
Ella Nina and Sarah Billy like all of them, and
I'm still inspired by them, and I would try to
learn some of their songs.
Speaker 11 (33:49):
But I was never like a real jazz cat, you know.
Speaker 8 (33:52):
And I never really learned to like improv like they did.
Like I learned to improv and like, oh, I can
learn a song, but I didn't learn the skill of
like being a great soloist.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, but you know all those extensions I.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
Can tell, Yeah, yeah, I know enough of them to
get by. And you know, I can learn a song
and write out a chart pretty easily.
Speaker 11 (34:14):
With that skill comes in handy and what we do.
Speaker 8 (34:17):
But I never have had to be a good soloist,
so I never kind of developed that. I'm more thinking
myself as a pianist who plays for the main thing,
which is me as a vocalist and a songwriter.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Well, there's such a marriage between singers who play an instrument.
It doesn't matter if they're they have crazy chops. It's
about the marriage of the two things.
Speaker 11 (34:42):
I'm playing in service of me singing.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
It's so special for you to have this whole thing,
like my thing is so what it is. It doesn't
mean it's good or bad. It's just a thing. It's
its own thing and special we do. Yeah, it's the
best part. Well, I wanted to ask you if you
would do a Christmas song with me.
Speaker 11 (35:05):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah for maybe maybe this will be a little Christmas episode,
Let's do it. This is kind of where the jazz
sort of, I feel like Christmas songs, the old ones, yeah,
standard ones are just so perfect.
Speaker 8 (35:18):
That's the closest thing I've done to making a jazz
album was with Raphael Sadek.
Speaker 11 (35:23):
He produced my entire Christmas album.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
He did, and we had.
Speaker 8 (35:26):
Some great like great horn moments, some great fun great
like solo So it was my closest to making a
jazz album.
Speaker 11 (35:34):
I didn't play any of the piano.
Speaker 8 (35:36):
On it, by the way, Yeah, okay, we had some
real cats playing, okay, Yeah, But I loved making the album.
I feel like as a vocalist, I feel more comfortable
in doing jazz than I do as a as a pianist.
Got you, Yeah, I felt like more like I said,
I've listened to a lot of jazz vocalists over the years,
(35:56):
and so I felt at least like conversant in the
way that I would want help approach the vocal for this,
and I let the real pianist handle the keyboards.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
That's cool. When did your Christmas album come out?
Speaker 8 (36:09):
It's been a while, twenty eighteen, twenty eighteen, we've done
like kind of deluxe versions.
Speaker 11 (36:16):
And all that sense.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Then got to do it.
Speaker 8 (36:18):
I remember my baby boy at the time was Miles.
He's seven now, but he was tiny, Like he was
on the photo shoot for the album cover and he
was like literally this big.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Do you guys you have a big family? Four kids,
four kids?
Speaker 11 (36:33):
And I was one of four kids.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Are you okay all right? And do you guys have
any special Christmas traditions that you've carried on from your childhood?
Speaker 11 (36:42):
Well, this album has become part of it.
Speaker 8 (36:44):
Not to sound you know, self promoting, but this album
has definitely become part of it. And music is always
a big part of it. And we love to cook.
Chrisy's amazing at it. It's her day job, but you know,
she loves to entertain. We love to entertain. So the
family comes to our house a lot for either Thanksgiving
or Christmas every year and.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
We just just a huge, full house.
Speaker 11 (37:07):
Yeah, it's a fool house.
Speaker 8 (37:09):
And you know, Chrissy grew up in a smaller family,
and it's interesting because I'm very comfortable in a large family,
but she always wanted one and never had one. And
so it's perfect that we both you know, wanted to
have four kids and have the extended family over a
lot too.
Speaker 11 (37:27):
And so we do holidays really big at our house.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
That's great. Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 11 (37:35):
All right, all right, let's figure this out.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Do you want to play on this?
Speaker 11 (37:39):
I'll play this.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
I can play it like I did it with Esperanzaka,
the version we did.
Speaker 11 (37:54):
Have yourself.
Speaker 9 (37:56):
I marry little Christmas, that your heart be live.
Speaker 8 (38:04):
From now on, our troubles will be out of sience.
Speaker 6 (38:14):
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Make me you tie games. From now our troubles will
be in the way.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
Here we are as a golden.
Speaker 7 (38:38):
Days, Happy golden days.
Speaker 9 (38:42):
Of your.
Speaker 10 (38:45):
Favul friends who are here to us, gatherings.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
To us words.
Speaker 13 (38:56):
Through these we all will be together.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
If the thase allowed.
Speaker 7 (39:06):
A shine start along the high is bay.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
A merry little races nice?
Speaker 7 (39:26):
Yah? Yeah yeah, Lea has.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
A holden days.
Speaker 7 (39:55):
Having molden days are gold.
Speaker 5 (40:01):
Flatul brands.
Speaker 7 (40:03):
You are did two arts, can lease two ards, swan swat.
We all will be together if the thing's all out.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
A shame siding on the.
Speaker 7 (40:26):
Who marry little Christmasma love.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
Merry Christmases?
Speaker 12 (40:43):
Have you.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
No marry little Christmas? Married little Christmas?
Speaker 15 (40:53):
Have your sir.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
Marry Christmas?
Speaker 9 (41:00):
No?
Speaker 8 (41:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (41:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah no.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
Rehearsal.
Speaker 11 (41:17):
That was great.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
That was great.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
That's a totally different version.
Speaker 5 (41:21):
Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
I love it. She's so great, Esperanza, Esperanza.
Speaker 11 (41:26):
So did you win Best New Artists?
Speaker 5 (41:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (41:29):
Yeah, so so both of us won Best New Artists.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (41:35):
And I got to stand on stage and present Best
New Artists one year and the all the you know,
the talk was is it going to be Drake or
is it going to be Justin Bieber? That's right, and
it was her, And and I opened the envelope and
they don't tell you who's gonna win beforehand, and I'm
just like shocked because it's neither Drake nor Justin Bieber,
(41:59):
and it's Esperanza Spaulding and I got to hand her
her Best New Artist trophy.
Speaker 11 (42:04):
That's fun. And years later we got to do this
record together.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
That's cool. Who handed you yours? Do you remember?
Speaker 11 (42:11):
I feel like it was common. I think this one
was common and Fiona Apple, Oh cool.
Speaker 8 (42:22):
I got to look back at the Yeah, I'm pretty
sure it was common in Fion Apple.
Speaker 11 (42:26):
Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 8 (42:27):
And I know Will i Am presented me an Award
that night too, But I think that was a different
that was for ordinary people, which was cool because you
know he was involved in it. Yeah, and then the
Best New Artist was I think it was common in
Fion Apple. And I love Fiona Common as a friend
of mine. I didn't know Fiona before that though, and
I got to meet her when she was handing me
an award.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
What a weird world. Well, this has been great, so fun.
Speaker 11 (42:53):
Thank you for joining me, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
You're incredible and I hope I get to see you again.
Speaker 11 (42:59):
Let's do it again, Let's make music again.
Speaker 8 (43:01):
If I'm in your city, you're in New York, yeah,
and I'm playing in Brooklyn where maybe we should do
Summertime Blue and Sappy Grounds.
Speaker 11 (43:09):
All right?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, that was amazing I'm in the Christmas spirit. I
feel jolly. I feel jolly too. His voice is insane
in person, it just fills the whole room like he
is truly one of the loudest singers I've ever experienced
in my life. Even he knows that. We've talked about
it before because I'm kind of a quiet singer. So
when we're singing together, I was like, oh, I got
(43:32):
to step it up a little bit. You know, he's
got like crazy lung power.
Speaker 11 (43:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Beautiful, so beautiful. I really had a great time. Thanks
for listening everyone, If you would like to know what
songs we played on this episode. First song was Summertime Blue,
which is a song I recorded with John earlier this
year in twenty twenty five. It's just sort of a
standalone release digital release that is. Second song is Ordinary People,
(43:59):
What a Class? That's from Get Lifted, which was released
in two thousand and five. Third song we did was
have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. That, of course, is
the classic Christmas song from the nineteen forties, written by
Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine. It was introduced by Judy
Garland in the musical meet Me in Saint Louis. I
love her version so much. It's also on John's Christmas
(44:21):
album called A Legendary Christmas, which came out in twenty eighteen.
Special thanks to John Legend for joining us today. We'll
be back next week with James Bay. Visit Nora Jones
channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. Nora
Jones Is Playing Along is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
I'm your Host Norah Jones. This episode was recorded at
Westlake Studios by Thomas Warren, Assistant engineer Dan Forth Webster,
(44:46):
backline tech Jason Moser, mixed by Jamie Landry, Audio post
production and mastering by Greg Tobler. Additional recording by Matt Marinelli.
Artwork by Eliza Fry, Photography by Shervin Linez. Produced by
Nora Jones, Sin Sarah Oda. Executive producers Aaron Wan Kaufman
and Jordan Rundag Marketing Lead. Queen and Niki Have a
(45:07):
Grave One
This episode is also available as video on YouTube. You
can visit Norah Jones channel and be sure to subscribe
while you're there. Hi, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm
playing along with John Legend. I'm just playing Louy, I'm
just playing lone.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I'm Norah Jones. Welcome to the show. This is my
co host and friend Sarah Oda. Hi.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Our guest today is the singer, songwriter, producer, and E
Got artist. Oh my gosh, that's right, John Legend. Sorry, right,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
I forgot about the you Got.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Part E Got Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, you got them all?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Somebody ever made that joke before? I don't know, but
I felt pretty good about it.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
He's also a longtime coach on the Voice and founder
of the skincare line Loved One. He's currently celebrating the
twentieth anniversary of his debut album, Get Lifted, with special
tour and performances.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Which we went to last night. M Yeah, and we
Got Lifted. We Got Lifted. We went to see him
play in New York City and it was really special.
He's so incredible. I only met him for the first
time last year, and when we recorded a song together
called Summertime Blue, which we may do in this episode.
(01:31):
And I was surprised I'd never met him before that
because we've both been like in the business for so long.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Yeah, And in this episode, you're going to hear about
how you kind of have a parallel coming out moment
as artists. You're also gonna hear about the story of
one of his most beloved songs, and also how you
got the nickname track thirteen. And the episode wraps with
a little holiday nugget.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
I don't know if I would want to call it that.
The episode wraps of the little holiday treat I like
that better. Yeah, a little bit of Christmas at the end.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode. We had so
much fun, the one the only John Legend.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Oh, summertime, summertime, summertime, you took home.
Speaker 5 (02:37):
My love, summertime, summertime, summertime. It's true.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
I'm still thinking of you. Left you in a day dream.
Now you lasson.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
Summer time, summertime, Soler's time.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
For hours, feeling good. I was on the road. Didn't
let it show.
Speaker 6 (03:08):
That I was falling for you, specially laughing love and just.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Like a fool was ever an undertone.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
When a pooled and closed.
Speaker 7 (03:24):
I now I'm wondering your castles come in too.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Summertime, summertime, summer time. You took all my loby.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Summertime, summertime, summertime.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
It's true. I'm still thinking love here, hold you all day?
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Now you wash a me.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Summertime?
Speaker 8 (04:03):
Do you get you.
Speaker 9 (04:08):
Still see there's some lie dancing off your hair, But
at didn't.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Let you catch me dream.
Speaker 7 (04:19):
My mind was running wild heat off your smile.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
I was spent a while.
Speaker 10 (04:29):
Since I've heard of you, and now wondering where you
just passing through?
Speaker 5 (04:44):
Summertime, summertime, summer time.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
You took on my love.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
Him, summertime, summertime, summertime.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
It's true.
Speaker 7 (04:54):
I'm still thinking out to lead that day.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
Now you wash.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Summertime.
Speaker 6 (05:11):
I feel it too, summertime smut SEMTI is too.
Speaker 7 (05:23):
I'm still thinking of June day, j now you washy.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Summertime all because of it?
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Yeah, yes, yes, that felt great, great, Yay, all right,
I'm gonna move over there all right. Sorry, Yeah, so
thanks for doing it, thank you. Yeah. So we did
this song together. We released it this past summer with
Greg Wattenberg. Y. Yeah, I've only known him like maybe
(06:11):
a few years. But how long have you known him?
Speaker 8 (06:14):
It's been quite a few years. Greg is a wonderful
producer and songwriter. He's just a lovely guy, and we
had done a few songs together over the years. My
favorite is probably a song called Conversations in the Dark
Nice that I did with him on which album was.
Speaker 11 (06:30):
That Bigger Love album.
Speaker 8 (06:31):
And he was working with you and he was like,
I would love for you to to do something together.
And you guys had written this song or you had
started writing it, and then we got together at my
studio here in Los Angeles and finished writing it together.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
That was fun.
Speaker 11 (06:49):
That was so much.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, was there?
Speaker 8 (06:51):
Yes, yes, so you Our studio is also in office
and like the headquarters for her company, Cravings, and they
just make food for a living. So they make food
that goes in grocery stores, and they make cookbooks and
all these things. So the house where we work is
just always brimming with food and music all the time.
(07:12):
And that's like our work house. And so you got
to come to our workhouse have some rose with Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
It was fun. I felt like I was at your house.
And then I realized, no, this isn't their house house.
Speaker 11 (07:24):
Yes, no kids there.
Speaker 8 (07:27):
Yeah, but the kids school is actually down the street
from there too, so they're there a decent amount to
Sometimes we'll just walk to school and pick them up
and have them come to the office.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
And great. Yes, that's the way to live.
Speaker 11 (07:37):
I think it's a great way to live live.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Yeah, yeah, that's great. I have a studio in my
basement in New York and it's awesome.
Speaker 11 (07:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (07:47):
I've once had a studio in the place where I
actually lived here in Los Angeles, and I liked going
away to feel like I was going to work, and
so this is like away from home, but it feels
like home too at the same time.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, I know what you mean. It works well, it's
a nice balance. That's awesome. I can't believe we've never
met until we did that song in that wild we've
never even met in past.
Speaker 8 (08:12):
Yeah, you know, it's crazy not to be dark. But
I was thinking that about di'angelo today, because you know,
we're filming this on the day that di'angelo passed away,
and I was like, I feel like we know so
many people in common, but I never talked to D'angela.
I never spent time with him. I looked up to
him and listened to his music a lot. But some people,
you just your circles are really close to each other,
(08:34):
but you just don't run into each other for one
reason or another. But I'm so glad we finally did
run into each other and that it was in the
service of creating something beautiful together.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Awesome because my first album came out in two thousand
and two. What year did your first album come out?
Speaker 11 (08:53):
Two thousand and four, so it was not long after you.
Speaker 8 (08:57):
We both were kind of like Grammy Darlings when we
came out, and I think we both kind of had
a certain amount of credibility because we played our.
Speaker 11 (09:08):
Own instruments and we were writing our own songs.
Speaker 8 (09:11):
And I feel like in a lot of ways, our
careers are paralleled in some ways, but they just never
intersected for some reason.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
I know, I love the way you play pianos so much.
That's so beautiful. And I wanted to ask, because you've
been in this business since since long before your first
album came out. I didn't know that you played on
Miseducation of Mill until maybe like a year ago. I
didn't even know that, Yes, how did that all happen?
Speaker 11 (09:38):
So I started playing in the church, so I grew up.
Speaker 8 (09:41):
So a lot of my style is just like old
school gospel style. I learned a lot for my grandmother,
my mother's mother, and so a lot of my style
came from her, and then I grew up. Our job
at church was basically like playing by ear all the time. Yeah,
You're like learning songs from CDs or tapes so you
(10:03):
could play them with the choir and then if someone
just starts singing in the middle of service, you got
to find the key play along with them.
Speaker 11 (10:12):
So you're just it's like a major ear training.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I have a question about that because I went to
high school with a bunch of guys who learned in
church that way.
Speaker 11 (10:19):
Robert Glasper Yes, all.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
These guys from Dallas High School as well Sean Martin
who's now passed passed away, and they were telling me
about it. Is it a specific type of church that
does that, because that's not so.
Speaker 8 (10:35):
A lot of Black churches are like this, but there
are some more like kind of traditional kind of old
school churches that are more liturgical in the services. But
then I grew up in the Pentecostal church, and our
church is much more informal when it comes to like
the liturgy of the service. There's not a lot of
like written hymns that you play, and it's a lot
(10:57):
looser and it's more fun musically, honestly, but it develops
your ear in a way that it's just perfect ear
training for anybody that wants to be able to on
the fly kind of adjust. And so a lot of
the best black musicians that you'll meet grew up in
the church because that's where they developed their chops and
(11:17):
it just served them well throughout, you know, whatever music
they end up playing later in life, that foundation was
where they built their chops as musicians. And you know,
Jermaine dupri did a post that got circulated pretty widely
in kind of the black music circles. He was basically
(11:39):
lamenting the fact that not enough black musicians.
Speaker 11 (11:42):
Go to church anymore.
Speaker 8 (11:43):
So we're losing, Yeah, we're losing like some of that
tradition in that training ground for young musicians, and so
you're just a generation that's less churched, which means, as
a side effect, less of that ear training and that
musical foundation.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
That's really interesting. Yeah, I went to high school with
this group of people who were just the most incredible
musicians I've ever known in my life. Yeah, and yeah,
it's exciting. You're going to Dallas.
Speaker 11 (12:14):
Yeah, I'm going to Dallas.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
You probably know some of them.
Speaker 8 (12:16):
Yeah, and if you if you look at my band,
almost all of them grew up playing in church. They're
mostly from Philly and black gospel scene there is very
big and almost all of them are like preacher's kids
or grew up playing in the church in someway or another.
And you can just tell, you know, stylistically, but also
(12:37):
just again the level of just chops are able to
develop at a young age.
Speaker 11 (12:42):
There.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
It must be fun on the road too to have
that kind of a musician on stage, because you could
just be loose.
Speaker 11 (12:47):
Yes, you can.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
Go anywhere and they'll follow. Yes, they have to be
over rehearsed or.
Speaker 11 (12:51):
Absolutely you know.
Speaker 8 (12:52):
Yeah, and you know, we we have a plan going in,
but it's nice that you have people that can adjust
on the fly in case we deviate from the plan.
Speaker 11 (13:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
I love that. When you started when you played on
that Lauren Hill record, how did that come about?
Speaker 8 (13:09):
Okay, so the Lauren Hill record, Sorry I got derailed
from my story. No, So it actually because I was
playing in church is why it happened.
Speaker 11 (13:18):
Because I was going to school in Philadelphia.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
I went to UPenn and then on the weekends I
found a gig playing for a church up in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 11 (13:28):
Which is a couple hours north of Philly.
Speaker 8 (13:30):
And so I would drive up to Scranton every weekend
and played at this am church, African Methodist Episcopal Church,
and their church is kind of a blend of the
more improvisational style and the more kind of classic liturgical style,
where you know, there are certain beats in the service
that happened every week, but then there were things that
you did that were a little looser as well.
Speaker 11 (13:52):
And so I played for this church.
Speaker 8 (13:53):
I directed the choir wow, and I would teach them
music every weekend and we would sing it on Sundays,
and I would arrange for them, play for them, do
all that. So basically they call you the minister of
music in that setting. And so I was the minister
of music for that church. And one of my choir
members had gone to high school with Lauren Hill, and
(14:17):
so Lauren grew up in the Jersey area, like North
Jersey around Newark, East Orange, South Orange, West Orange, all
the oranges. I forget which orange, but one of those
oranges she grew up in. And my friend Tara went
to high school with her and was a little older
than Lauren, but she was kind of like a friend
and collaborator and mentor, and she ended up touring with
Lauren for the first couple tours after Miseducation came out
(14:41):
and she sang on the album, and so she was like,
why don't you come to the studio with me. Lauren's
working on her solo debut, which you know, was coming
after the Fujis and the huge you know, Killing Me
Softly and all that, and so I was like, yeah, I.
Speaker 11 (14:57):
Want to go.
Speaker 8 (14:58):
I want to see what she's up to, because everybody
was like, when's she gonna go solo? And so she's
making this, you know, epic solo album that ended up
being one of the great albums of all time. But
you know, we don't know what's happening until we get there.
We get there and they're working on a song and
we're in a studio and I'm just sitting there just
kind of watching, trying to stay out of the way.
(15:19):
But eventually I'm like, you know, my friends like Johnny,
you gotta play something for her, show her what you
can do. She's like, this is your moment, show her
what you can do. So I get on the piano
and sang a couple of songs for her. One of
them was this original song that I've written called too Late,
and Lauren was like, why don't you play on this
(15:41):
record we're working on now? And it didn't exactly sound
completely like it ended up. They changed the lyrical bit
and rewrote some things, but the basic musical foundation for
Everything is Everything's Crazy was built in that session and
I played piano on it, and the you know, the
interesting part is you never know what's going to happen
(16:03):
when you just you just play on something.
Speaker 11 (16:04):
You don't know if it's going to come out.
Speaker 8 (16:06):
You don't know if your parts are going to be
still included when it comes out.
Speaker 11 (16:12):
You just don't know.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
And then a few months later I got a call
from a record label asking how to spell my name
for the for the album credits.
Speaker 11 (16:20):
I was like, Okay, it's gonna come out.
Speaker 8 (16:24):
It's gonna come out, and so I'm like, my name
is John R. Stevens, which is my real name, and
I'm like decided to give them the R in my
middle initial for some reason, even though it sounds more
like a lawyer or an accountant.
Speaker 11 (16:38):
Or something, but I tell them it's John R. Stevens.
Speaker 8 (16:41):
And that's how it ended up in the credits on
track thirteen of Mis Educational Barn, John R.
Speaker 11 (16:47):
Stevens on piano.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
That's amazing. It's so wild. I know that album linked
the back of my hand, and I had no idea.
Speaker 8 (16:54):
So many of us know my album so and I
think you know, if you talk to any musician that
came out right after that, Like we were all listening
to that album so much. We were also inspired by it,
and it was like one of those albums that kind
of showed us what we wanted to do, Like it
kind of gave us like a north star of like
(17:15):
what music is supposed to sound like, and how to
make it eclectic and multi genre and honest and soulful
and all those things that she was able to do.
It blended, you know, soul and hip hop and reggae
and all these different sounds so beautifully and seamlessly. And
it was just one of those great albums that inspired
(17:37):
all of us young musicians, and we all know it.
Speaker 11 (17:40):
Like the back of our head. We know the skits
in between.
Speaker 8 (17:45):
And the songs are so good they still hold up
so well, so good.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, I think that's also what it's all about. Yeah, Yeah,
And you're such a great songwriter. This song from your
debut we were talking about doing Order People. The song
is so moving, thank you, and it's got energy, but
it's solo. I mean, it's just it's such a great
(18:10):
first thing to hear of you when you came out.
Speaker 8 (18:14):
Yeah, it was wild making that song because I was
originally writing the chorus for The Black Eyed Peas. So
I'm friends with who I Am and the recipes, and
we had the same manager at that time, and sometimes
they would just we had written together before for my album,
but this session wasn't supposed to be for my album.
(18:35):
It was supposed to be for the Black Eyed Peas,
and he would just play me beats that he had
made and I would hum whatever ideas came to my head.
And one of the ideas I hummed was the chorus
for ordinary People. And so it had like a backbeat,
It had a hip hop kind of kind of energy
to it, and a couple of days later, I had,
(18:58):
you know, written this idea with him, and I was like,
you know what, I feel like those other ideas work
really well for you guys, but that ordinary People idea
I feel like would.
Speaker 11 (19:08):
Work better for my own project.
Speaker 8 (19:10):
And I was finishing up Get Lifted at the time,
and I had just gotten signed to Columbia Records, and
I was like, you know what, I should probably keep
Ordinary People for myself, but I'll let you produce it.
And so the original had a beat to it. It
hadn't it was kind of mid tempo, but it was
it had energy to it. And I went on tour
(19:31):
with Kanye, and Kanye was touring in Europe at the time.
I was signed to his production company and he was
executive producing my debut album, and so as we were
finishing the album, I took a break to go on
the road with Kanye for like a few weeks, and
we were in Europe and I just would write all
the lyrics to ordinary People every sound check, and I
(19:55):
come back home and I record a demo of it.
Speaker 11 (19:59):
It's just me on the piano.
Speaker 8 (20:01):
But I was going to send it to Will for
him to like arrange and produce up, but we decided
eventually that we just liked it better simple, just me
and my voice on the piano, and we ended up
putting it out as the demo.
Speaker 11 (20:18):
Basically, the demo is the version that came out.
Speaker 8 (20:22):
And it's crazy because my first single was an up
tempo song.
Speaker 11 (20:28):
It's called used to Love You. Kanye produced.
Speaker 8 (20:32):
It is, you know, up tempo, soulful, hip hop, kind
of grounded, and we were promoting it and that was
the song we were going with and the label was
going with.
Speaker 11 (20:44):
But my A n R KP Kawan Praitha.
Speaker 8 (20:48):
He had decided to slip a full version of Ordinary
People onto the back of this sampler that we were
giving out to radio stations and to fans at a
small shows I was doing. And this station in Chicago
WGCI got ahold of it and they were supposed to
(21:08):
be playing used to Love You, my first single, but
they decided they loved ordinary People more and they started
playing Ordinary People just out of the blue, without you know,
getting permission or without it being promoted to them. So
Ordinary Peoples on the radio in Chicago and it just
takes over the city, like all the R and B
fans like it. Blew up in Chicago, and that was
(21:33):
the first place it blew up, and then it just
caught fire all around the country because they would get
all they called it research back then, so they get
the research where they would, you know, see how well
it was doing in the in the area, and it
was just killing in Chicago, and basically the radio promoter
from the label was like, we need to launch this
(21:56):
everywhere and let this be the next single and move
off of you Used to Love You Ordinary People as
a song everybody wants to hear, and so it became
my signature debut single.
Speaker 11 (22:06):
But it wasn't the first single.
Speaker 8 (22:07):
But it was, but it was it was a lot
of people's introduction to me.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Really it was mine. Yeah, and I wonder if that
that stuff doesn't happen like that anymore, like for things
to be played on the radio in one city.
Speaker 8 (22:20):
Yeah, things are just well, radio is just less determinative
in general of anything right now. Now it's still it
still can be kind of audience driven in a way,
but it's just a different way of the audience driving
it based on their streaming and you know, what they're
using on TikTok or just them seeing it in a
(22:42):
movie or you know, there's all kinds of random ways.
And it's also interesting because it kind of flattens time
in some way, because songs can become huge now that
came out like forty years ago, I know, And so
it's so random sometimes how songs blow up now, and
it's less determined by radio. So it makes it kind
(23:04):
of hard for artists to promote themselves and for record
labels to figure it out, because sometimes it feels like
there's no rhyme or reason to it, and there's so
much music out there that it seems hard to break through.
Sometimes I feel like it was a simpler time, simpler
when we were breaking Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Yeah, Yeah, it's a weird world out there. You have
to get good at doing all the jobs for yourself,
you know.
Speaker 8 (23:29):
Yeah, And you know, once COVID happened, we just got
so used to creating our own content.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
Now you don't want to leave your house.
Speaker 8 (23:38):
Yeah, you're like, you do all your own interviews from
from your laptop at home.
Speaker 11 (23:43):
You got a room set up.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
I don't have to go there.
Speaker 11 (23:46):
I can do this at home exactly.
Speaker 8 (23:48):
So so much has changed. It's it really is a
lot different from when we're.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Started it is well, I would love it if you
could play this song.
Speaker 11 (23:57):
Yeah, let's try it.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Would you be okay? Saying something? Do you say something
like harmonies? I got some crazy harmony.
Speaker 11 (24:04):
Ideas in the original key and then see.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Yeah, I'm good with that.
Speaker 12 (24:07):
Yeah, oh oh.
Speaker 9 (24:36):
Girl, I'm in love with you with this, ain't the honeymoon,
with past, the infatuation.
Speaker 12 (24:44):
Fame.
Speaker 9 (24:48):
Ride in the thick of love times we get sick
of love. It seems like we are you every day.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
I know, I Misspeaka, you made your mistakes.
Speaker 10 (25:05):
We bolls goden room left to grow, though loves sometimes hurts.
Speaker 5 (25:14):
I steal but you first.
Speaker 11 (25:17):
And we'll make this thing work.
Speaker 9 (25:20):
But I think we should take it can slow wiz
is all and learnty people.
Speaker 5 (25:31):
We don't know it's trying to go call her people
baby rings should take it, So take it sow beside
(25:57):
it's long. Take gets slow.
Speaker 9 (26:02):
Oh oh, the tide will take It's.
Speaker 13 (26:10):
Slow the same movie though, no very's out conclusion, y'all,
I guess my confused who's in every day?
Speaker 10 (26:25):
Sometimes it's heaven seen and we head back to hell again,
kids saying we may go on the way I.
Speaker 14 (26:38):
You call We ride and weave walk and we've feel
jahs walk in the hard way.
Speaker 15 (26:48):
Out learning bats we a second chance.
Speaker 7 (26:55):
It's not the fast see I storm you to say, will.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Them people.
Speaker 7 (27:08):
We don't know?
Speaker 16 (27:09):
It's trekcause we are there people, Baby week.
Speaker 5 (27:21):
Should take it? So we of Lord, people.
Speaker 7 (27:32):
We don't know try to go.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Because we are There's people. Maybe weeks should take it.
So take its loss.
Speaker 15 (27:51):
Oh this timeity, it's long, take it slow.
Speaker 7 (28:03):
Oh oh this side it's slow.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Take its slow.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Slow.
Speaker 8 (28:21):
This line will take it slow, take it slow.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Oh this side will take.
Speaker 11 (28:38):
It's slow.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
That's so pretty.
Speaker 11 (28:49):
Thank you.
Speaker 12 (28:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I was gonna play, but then I was just like,
I know, I don't think so.
Speaker 8 (28:55):
I still love doing that song. It's still one of
my favorite songs to perform. That's great twenty years later.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Well, you know, it's a great song, first of all.
Second of all, I feel like when the audience responds
with such excitement when they're excited to hear something, which
I'm sure they always are with the song.
Speaker 8 (29:13):
Yeah, it's infectious, right Yeah, And it feels like I'm
just really grateful for the song too, because it changed
my life and it's like so meaningful to me, and
it means a lot to a lot of people.
Speaker 11 (29:25):
People would always tell me like they stopped what.
Speaker 8 (29:29):
They were doing the first time they heard it, and
we're like, what's this Because if you look back at
what the sound of like R and B and hip
hop radio was at that time, it sounded so different
from everything else that was on it, and so people
always describe this feeling of like whoa what is this?
Speaker 11 (29:46):
And it stopped them.
Speaker 8 (29:47):
In their tracks a lot of times, and so it
always feels like, Wow, we captured lightning in a bottle.
It was like a special, like lucky moment that we
wrote this song that was supposed to be a hip
hop song that ended up being the stripped down demo version,
and that we put it out sounding so different from
everything else and it worked.
Speaker 11 (30:08):
It worked.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
It's also just a great song. Like the lyrics, it's
a very it's it's I don't know, it's just deep.
It's a deep sentiment.
Speaker 8 (30:19):
Well, what's crazy. I was single at the time. I
wasn't even like going through like any kind of well.
I was dating, but I wasn't like serious with anyone.
And what was happening in my family was my parents.
They were like going back and forth. So they had
gotten divorced when I was like ten, and then they
(30:41):
got back together. They got remarried, like literally like did
the whole thing, walked down the aisle again.
Speaker 11 (30:47):
White dress, everything.
Speaker 8 (30:48):
And that was like right around when I graduated from college,
right around like ninety nine, two thousand and then right
as I was finishing get lifted, decided to get divorced again.
And what does that do to you, Rixy or people?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Oh yeah, well that's heavy.
Speaker 8 (31:09):
So I was like writing about like what my family
was going through, but it wasn't me personally, like you know,
in my own dating life at the time.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah. Oh that's really Yeah, that's pretty deep. I love
the little bridge section. We didn't do it.
Speaker 14 (31:23):
Oh yeah, maybe we live and learn. Maybe we're crashing by.
Maybe you stay, maybe lee, maybe you returned.
Speaker 11 (31:36):
It's high.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
Maybe you're on a fight.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
Maybe we want s rive, Maybe we'll grow never know.
Speaker 11 (31:48):
Maybe.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Yeah, well that speaks right to that situation. Oh my gosh,
that's great. Well that's insane. That's a crazy little family
story there.
Speaker 11 (32:01):
Yeah. Yeah, let's talk about bridges.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Bridges. Bridges, that's a bridge.
Speaker 11 (32:06):
It's a lost art, you know.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Yeah, I never write bridges I don't come from that
school of songwriter.
Speaker 8 (32:11):
Yeah, I pretty much do come from the school of
writing a bridge. I don't always do it, and I
feel like a lot of songs don't have them anymore.
Speaker 11 (32:20):
But I like it.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
If it's a good bridge, I love it.
Speaker 8 (32:23):
Yeah, and figure out a way to make it feel
like it elevates the song and like it creates like
a new twist and gives it a new tension.
Speaker 11 (32:33):
It can be cool.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Yeah, well that's a good bridge. Yeah. I just love
your playing. It's so pretty.
Speaker 11 (32:42):
Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Did you ever play jazz, like really get into playing jazz?
Speaker 11 (32:49):
I never properly really played it.
Speaker 8 (32:51):
So I did have one of those jazz fake books,
and I would like learn like some of the standards
and things like that. And I loved listening to jazz vocalists,
particularly especially like kind of the old school jazz vocalist
like an Ella and a Saravon and Na King Cole,
and really that music was kind of the pop music
(33:12):
of its era in a lot of ways. So in
the Grammys they call it traditional pop now basically, Yeah,
but you know, it was it was you know, some
of it was you know, show tunes and and in film,
and it was it was the mainstream music of that era.
But these vocalists were just doing beautiful, like wonderful things.
(33:35):
And I loved those vocalists and I still listen to them,
Ella Nina and Sarah Billy like all of them, and
I'm still inspired by them, and I would try to
learn some of their songs.
Speaker 11 (33:49):
But I was never like a real jazz cat, you know.
Speaker 8 (33:52):
And I never really learned to like improv like they did.
Like I learned to improv and like, oh, I can
learn a song, but I didn't learn the skill of
like being a great soloist.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, but you know all those extensions I.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
Can tell, Yeah, yeah, I know enough of them to
get by. And you know, I can learn a song
and write out a chart pretty easily.
Speaker 11 (34:14):
With that skill comes in handy and what we do.
Speaker 8 (34:17):
But I never have had to be a good soloist,
so I never kind of developed that. I'm more thinking
myself as a pianist who plays for the main thing,
which is me as a vocalist and a songwriter.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Well, there's such a marriage between singers who play an instrument.
It doesn't matter if they're they have crazy chops. It's
about the marriage of the two things.
Speaker 11 (34:42):
I'm playing in service of me singing.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
It's so special for you to have this whole thing,
like my thing is so what it is. It doesn't
mean it's good or bad. It's just a thing. It's
its own thing and special we do. Yeah, it's the
best part. Well, I wanted to ask you if you
would do a Christmas song with me.
Speaker 11 (35:05):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah for maybe maybe this will be a little Christmas episode,
Let's do it. This is kind of where the jazz
sort of, I feel like Christmas songs, the old ones, yeah,
standard ones are just so perfect.
Speaker 8 (35:18):
That's the closest thing I've done to making a jazz
album was with Raphael Sadek.
Speaker 11 (35:23):
He produced my entire Christmas album.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
He did, and we had.
Speaker 8 (35:26):
Some great like great horn moments, some great fun great
like solo So it was my closest to making a
jazz album.
Speaker 11 (35:34):
I didn't play any of the piano.
Speaker 8 (35:36):
On it, by the way, Yeah, okay, we had some
real cats playing, okay, Yeah, But I loved making the album.
I feel like as a vocalist, I feel more comfortable
in doing jazz than I do as a as a pianist.
Got you, Yeah, I felt like more like I said,
I've listened to a lot of jazz vocalists over the years,
(35:56):
and so I felt at least like conversant in the
way that I would want help approach the vocal for this,
and I let the real pianist handle the keyboards.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
That's cool. When did your Christmas album come out?
Speaker 8 (36:09):
It's been a while, twenty eighteen, twenty eighteen, we've done
like kind of deluxe versions.
Speaker 11 (36:16):
And all that sense.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Then got to do it.
Speaker 8 (36:18):
I remember my baby boy at the time was Miles.
He's seven now, but he was tiny, Like he was
on the photo shoot for the album cover and he
was like literally this big.
Speaker 1 (36:30):
Do you guys you have a big family? Four kids,
four kids?
Speaker 11 (36:33):
And I was one of four kids.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Are you okay all right? And do you guys have
any special Christmas traditions that you've carried on from your childhood?
Speaker 11 (36:42):
Well, this album has become part of it.
Speaker 8 (36:44):
Not to sound you know, self promoting, but this album
has definitely become part of it. And music is always
a big part of it. And we love to cook.
Chrisy's amazing at it. It's her day job, but you know,
she loves to entertain. We love to entertain. So the
family comes to our house a lot for either Thanksgiving
or Christmas every year and.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
We just just a huge, full house.
Speaker 11 (37:07):
Yeah, it's a fool house.
Speaker 8 (37:09):
And you know, Chrissy grew up in a smaller family,
and it's interesting because I'm very comfortable in a large family,
but she always wanted one and never had one. And
so it's perfect that we both you know, wanted to
have four kids and have the extended family over a
lot too.
Speaker 11 (37:27):
And so we do holidays really big at our house.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
That's great. Yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 11 (37:35):
All right, all right, let's figure this out.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Do you want to play on this?
Speaker 11 (37:39):
I'll play this.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
I can play it like I did it with Esperanzaka,
the version we did.
Speaker 11 (37:54):
Have yourself.
Speaker 9 (37:56):
I marry little Christmas, that your heart be live.
Speaker 8 (38:04):
From now on, our troubles will be out of sience.
Speaker 6 (38:14):
Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Make me you tie games. From now our troubles will
be in the way.
Speaker 5 (38:35):
Here we are as a golden.
Speaker 7 (38:38):
Days, Happy golden days.
Speaker 9 (38:42):
Of your.
Speaker 10 (38:45):
Favul friends who are here to us, gatherings.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
To us words.
Speaker 13 (38:56):
Through these we all will be together.
Speaker 5 (39:01):
If the thase allowed.
Speaker 7 (39:06):
A shine start along the high is bay.
Speaker 5 (39:18):
A merry little races nice?
Speaker 7 (39:26):
Yah? Yeah yeah, Lea has.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
A holden days.
Speaker 7 (39:55):
Having molden days are gold.
Speaker 5 (40:01):
Flatul brands.
Speaker 7 (40:03):
You are did two arts, can lease two ards, swan swat.
We all will be together if the thing's all out.
Speaker 5 (40:22):
A shame siding on the.
Speaker 7 (40:26):
Who marry little Christmasma love.
Speaker 5 (40:41):
Merry Christmases?
Speaker 12 (40:43):
Have you.
Speaker 5 (40:45):
No marry little Christmas? Married little Christmas?
Speaker 15 (40:53):
Have your sir.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
Marry Christmas?
Speaker 9 (41:00):
No?
Speaker 8 (41:06):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (41:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah no.
Speaker 5 (41:15):
Rehearsal.
Speaker 11 (41:17):
That was great.
Speaker 5 (41:19):
That was great.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
That's a totally different version.
Speaker 5 (41:21):
Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
I love it. She's so great, Esperanza, Esperanza.
Speaker 11 (41:26):
So did you win Best New Artists?
Speaker 5 (41:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 11 (41:29):
Yeah, so so both of us won Best New Artists.
Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (41:35):
And I got to stand on stage and present Best
New Artists one year and the all the you know,
the talk was is it going to be Drake or
is it going to be Justin Bieber? That's right, and
it was her, And and I opened the envelope and
they don't tell you who's gonna win beforehand, and I'm
just like shocked because it's neither Drake nor Justin Bieber,
(41:59):
and it's Esperanza Spaulding and I got to hand her
her Best New Artist trophy.
Speaker 11 (42:04):
That's fun. And years later we got to do this
record together.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
That's cool. Who handed you yours? Do you remember?
Speaker 11 (42:11):
I feel like it was common. I think this one
was common and Fiona Apple, Oh cool.
Speaker 8 (42:22):
I got to look back at the Yeah, I'm pretty
sure it was common in Fion Apple.
Speaker 11 (42:26):
Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 8 (42:27):
And I know Will i Am presented me an Award
that night too, But I think that was a different
that was for ordinary people, which was cool because you
know he was involved in it. Yeah, and then the
Best New Artist was I think it was common in
Fion Apple. And I love Fiona Common as a friend
of mine. I didn't know Fiona before that though, and
I got to meet her when she was handing me
an award.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
What a weird world. Well, this has been great, so fun.
Speaker 11 (42:53):
Thank you for joining me, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
You're incredible and I hope I get to see you again.
Speaker 11 (42:59):
Let's do it again, Let's make music again.
Speaker 8 (43:01):
If I'm in your city, you're in New York, yeah,
and I'm playing in Brooklyn where maybe we should do
Summertime Blue and Sappy Grounds.
Speaker 11 (43:09):
All right?
Speaker 1 (43:09):
Yeah, that was amazing I'm in the Christmas spirit. I
feel jolly. I feel jolly too. His voice is insane
in person, it just fills the whole room like he
is truly one of the loudest singers I've ever experienced
in my life. Even he knows that. We've talked about
it before because I'm kind of a quiet singer. So
when we're singing together, I was like, oh, I got
(43:32):
to step it up a little bit. You know, he's
got like crazy lung power.
Speaker 11 (43:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Beautiful, so beautiful. I really had a great time. Thanks
for listening everyone, If you would like to know what
songs we played on this episode. First song was Summertime Blue,
which is a song I recorded with John earlier this
year in twenty twenty five. It's just sort of a
standalone release digital release that is. Second song is Ordinary People,
(43:59):
What a Class? That's from Get Lifted, which was released
in two thousand and five. Third song we did was
have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. That, of course, is
the classic Christmas song from the nineteen forties, written by
Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine. It was introduced by Judy
Garland in the musical meet Me in Saint Louis. I
love her version so much. It's also on John's Christmas
(44:21):
album called A Legendary Christmas, which came out in twenty eighteen.
Special thanks to John Legend for joining us today. We'll
be back next week with James Bay. Visit Nora Jones
channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. Nora
Jones Is Playing Along is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
I'm your Host Norah Jones. This episode was recorded at
Westlake Studios by Thomas Warren, Assistant engineer Dan Forth Webster,
(44:46):
backline tech Jason Moser, mixed by Jamie Landry, Audio post
production and mastering by Greg Tobler. Additional recording by Matt Marinelli.
Artwork by Eliza Fry, Photography by Shervin Linez. Produced by
Nora Jones, Sin Sarah Oda. Executive producers Aaron Wan Kaufman
and Jordan Rundag Marketing Lead. Queen and Niki Have a
(45:07):
Grave One
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