John Legend – A Legend is Born

Singer, songwriter and pianist John Legend possesses one of those voices that is so smooth and distinctive, it has the ability to reach right into your subconscious – and he knows it!

John Legend, who was born John Stephens and grew up in Ohio, seemed predestined to a life in music. He was surrounded by everything from the deep gospel traditions of African American music to the current African American form of musical expression, hip-hop. Legend comes from a large and very close family that he loves dearly and is very proud of. In fact, on his debut album there is a song called “It Don’t Have To Change” that features at least a dozen members of the Stephens family – his father, his brother, and several of his cousins can all be heard on the song. Legend also speaks proudly of the influence of his parents Ronald and Phyllis on his life and career. “I think it goes without saying that I would be nothing and nowhere without them,” he says, “and I am not talking about the obvious. I am talking about their constant support and nurturing and encouragement that allowed me to feel that anything and everything really was possible.” Legend was always involving himself in musical endeavors, whether it was volunteering for local talent shows and open mic nights at local clubs or directing the local church choir (something he continued to do at the Bethel AME Church in Northeaster Pennsylvania until just a few months before the debut of his first album). Music was what drove him, but it would be a moment of true harmonic convergence that would set him on the slow but steady course to fame.

It wasn’t all music all the time for John Legend. To make ends meet he worked in New York as a management consultant for three years while doing his music in his off-hours. “Yes, I was a nine-to-fiver,” says Legend, “but it was cool. I had the right attitude about it. I knew it wasn’t permanent. I knew it was something I was doing on the way to doing what I needed to do, so that allowed me to enjoy it.” Legend also positively credits the experience with giving him insights into the business world. He has been able to apply these insights to running his career in an efficient business-like manner rather than succumbing to the temptations that sudden success can bring.

In 1998, after years of playing his own music anywhere and everywhere he could, he got his first taste of big time exposure when he was asked by Lauryn Hill to play piano on her song “Everything is Everything” on her stunning and multi-Grammy award winning album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. It would be a couple more years, however, before an old college roommate would connect Legend with an up-and-coming performer and producer by the name of Kanye West. That’s when things really began to simmer their way to a boiling point.
Legend and West met in 2001, and in the next few years as West’s star was rising, Legend was along for the ride, collaborating with such artists as Common and Mary J. Blige, and on West’s breakout album The College Dropout. In 2002, the voice of John Legend was heard singing with Alicia Keys on the song “You Don’t Know My Name.” Suddenly he was known for more than just his value as a writer and as a session man on the piano.

In late 2003, Legend became the first artist signed to Kanye West’s label (now known as Getting Out Our Dreams Music) with a record deal at Columbia. It would take a year’s worth of concentrated hard work to come up with his debut album, Get Lifted. Because of the masterful hype provided by Kanye West’s creative team, the album would debut at number seven on the Billboard Album Chart and ended up number one on the R&B Chart after being released for just three days.

Get Lifted was also an astounding critical success partially due to the singles “Used to Love U” and “Ordinary People.” The album would earn John Legend a truly impressive eight Grammy nominations with wins for Best New Artist, Best Male R&B Vocal and Best R&B Album. Get Lifted sold over three million copies worldwide – not bad for the debut album of a former session man. And what does this kind of wild success do to someone who has had to work very hard to arrive at that success? “To me those things are just little added bonuses,” says Legend. “For me, the real success comes in the realization that I have connected with the audience or the listener in a real and very truthful way. That to me is the true definition of success for a musician.”

What is also true of musicians in some cases is that strange sophomore jinx. Any debut album that sells extraordinarily well is usually followed by the question, “where does he go from here?” Defiantly, Legend embraced the question. “With this new album [Once Again] I didn’t really approach it thinking that I needed to come up with something that sold more or won more awards,” says Legend. “I simply wanted to show the people that supported me that I had grown with them.” He sums it up by saying, “Get Lifted was me then, Once Again is me now.”

In his personal life, John Legend does have a lady he is committed to, Brazilian model Danielle Abreu. But he is quite open about his becoming a “toxic bachelor” on the road. He fully admits to having a roving eye and blames the transient nature of the music business for his lack of commitment previously. “I am always on the road and always exposed to temptations that I don’t always have the strength or the will to resist,” says Legend. “But because I am in a new relationship I will not jinx that by talking about it any further.” The transitory nature of the career of a musician on the road is very true for John Legend – his current Once Again tour takes him from Washington D.C. to just about all major cities in the United States, then over to Europe and Asia.

When it comes to his fans, John Legend is not only grateful but also thoughtful. “I love playing the small clubs for the intimacy that it brings to the relationship between me and the fans,” he says. “But I have to admit to loving the big auditorium gigs as well – the collective energy of all those people singing along with my songs gives me an incredible rush.”

It is that rush that John Legend lives for. He defines living la dolce vita as, “getting to do the thing I was meant to do, and having people out there connect with it.” He then adds, “I can’t imagine a better feeling.” Luckily for John Legend, he is showing all indications that he will be enjoying that feeling for a long time to come.