Gregory Porter on love, loss and why Christmas music matters

The first album I bought

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – ‘Ella and Louis’

“I had a hugely different taste in music to the other kids at school. It was always that way. No disrespect to any pop band, they were all great and I listened to that as well, but what I  really liked was Sam Cooke, Louis Armstrong, Roberta Flack.”

The first gig I went to

Shalamar at Disneyland, California, early 1980s

“I didn’t grow up with my father but the times that I was with him were memorable. When I was nine, he took us to Disneyland. Well, he went off and fell asleep on a bench somewhere. But I, my brother and my sister went off with his new wife to see [R&B-soul vocal group] Shalamar. They used to do concerts in Disneyland. I was blown away. I recently connected with [Shalamar members] Howard Hewett and Jody Watley and I told them this story.”

The song that reminds me of home

Bill Withers – ‘Grandma’s Hands’

“I’m just so lucky and blessed to have had these like super-she-ro women in my life: my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my sisters and my aunts. They were just so powerful and so strong. In a way, they were the wisdom-givers of the family and they still are. I’ve listened to ‘Grandma’s Hands’ from my childhood until now. I perform it now too. I don’t see my grandmother’s hands without her preparation of food and encouraging me to sing and all of these things that my childhood and home was.”

The song I can’t get out of my head right now

TSHA, Ellie Goulding and Gregory Porter – ‘Somebody’

“You’ll think that I’m just trying to promote a song that I was a part of… but it’s a song that’s [prevalent] in my household. My boys started singing it when I was rehearsing the record… It’s a hook that sticks in your head.”

The song I can no longer listen to

Salt-N-Pepa – ‘Push It’

“My high school girlfriend dumped me during this song. It’s a dope song and they’re dope,  but I can’t hear it. This is from a grown man with a wife and two kids. I’ll be by myself and maybe it will come on the hotel television and I’ll have to turn the television off.”

The song that makes me want to dance

Michael Jackson – ‘P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)’

“That bassline, you know. The way it drops in so cold-blooded. It’s just so funky.”

The song that makes me want to cry

Gregory Porter – ‘Everything’s Not Lost’

“It’s a Christmas song that I wrote… When my brother passed during COVID – he died on my mother’s birthday on May 6 – I just couldn’t wait for Christmas to come. There’s a lyric in ‘Everything’s Not Lost’ [about] Christmas and New Year’s coming on strong. It was inspired by that moment, that desire for this festive time when I would have a support group [with my] family and loved ones and friends coming around.”

The song I do at karaoke

Eagles – ‘Hotel California’

“I tend to like to do classic rock or semi classic rock. There are songs you can sing and you know other people are going to join in. I don’t like to show off and do something that’s right up my alley, you know? I used to take karaoke really seriously before I had a career in music. It kinda took the fun out of it for people because I would get up and I would sing and it would just be like, ‘This guy’s a professional, that’s not fair.’”

The song I want played at my funeral

Nat King Cole – ‘Nature Boy’

“This song has influenced me so much in my own writing that it’s kind of a song that I wish I’d written. It’s so meaningful to me: ‘The greatest thing you’ll ever learn/Is just to love and be loved in return‘. I hope it would reference who I was as a person. I hope I’m that way in the remainder of my life – trying to provoke people to be the best that they can be and to be more generous, to look outside of yourself, to be caring and thoughtful.”

 Gregory Porter’s first ever Christmas album, ‘Christmas Wish’, is out now via Blue Note/Decca Records

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