The New Yorker Radio Hour - Live at Home Part I: John Legend

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

Like everyone in the United States, John Legend has spent much of the past year in lockdown. He has been recording new music (via Zoom), performing on Instagram, and promoting his upcoming album. Though many artists have delayed releasing records until they can schedule concert dates—increasingly the most reliable revenue in the music industry—Legend didn’t want to hold back. The new album, “Bigger Love,” was written before the pandemic and the current groundswell of protest for racial justice, but his message about resilience and faith resonates. All art, Legend tells David Remnick, “is there to help us imagine a different future.” New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Amanda Petrusich. I'm a staff writer for the magazine where I write mostly about music. And I'm David Remnick. I've asked Amanda to join me today because we're going to be talking about music during the pandemic. And at this strange and unique moment in history. Music is one of the only things that has kept me feeling sane and grounded recently.

At the same time, the pandemic has been devastating. for musicians, like so many other workers. Concerts of all kinds were canceled, and that affects everything from your local bar bands to giant festivals like South by Southwest. So what we're going to do today, we're going to have live performances from two artists who released records this year.

John Legend is the winner of about, I don't know, a dozen Grammy Awards, one of them for the song Glory that he wrote for the film Selma. And then Amanda is going to talk with Phoebe Bridgers, who's become a real star of the indie music world. Being in quarantine has been, for me, a really great time to listen obsessively, carefully, slowly to music. David, have you found any new music that's been sticking with you? Does the new Bob Dylan album count as new music?

I think there's a four-hour song on there that I've listened to 25 times. But other than that, no kidding, I've been listening to a lot of old soul music, which seems to kind of, I don't know, lift me up out of the slough of despond. I understand that. That music's perfect for that. And I, too, have been really deep into that Dillon record. I mean, it feels like it arrived at kind of the precise right moment. Good day to be living and a good day to die. It led to the slaughter like a sacrificial lamb.

You see, wait a minute, boys. You know how I am. Are you hearing any music that's been recorded since the pandemic hit, or is it too early for that? Well, I think those records are starting to appear. In May, the British singer Charlie X-EX released a new record called How I'm Feeling Now, which she recorded entirely in quarantine at her home studio in Los Angeles. And she makes what sometimes gets called hyperpop or futuristic pop, this very kind of synth-driven, really propulsive, kind of glitchy production. But I think it's one of her best records. I found it to be a little more idiosyncratic, I think a little more experimental and also a little more intimate.

So for me, those were really welcome things. And if quarantine ends up yielding more records like that, I'd be really pleased. Amanda, for years we've been hearing about how all the money, all the economics of music is in touring. Album sales are way down. Streaming makes money, but really for the very top artists. So without the revenue stream from live shows, what's happening out there for musicians? I mean, I think musicians like all of us are really very much trying to figure this out day by day, hour by hour. I think we're starting to hear about artists booking whole tours through,

empty venues and then live streaming those performances. I used to really like going to shows in part because it meant I finally wouldn't have to be staring at my phone for a few hours. But I do think we're seeing a lot of ingenuity, a lot of inventiveness, a lot of persistence in the face of tragedy. You know, we're seeing artists using YouTube and Instagram Live to broadcast their shows to stay in contact with their fans without hitting the road. You know, one of the people who's been doing that is John Legend.

He's been hosting Zoom concerts and he's released an album over the summer. So I spoke to John right about when that album came out at the very unpop star hour of seven in the morning. It's not musicians hours, but it's a father of toddler hours, so it's fine. I'm very grateful to be talking to you, John. You know, Amanda, you talked about releasing an album right now, but Legend told me that he was still recording the album when he went into quarantine. Usually one of the last things we do is, one, we ask. One, we ask. featured guests. And two, we usually do some string recordings. The guy who normally arranges our strings, a guy named Matt Jones, he brought the players in to kind of individually play

their parts and do it while distancing, and then stack it all up together and finally you've got a recording. Is there anything lost in the making of an album when you're not in the same room together. It's been a long time since bands and musical collectives and of all kinds gathered in one studio, played the track and separated things out. Even somebody as old school as the late Leonard Cohn, I remember interviewing him at his place in L.A. He had one little microphone on his desk like I do, a guitar behind him, and then he would send the tracks to his producer and some other musicians, and it would come back. And he was somebody in his 80s. Is anything lost by not being in the same room?

I think there is something lost in certain instances. For our rhythm sections, we are in the same room. When we're recording the rhythm section backing tracks, I like to be there to talk to the drummer and tell them what I want. I like to be there with the horn players and the backing vocalist. So there are a lot of instances when I won't just let somebody send me something. It's not as free-flowing and collaborative if you don't interact. with each other. Now, in the publishing business, a lot of people are putting off releases of books

and the movie business, things have stalled. And in the music business as well, a lot of albums have been delayed, thinking that releasing things right into the teeth of the pandemic might not be such a good idea. Why did you choose to put out bigger love right now? I've never held an album back. And I have a hard time even conceiving of holding an album back because I spend so much time working on it, it takes up so much of my energy. And then I'm so excited about being done with it that I'm like, why would I hold this back from the public? Like, it's time for them to hear it. And I feel like of any of the albums I've put out, I feel like this is the album that feels like it should come out during this time because it feels like a kind of a musical hug. It feels like

a music that would help one get through tough times. And I feel like this album, was made for this moment. I think one of the songs that fits into exactly what you're saying, thematically and the way it made me feel when I was listening to it for the first time last night, is a beautiful song called Never Break, that you're going to perform for us now. Oh, yeah, we got a good thing, babe. Whenever life is hard, we'll never lose our way. We both know who we are.

Who knows about tomorrow? We don't know what's in the stars. I just know I'll always follow the light in your heart. I'm not worried about it, and I've never been. We know how the story ends. We will lay shine strong enough to stay. We will have a mountain shape. All love will remain.

We will never, no, never. We will never, no, never. It's more than a good sensation. It's more than a passing flame. You are the explanation of what love really means. It's bigger than you than me. It's one plus one equals three. When we talk about forever,

then forever's what we mean. I'm not worried about it. And I'm now, no matter what become a foundation, stronger than the pain. Has a woman shape. No, never. No, no.

We were never strong enough to stay. We're in shape. I'm talking with John Legend. More in a minute. So there's a stoicism about this song that seems fitting to the moment. It hasn't been just a pan. It's amazing to say the phrase, just a pandemic. But we're also living through a moment in American history when it comes to race,

when it comes to police violence. Tell me about recent days. What, if anything, has changed for you? Well, what has made me hopeful is seeing a large, multiracial coalitions of people on the streets, not just an outrage about George Floyd, but an outrage about a system that devalues black life. And I think the COVID crisis and the ongoing crisis we've had with policing have a problem. common theme in that black folks tend to bear the brunt of these crises more than other people do. What was your experience as a young man with police, if any?

I didn't have a lot of experience with the police personally, but I had many friends and family members who were arrested, many friends and family members who went to jail and prison in our community. I didn't have an experience with the police until I went to college. You went to the University of Pennsylvania. Yes, absolutely. University of Pennsylvania and West Philadelphia, and what you'll notice when you're a black student at a college, you often treated like you don't belong there. I was pulled out of my car, not pulled physically, but asked to get out of my car and prove that I owned that car for no reason. Oh, we've been having some burglaries in the area, so we wanted to check your ID. And I was recently talking to my young cousin who's at Penn right now, or just graduated actually. this May. And she experienced the same thing. She was in a lab building where someone thought she didn't belong there and called the campus police owner. And we've seen this happen and college campuses all around the country. We see it happen in parks and all kinds of places where

black people are treated like their impostors. Too many young black people experience that every day. You gave a commencement address at Berkeley College of Music. And you said history has shown us that we are most capable of making dramatic changes to repair our country after crises, from the Great Depression to the most recent financial crisis. Our art is critical in defining how we choose to rebuild the world. How does art have any effect on the political and social life of the country? And you've made political music, God knows, whether it was with roots and many other things. What do you hope for that music to do? Well, a lot of my music is there to inspire people, to uplift them, to make them think about the ones that they love and connect with the people they love,

and to give people a common sense of humanity. And then art in general, I think, is there to help us imagine a different future. What music did that for you as a young guy? Oh, well, Stevie Wonder was a huge influence to me, showing that someone who had so much success as a musician could be a voice of conscience and could not only write songs, but lead movements, like the one to make Martin Luther King Day a holiday

or other things he spoke out against like apartheid in South Africa and various other things. He showed me that this was part of what an artist could do in the world. Marvin Gaye showed me that. Other artists showed me that. Are you compelled to write any new music now considering what's going on? I probably will again soon. I usually take a little break after I've finished an album because it's such an intense process. And I also don't like to write at home. So that's a challenge. Well, you have one of the most, the transparency of your home life is kind of amazing. I mean, we seem to feel that we know you through and your wife and your kids through

social media and much else. I watched one of your online performances and your daughter and your wife both ended up stopping by and hanging out. Well, I've long since adjusted to social media. And I think my wife in particular, she's been very open about sharing what's happening at our house. And I think between the two of us, we enjoy sharing pieces of our life. We still keep a lot private, believe it or not. John Legend, thank you so much. Thank you. I talked to John Legend in June.

His album, Bigger Love, is out now. On our next episode, Amanda Petrusich talks with another great songwriter, Phoebe Bridgers. Even though the pandemic prevents her from touring, Bridgers released a record this summer. And she'll play a couple of songs for us right there from home. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. Thanks for listening. Thank you.