John Legend does covers with a twist

Even the biggest stars get to the point when they feel like doing cover versions. At times it is because they want to record the songs they like or are sentimental about. Most of the time though it is because they need to revive a flagging career and one great way to perk up listeners is to give them songs they are already familiar with. However, I didn’t think singing covers would happen so soon to John Legend.

You know Legend. He is a five-time Grammy winner who was discovered by Kanye West. Yes, that Kanye can also come up with something good. Not just diss Taylor Swift. Legend burst into the music scene with the acclaimed album Get Lifted some eight years ago. A former management consultant in New York City, he was an instant hit with fans in awe of what he could do with his voice and his piano.

I must admit I found him too indulgent with his notes most of the time and difficult to listen to. But it was also hard to argue with his growing following. They liked him and he had a succession of hits. Ordinary People, Used To Love You, It Don’t Have To Change, Number One, So High from Get Lifted. Where Did My Baby Go, Save Room, Heaven, PDA, Show Me and Each Day Gets Better from Once Again. This Time, No Other Love with Estelle, Green Light with Andre 3000, It’s Over with Kanye West and Quickly featuring Brandy from the CD that I like best, Evolver.

His last was somewhat experimental in concept. Evolver was his most pop recording and included club tunes, reggae and light R&B ballads. For the first time, I didn’t think he sounded like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and was enjoying his agonizing recording sessions. I think he had fun with Evolver and that he decided to have more fun with his next, which was why he decided to do covers for his next CD.

But because he is John Legend and on his way to becoming a real legend in the future, his cover album is not like those of other singers. He had to make it mean something in his own way and so he made it different. First of all, the CD is a collaborative effort with The Roots, one of the best R&B groups today. The combination is most interesting. Second, it is not just a collection of one old song after another. He was not about to do Motown.

Titled Wake Up!, the CD calls attention to social ills past and unfortunately still present in other ways and hopes that by urging listeners to wake up, something might be done about them. Hey, it was not just folk singers like Peter, Paul and Mary or Bob Dylan who sang about those things. R&B also did. And trust Legend to find those now rarely heard songs.     

Wake Up! by John Legend and The Roots is about being in the war, in this case, Vietnam, in the epic gut wrencher I Can’t Write Left Handed originally by Bill Withers. It is about being black, as African Americans were called then and in eternal longing to be free in I Wish I Knew How It Would Be To Feel Free; and finding relief in one’s gospel roots like the great Marvin Gaye sang about in Wholy Holy.

Also included are Hard Times featuring Black Thought; Compared To What; Wake Up Everybody featuring Common & Melanie Fiona; Our Generation (The Hope Of The World) featuring Cl Smooth; Little Ghetto Boy (Prelude) featuring Malik Yusef; Little Ghetto Boy featuring Black Thought; Hang On In There; Humanity (Love The Way It Should Be) and the inspiring Shine, Legend’s only original track, which is totally in keeping with the socially conscious mode.

Wake Up! is quite an achievement. Legend’s singing is in top form and works so well with the traditional approach of The Roots. The arrangements are arresting, well-thought out and even include efforts at updating the classics with some rap tracks. Legend has made a giant stride towards becoming a real legend with this one and I already smell a Grammy or two.