Norah Jones Is Playing Along
Original podcast
John Legend joins Norah to talk about his life in music and the ways their journeys overlap.
8,204 words · 8 speakers
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If you love music and great artist interviews, check out Before the Moment, hosted by Nile Rodgers. This new series follows Nile as he travels across the country, talking with some of today's most fascinating artists about the moments that shaped their lives and careers. From hitmakers like Miguel to rising stars like Alex Warren, Nile explores the stories behind the careers, the songs, and the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the point where everything changed, and this podcast tells the stories that came before it. Listen to Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series, on iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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.
Hey, I'm Norah Jones. Welcome to the show. This is my co-host and friend, Sarah Oda.
Hi.
Our guest today is the singer, songwriter, producer, and EGOT artist.
Oh, my gosh, that's right.
John Legend.
Sorry.
That's right.
That's right. I forgot about the EGOT part.
EGOT, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony. EGOT them all.
Has somebody ever made that joke before?
I don't know, but I felt pretty good about it. He's also a longtime coach on The Voice and founder of the skincare line Loved One. He's currently celebrating the 20th anniversary of his debut album, Get Lifted, with a special tour and performances.
Which we went to last night. Yeah, it was amazing. 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 when we recorded a song together called "Summertime Blue," which we may do in this episode. And I was surprised I'd never met him before that because we've both been in the business for so long.
Yeah. And in this episode, you're going to hear about how you have a parallel coming-out moment as artists. You're also going to hear about the story of one of his most beloved songs and also how you got the nickname Track 13. And the episode wraps with a little holiday nugget.
I don't know if I would want to call it that.
The episode wraps with a little holiday treat.
I like that better. Yeah, a little bit of Christmas at the end, so I hope you enjoy this episode. We had so much fun. The one, the only John Legend.
Summertime, summertime, summertime blue. You took all my loving.
Summertime, summertime, summertime, it's true. I'm still thinking of you.
Left you in a daydream. Now you're washing over me.
Summertime, summertime, summertime blue.
Thought I was feeling good, I was on a roll. Didn't let it show. That I was falling for you. Splashing, laughing, loving just like a fool. Was there an undertow? When I pulled you close?
I know.
Now I'm wondering. Where your castle's coming to? Ooh.
Left you in all daydream.
Now you're washing over me. Summertime blue. Do you feel it too?
I still see the sunlight dancing off your hair. But I didn't dare.
Let you catch me dreaming.
My mind was running wild in the
Heat of your smile.
Now it's been a while. Since I've heard from you.
And now I'm wondering. Were you just passing through? Oh.
You took all my loving.
Summertime, summertime.
Summertime, it's true.
I'm still thinking of you.
I left you in a daydream.
Now you're washing over me.
Summertime.
I feel it too.
And now you're washing over me.
All because of you.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yes, that felt great.
Great. Yay.
All right.
I'm gonna move over there.
All right, great.
Yeah, so, thanks for doing it.
Thank you.
Yeah, so we did this song together. We released it this past summer with Greg Wattenberg.
Yeah, I've only known him like maybe a few years, but how long have you known him?
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 my, which album was that? Bigger Love album. And he was working with you. And he was like, I would love for you two 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.
Fun.
That was so much fun.
And Chrissy was there.
Yes, yes, so you, our studio is also an 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. And that's like our work house. And so you got to come to our workhouse, have some rosé with us.
Yeah, it was fun. I felt like I was at your house and then I realized, no, this isn't their house house. This is their workhouse.
Yes, no kids there.
But the kids' school is actually down the street from there too. So they're there a decent amount too. Sometimes we'll just walk to school and pick them up and have them come to the office.
That's great.
That's the way to live, I think.
It's a great way to live.
It's a lucky way to live, yeah. Yeah, that's great. I have a studio in my basement in New York and it's awesome.
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.
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.
Isn't that wild?
We've never even met in passing.
Yeah, you know, it's crazy not to be dark, but I was thinking that about D'Angelo today because,
Oh my God, I know.
You know, we're filming this on the day that D'Angelo passed away and I was like, I feel like we know so many people in common, but I never talked to D'Angelo. 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, 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.
Yeah, me too.
And that it was in service of creating something beautiful together.
Yeah, it was awesome.
Because my first album came out in 2002.
What year did your first album come out?
2004, so I was not long after you.
We both were kind of like Grammy darlings when we first came out. And I think we both kind of had a certain amount of credibility because we played our own instruments and we were writing our own songs. And I feel like in a lot of ways, our careers are paralleled in some ways, but they just never intersected for some reason.
I know. I love the way you play piano so much.
It's so beautiful. And I wanted to ask, because you've been in this business since long before your first album came out. I didn't know that you played on "Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" until maybe like a year ago? I didn't even know that.
How did that all happen?
So I started playing in the church. So I grew up, so a lot of my style is just like old school gospel style. I learned a lot from 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. So you're like learning songs from CDs or tapes so you 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. So you're just, it's like a major ear training.
I have a question about that. Because I went to high school with a bunch of guys who learned in church that way.
Robert Glasper.
Robert and all these guys from Dallas that I went to high school as well. Shawn Martin, who's now passed away. And they were telling me about it. Is it a specific type of church that does that? Because that's not.
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 a 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.
Okay.
And it's a lot looser. And it's more fun musically, honestly.
Yeah, for sure.
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 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 lamenting the fact that not enough black musicians go to church anymore.
Is that lost?
So we're losing...
That thing is lost.
Yeah, we're losing like some of that tradition and that training ground for young musicians. And so, you're just a generation that's less church, which means, as a side effect, less of that ear training and that musical foundation.
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.
And, yeah, it's exciting. You're going to Dallas.
Yeah, I'm going to Dallas.
You probably know some of them.
Yeah, and if you look at my band, almost all of them grew up playing in church. They're mostly from Philly. And the 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 some way or another. And you can just tell, you know, stylistically, but also just, again, the level of just chops you're able to develop at a young age there.
Well, it must be fun on the road, too, to have that kind of a musician on stage because you could just be loose.
You can go anywhere and they'll follow you. It doesn't have to be over rehearsed or overcooked, you know?
Yeah, and, you know, 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.
Yeah, I love that.
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If you're a music fan, I've got a new podcast you have to check out. It's called Before the Moment, a new series hosted by the legendary Nile Rodgers. You know him as the producer, songwriter, guitarist, and co-founder of Chic. But in this series, he's hitting the road to sit down with some of today's most fascinating artists. From hitmakers like Miguel to rising stars like Alex Warren, Nile explores the stories behind the careers, the songs, and the moments that changed everything. Because every artist can point to that turning point, the moment before the breakthrough, before the success, before everything changed. Through candid conversations and personal stories, you'll hear what happened before
the moment that made them who they are today. Listen to Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series, on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with Dr. Laura Jayhai of Cleveland Clinic about how advanced computing is helping shorten the path from medical discovery to treatment.
The moment that there is a compound that someone in a lab thinks it would be effective to treat a certain disease, it takes about 10 to 13 years from that moment to when that drug is on a shelf for a patient. A big part of that gap could be computationally solved. Better simulation of compounds, designing drug trials that are more efficient, that would finish faster. That was the motivation to bring computational tools and technology closer to biomedical researchers.
Learn more about how Cleveland Clinic and IBM are using AI and quantum computing to revolutionize biomedical research at ibm.com/smarttalks.
When you started, when you played on that Lauryn Hill record, how did that come about?
Okay, so the Lauryn Hill record, sorry, I got derailed from my story.
No, I loved where it went.
So, and actually, because I was playing in church is why it happened. Because I was going to school in Philadelphia, I went to UPenn. And then on the weekends, I found a gig playing for a church up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is a couple hours north of Philly. And so I would drive up to Scranton every weekend and played at this AME 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 were certain beats in the service that happened every week. But then there were things that you did that were a little looser as well. And so I played for this church, 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 Lauryn Hill. And so Lauryn 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 Lauryn, but she was kind of like a friend and collaborator and mentor. And she ended up touring with Lauryn for the first couple tours
after "Miseducation" came out, and she sang on the album. And so she was like, "Why don't you come to the studio with me? Lauryn's working on her solo debut, which, you know, was coming after "The Fugees" and the huge, you know, "Killing Me Softly" and all that." And so I was like, "Yeah, I want to go. 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.
So great.
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. But eventually, I'm like, you know, my friend's like, "Johnny, you gotta play something for her, show her what you can do." She was 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'd written called Too Late. And Lauren was like, um, why don't you play on this 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, the basic musical foundation for Everything is Everything.
That's crazy.
Was built in that session. And I played piano on it. And, and the, you know, the interesting part is you never know what's gonna happen when you just, you just play on something. You don't know if it's gonna come out. You don't know if your parts are gonna be still included, uh, when it comes out. Um, you just don't know. And then a few months later, I got a call from the record label asking how to spell my name for the, for the album credits. I was like, okay, it's gonna come out.
It's gonna happen.
It's gonna come out. And so I'm like, my name is John R. Stevens, which is my real name. And I 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 or something. But, uh, I tell them it's John R. Stevens. And that's how it ended up in the credits, uh, on track 13 of Miss Education.
That's so great.
John R. Stevens on piano.
That's amazing. It's so wild. I know that album like the back of my hand and I had no idea.
So many of us know that album so well. And I think, um, 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 all so 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 what music is supposed to sound like and how to make it eclectic and multi-genre and, 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 all of us young musicians.
And we all know it like the back of our hand. We know the skits in between.
I know the skits are so funny. And the songs are so good.
They, they still hold up so well.
Yeah, they're just so good. I think that's also what it's all about.
And you're such a great songwriter. This song from your debut, we were talking about doing Ordinary People. This song is so moving.
And it's got energy, but it's solo. I mean, it's such a great first thing to hear of you when you came out.
It was wild making that song because I was originally writing the chorus for The Black Eyed Peas.
Really?
So I'm friends with Will.i.am and the Rest of the Peas. 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. 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, 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 have worked better for my own project. 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 was kind of mid-tempo, but it had energy to it. And I went on tour 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 come back home and I record a demo of it. It's just me on the piano. 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. Um, simple.
Just me and my voice on the piano. And we end up putting it out as the demo, basically. The demo is the version that came out. And it's crazy because my first single was an uptempo song. It's called Used to Love You.
Kanye produced it, is, you know, uptempo, but 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. But my A and R, KP, Kwan Preth, he had decided to slip a full version of Ordinary People onto the back of the sampler that we were giving out to radio stations and to fans at small shows I was doing. And this station in Chicago, W G C I, got a hold of it. And they were supposed to 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 People's 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 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, in the area. And it was just killing in, in Chicago. And basically, the radio promoter from, from the label was like, we need to launch
this everywhere and let this be the next single and move off of Used to Love You. Ordinary People's a song everybody wants to hear. And so it became my signature debut single. But it wasn't the first single, but it was, it was a lot of people's introduction to me really.
Yeah, it was mine.
And I wonder if that, that, that stuff doesn't happen like that anymore, like for things to be played on the radio in one city.
Things are just so much.
Well, radio is just less determinative in general of anything. Uh, right now, but 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. Um, based on their streaming and, and you know, what they're using on TikTok or, or just them seeing it in a 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 40 years ago.
Um, and, uh, so it's so random sometimes, um, how songs blow up now. Um, and it's less determined by radio. So it makes it kind 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. Um, and there's so much music out there that it seems hard to break through sometimes. Uh, I feel like it was a simpler time.
I know, it was much simpler.
When we were breaking, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It's a weird world out there. You have to get good at doing all the jobs for yourself, you know?
Yeah. And you know, once, um, COVID happened, we just got so used to creating our own content.
I know. And then now you don't want to leave your house.
Yeah, you're like, you do all your own interviews from, from your laptop at home. You got a room set up for it.
Why do I have to go there? I can do this at home.
Exactly. So, so much has changed. Um, it's, it really is a lot different from when we started, yeah.
It is. Well, I would love it if you could, um, play this song.
Yeah, let's try it.
Would you be okay if I sang some?
Please sing with me.
Some like harmonies? I got some crazy harmony ideas.
We'll play it in the original key and then see.
Yeah, I'm good with that. Yeah.
How it feels.
Girl, I'm in love with you But this ain't the honeymoon We're past the infatuation phase
Right in the thick of love At times, we get sick of love It seems like we argue every day
I know I misbehave And you've made your mistakes And we both still got room left to grow
Although love sometimes hurts I still put you first And we'll make this thing work But I think we should take it slow We're just ordinary people
We don't know which way to go
'Cause we're ordinary people
Maybe we should take it slow
Take it slow
This time we'll take it slow
This ain't a movie, no. No fairytale conclusion, y'all. It gets more confusing every day.
Sometimes it's heaven sent, then we head back to hell again. Then we kiss and we make up on the way. I hang, you call. We ride and we fall. And we feel just warm in our way. And I know our love is dancing. We take second chances. Though it's not the plan to see. I still want you to say. We're just ordinary people.
We don't know which way to go.
Cause we're ordinary people.
Maybe we should take it slow.
We're just ordinary people.
Maybe we should take it slow. Take it slow. Slow. Oh. Oh. This time we'll take it slow. Take it slow. Oh.
This time we'll take it slow.
Take it slow. Slow.
This time we'll take it slow. Take it slow. Oh.
That's so pretty.
Yeah, I was gonna play, but then I was just like, I know. Don't think so.
I still love doing that song. It's still one of my favorite songs to perform.
Twenty years later.
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, it's infectious, right?
Yeah, and it feels, and 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. People would always tell me, like, they stopped what 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&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? And it stopped them 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.
It worked. 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.
Well, what's crazy, I was, 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 10. And then they got back together. They got remarried. Like literally like did the whole thing. Walked down the aisle again, white dress, everything. And that was like right around when I graduated from college, right around like 99, 2000. And then, right as I was finishing Get Lifted, they decided to get divorced again.
Oh my God, what does that do to you?
So it makes you right ordinary people.
I guess so, yeah. Well, that's pretty heavy.
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.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, that's really, yeah, that's pretty deep.
Um, I love the, the little bridge section. We didn't do it.
Oh, yeah. Maybe we'll live and learn. Maybe we'll crash and burn. Maybe you'll stay, maybe you'll leave. Maybe you'll return. It's high. Maybe you'll never fight. Maybe we won't survive. Maybe we'll grow and never know. Maybe you and I.
Yeah, well, that speaks right to that situation.
Exactly.
Oh my gosh. That's great. Well, that's insane. That's a crazy little family story there.
Let's talk about bridges.
Bridges, bridges, that's a bridge.
It's a lost art, you know?
Yeah, I, I never write bridges. I don't come from that school of songwriting.
Yeah. I, I pretty much do come from the school of writing a bridge. Uh, I don't always do it. Um, and I feel like a lot of songs don't have them anymore, but I like it.
If it's a good bridge, I love it.
Yeah. If you can figure out a way to make it feel like it elevates the song and like it creates like a new twist and, and gives it a new tension. Um, it can be cool.
That's a, well, that's a good bridge.
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If you're a music fan, I've got a new podcast you have to check out. It's called Before the Moment, a new series hosted by the legendary Nile Rodgers. You know him as the producer, songwriter, guitarist, and co-founder of Chic. But in this series, he's hitting the road to sit down with some of today's most fascinating artists. From hitmakers like Miguel to rising stars like Alex Warren, Nile explores the stories behind the careers, the songs, and the moments that changed everything. Because every artist can point to that turning point, the moment before the breakthrough, before the success, before everything changed. Through candid conversations and personal stories, you'll hear what happened before the moment that made them who they are today.
Listen to Before the Moment, a Lincoln Original Series, on the iHeartRadio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. Imagine your business depends on a system you didn't build and don't fully control. For years, it works perfectly. It's fast, reliable, affordable. So over time, more and more of your operations rely on it. Then one day, the terms change. What once felt flexible now feels difficult to leave. Moving to another provider or bringing those capabilities back under your own control could take years, cost millions, and disrupt the business in the process. That's the challenge of digital sovereignty. Businesses today rely on all sorts of third-party systems: cloud platforms, data pipelines, AI models,
software tools. Most days, these systems operate quietly in the background. But when something changes, like costs go up or rules shift, organizations are forced to confront how much control and flexibility they actually have. So to understand the challenge up close, I traveled to Paris to speak with IBM's on a Paula, a C and X as CIO, Giovanni Doniello, two people who think about these questions every day. Hear the full conversation at IBM.com/smarttalks or wherever you get your podcasts.
Yeah, I just love your playing. So it's so pretty.
Yeah. Did you ever play jazz, like really get into playing jazz?
I never properly really played it. 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 Ella and Sarah Vaughan and Nat King Cole. And really, that music was kind of the pop music of its era in a lot of ways. So in the Grammys, they call it traditional pop now, basically.
Oh, I know. Don't I know it?
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. And I loved those vocalists.
Me too.
I still listen to them. Ella, Nina, Sarah, Billy, like all of them. And I'm still inspired by them. And I would try to learn some of their songs, but I was never like a real jazz cat, you know, 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 solo.
Yeah. But you know all those extensions.
I know enough of them.
All those pretty chords, I can tell, yeah.
Yeah, I know enough of them to get by and, you know, I can learn a song and, and, and write out a chart, uh, pretty easily. That skill comes in handy in what we do, but, uh, I never have had to be a good soloist, so I never kind of developed that. I, I'm more thinking of myself as a pianist who plays for the main thing, which is me as a vocalist and a songwriter.
Well, there's such a marriage between, uh, singers who play an instrument.
It doesn't matter if they're, they have crazy chops. It's about the, the marriage of the two things.
Right. I'm playing in service of me, of singing, yeah.
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, it's, it's its own thing.
Yes. That's what we do.
Yeah, that's the best part. Um, well, I wanted to ask you if you would do, um, a Christmas song with me.
Let's do it.
Yeah, for, maybe, maybe this will be a little Christmas episode.
Um, this is kind of where the jazz sort of, I feel like Christmas songs, the old ones, standard ones are just so perfect for that.
That's the closest thing I've done to making a jazz album was, um, with Rafael Sadiq. Uh, he produced my entire Christmas album.
Oh, he did? I didn't even realize that.
And we had some great, like, great horn moments, some great-
That's so fun.
Great, like, solos. So it was my closest to making a jazz album, yeah.
That's awesome.
I didn't play any of the piano on it, by the way.
You didn't? Okay.
We had some real cats playing, yeah.
Okay, yeah.
Um, but, uh, I loved making the album. I feel like as a vocalist, I feel more comfortable in, uh, doing jazz than I do as a, as a pianist.
Got you.
Yeah, I felt like more, I've, like I said, I've listened to a lot of jazz vocalists over the years, and so I, I felt at least like conversant in the way that I would want to approach the vocal for this. Um, and I let the real, real pianist, uh, handle the, the keyboards.
Well, that's cool. Um, when did your Christmas album come out? It's been a while now.
It came out twenty- Eighteen, yeah, twenty eighteen. And we've done like kind of deluxe versions and all that since then.
Got to do it.
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.
That's nice.
He had just been born.
Do you guys, you have a big family?
Four kids.
Four kids, and I was one of four kids too.
Were you? Okay, all right. And do you guys have any special Christmas traditions that you've carried on from your childhood?
Well, this album has become part of it. 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.
Chrissy'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 we just love.
So it's just a huge, full house?
Yeah, it's a full house. 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. And so we do holidays really big at our house.
Yeah, I could see that.
Let's figure this out.
Do you want to play on this?
Yeah, I'll play this one out. I can play it like I did it with Esperanza.
The version we did.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light.
From now on, our troubles will be out of sight.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Make the yuletide gay. From now on, our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are, as in olden days. Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are near to us. Gather near to us once more. Through the years, we all will be together. If the fates allow. Paint the shining star upon the high is bound. Yeah. And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
Hey, here we are, as in olden days. Happy golden days of yore. Faithful friends who are near to us. Gather near to us once more. Through the years, we all will be together. If the fates allow.
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now. Merry little Christmas. Have yourself a merry little Christmas now. Merry little Christmas. Have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No rehearsal.
That was great.
That was great. That's a totally different version.
Yeah. I love it. She's so great, Esperanza Spalding.
Esperanza. So, did you win Best New Artist?
Yeah, so.
I feel weird.
So both of us won Best New Artist.
And I got to stand on stage and present Best New Artist one year. And the, all the, you know, the talk was, is it gonna be Drake or is it gonna be Justin Bieber?
That's right. And it was her, right?
And, and, and I opened the envelope and they don't tell you who's gonna win beforehand. And I'm just like shocked, cuz it's neither Drake nor Justin Bieber and it's Esperanza Spalding.
And I got to hand her her Best New Artist trophy.
Oh, that's fun.
And years later, we got to do this record together.
That's cool. Who handed you yours? Do you remember?
I feel like...
It was Common. I think this one was Common and Fiona Apple.
Oh, cool.
Uh, I gotta look back at the footage.
I'm pretty sure it was Common and Fiona Apple.
Okay, that's cool.
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.
And then Best New Artist was, uh, I think it was Common and Fiona Apple. And I love Fiona Apple, too.
I know, I love her, too.
Common's 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.
That's so cool. What a weird world, huh?
Well, this has been great.
So fun.
Thank you for joining me.
Thank you for having me.
You're incredible, and I hope I get to see you again soon.
Let's do it again. Let's make music again. If I'm in your city, you're in New York.
And I'm playing in Brooklyn. Well, maybe we should do Summertime Blue on stage.
Yeah, I'll be around.
That was amazing.
I'm in the Christmas spirit now.
I feel jolly.
I feel jolly, too. His voice is insane in person.
It just fills the whole room, like, truly.
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 gotta step it up a little bit, you know? He's got, like, crazy lung power.
Yeah, beautiful.
So beautiful.
Booming.
I really had a great time. Thanks for listening, everyone. If you would like to know what songs we played on this episode, the first song was Summertime Blue, which is a song I recorded with John earlier this year in 2025. It's just sort of a standalone release, digital release, that is. The second song is Ordinary People. What a classic. That's from Get Lifted, which was released in 2005. The third song we did was Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. That, of course, is the classic Christmas song from the 1940s, written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine. It was introduced by Judy Garland in the musical Meet Me in St. Louis. I love her version so much. It's also on John's Christmas album called A Legendary Christmas, which came
In 2018. Special thanks to John Legend for joining us today. We'll be back next week with James Bay. Visit Norah 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 Danforth Webster, backline tech Jason Moser, mixed by Jamie Landry, audio post-production and mastering by Greg Tobler, additional recording by Matt Marinelli, artwork by Eliza Frye, photography by Shirvin Lenez, produced by Norah Jones and Sarah Oda, executive producers Erin Wong-Kaufman and Jordan Runtog, marketing lead Queen Aniki. Have a great one.
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