John Legend

[RainyDay]

Anybody heard this CD by John Legend? The Snoop thread made me think of this because Snoop is on the Legend CD. I'm not a Snoop fan at all, so imagine my surprise to hear him on something and not hate it.

Anyway, Legend plays piano and sings. He can sing (unlike many pop singers) and is versatile. Nice range of styles on the CD. His background is gospel and it lends such a refreshing quality to music that is obviously hip hop inspired. The video for the song "Ordinary People" is running on VH1 and VH1 Soul. The interesting thing about the video is that it adds strings and harmonica to the end of the song and it gives it such a big sound without sounding corny and overproduced. It's a beautiful song without the strings.

Opinions?

[relyles]

I have heard parts of the recording and what I have heard I have enjoyed a lot. I also have heard something from a live performance by Legend, which impressed me.

[RainyDay]

  relyles said:

I have heard parts of the recording and what I have heard I have enjoyed a lot. I also have heard something from a live performance by Legend, which impressed me.

Where did you hear him do something live? I missed him when he was here with Alicia Keys because I don't keep up with the pop artists when they come to town.

[relyles]

I have not actually heard him live. A friend sent me a disc of a performance he did at the Knitting Factory in NYC. At the time I had no idea who he was and this friend wanted to hip me to him in return for all the music I have shared with her over the past few years. To be honest I am not sure what the source is. Its just him and a rather poor sounding piano. Kanye West is also on a couple of the tracks. I heard that before I heard any of the stuff they are playing on the radio and based on that alone I was impressed.

Edited April 1, 2005 by relyles

[Kari S]

Saw him on the Tonight Show a while back, and kind of liked it. The only prob he seems to have is the lack of strong material [iMHO], which is often the case with "these kind of" artists. Stevie & co knew how to write strong, inspiring tunes, these cats rarely do. The guy is also quite young, 23 or 24 if I remember correctly. He has chosen himself a mighty stage name, though...