Sitting just feet away from Gregory Porter as he sings in the studio is an awe-inspiring experience.
He is sailing through a live take of L-O-V-E, Nat King Cole’s finger-popping paean to romantic intoxication in the late George Martin’s Air Studios in north London. The recording has a landmark feel to it. Something special’s happening here.
Porter’s physical presence is powerful. A 6ft 3in former American college footballer dressed in a symphony of tailored whites and creams, topped with the famous black Kangol cap and balaclava-combo he wears to cover facial scarring he suffered after surgery on his skin.
Gregory Porter’s songs Holding on, Hey Laura, Water Under Bridges and Consequence Of Love are fast becoming modern-day standards
Then there is the voice alternately pouring out of him in a honeyed tidal wave or blowing like a breeze through silk, it is an impressive instrument.
Britain has embraced Porter the man and his beguiling blend of jazz, soul and blues. His third album, Liquid Spirit, sold a million copies and is the most streamed jazz album of all time.
Last year’s Take Me To The Alley burst into the mainstream Top Five, the first time a jazz album had achieved this feat in a decade.
Porter’s songs Holding on, Hey Laura, Water Under Bridges and Consequence Of Love are fast becoming modern-day standards.
The singer has chosen London to record his latest album, Nat King Cole & Me, ‘songs by and inspired by’ the super-smooth, but gently revolutionary singer and songwriter of the post-war decades whose hits includes Nature Boy, Mona Lisa and his signature song, Unforgettable.
The languidly cool Cat In The Hat is applying a little pressure to the project by recording with a 70-piece orchestra, all in just three days. Is he nuts?
‘Maybe,’ Porter chuckles. ‘It’s expensive, that’s for sure. But it’s a dream come true. A love project.’
Porter was raised with seven siblings in California by a single mother who told him, as a boy, that he sang like Cole.
‘Just playfully, she said, “You sound like him,” and that started this thing of me imagining Nat as my father. My own father wasn’t just absent emotionally or physically for me, he was straight up absent.
‘Nat King Cole & Me’ is out on Decca on October 27
‘Nat gave me more advice than my real father. He said, “The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.” He said, “Smile when your heart is aching.” He said, “Pick yourself up and dust yourself off, and start all over again.” He even called me son.’
So began Porter’s fascination with Cole, who broke into the mainstream as a black entertainer and faced terrible racism. He had a burning cross set on the lawn of his Los Angeles home by the Ku Klux Klan in 1948 and was beaten up by three white supremacists at a concert in 1956. ‘This genius was attacked on stage,’ thunders Porter. ‘Shame on you.’
Porter’s own family experienced racism in the Seventies. ‘My mother was extraordinary,’ he recalls. ‘She told us, “We’re beneath no one. We’re children of God. So anybody who’s attacking us or abusing us is not right.” ’
Cole died of lung cancer in 1964 aged 45, the same age Porter is now, a fact of which he was unaware until this moment. ‘My God,’ the singer swallows. ‘He never got to be older than I am?’
As Porter’s own father prepared to die, his son visited. ‘He was in his hospital bed,’ he says softly. ‘And I had an opportunity to sing for him. I said to him, “I’ve been singing in the jazz clubs. I think I want to be a singer.” He said, “I don’t know, there are a lot of good singers out there.” But I don’t hate him for that. Maybe it made me what I am.’
Happily, Porter now has his own son, Demyan, with his Russian wife, Victoria.
Porter’s rampant and reciprocated Anglophilia drew to a moving conclusion when he sang Amazing Grace in front of the Queen at the Royal Albert Hall for 2015’s Festival Of Remembrance.
‘That’s something my mother predicted,’ he says. ‘She said, “Your gift will make room for you at the table of royalty.” We used to laugh at her. Then they asked me to sing a song my mother taught me for the Queen, so it couldn’t have been more perfect.’
Before Porter heads back to his orchestra – the meter’s running – he has a secret to share: this soulful colossus likes to sew. Perhaps, one day, he could fashion a hat for himself?
‘I’m working on that,’ he winks, touching the peak of titfer. ‘And, like with my music, I love all kinds of material.’
‘Nat King Cole & Me’ is out on Decca on October 27