Mystery Black Boy 

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Regarding Legend, the turning point for me was his solicitation of my dear friend, record producer Craig Street, as a collaborator on Once Again. Street co-produced "Again" and "Where Did My Baby Go," as well as augmenting Raphael Saadiq's work on the stunning "Show Me." At Manhattan's Right Track studios this past summer, I had the honor of witnessing them at work on the charmingly risqué "P.D.A. (We Just Don't Care)" with its infectious Shalamar handclaps, and being mesmerized by Italian composer Daniele Luppi conducting the string section for "Show Me." If Legend's true self remains hidden in plain sight, at least I do know courtesy of his association with Craig that he is serious and his aesthetic is maturing in a strong direction, that he wants to work hard on the quality of his songs and add something indelible beyond the market to give his music a chance at endurance.

Craig, noted for his past work with artists as different on surface as Cassandra Wilson and Charlie Sexton, is himself unafraid of a radical realm of the senses -- as well as very creative and talented. He's the sort of music man of whom it used to be said, "He has ears," and has been a great influence on me and how I hear. So Craig's enthusiasm for working with Legend got my attention, per his comments from his Manhattan home:

"I think one of the great things about John is that he doesn't have any limitations. I think without question he's probably one of the most talented younger singer-songwriter-performers out there at this point in time ... There's other people that are good and interesting in pop music, but he's definitely one of the most talented. I mean, if I were to look at the pop world right now, it'd be him and Feist and Jack White and a handful of others that actually know how to write songs and know how to play their instruments and know how to sing. And, just by the fact that they can do those three, are light years ahead of everybody else.

"[John] listens to everything. His influences are all over the place. He can write a classically structured, great song that sounds new; it doesn't sound dated. If he decides he's going to wear an influence on his sleeve, it still sounds modern. I think his wordplay is what separates him from a lot of folks. ... He's really not constrained by anything that the public or critics or record companies or anyone else puts on him. He probably could've done 'Ordinary People, Part Two' and he chose not to. He really steps out on a limb with this one. There's things that sound like they could have been on Get Lifted, and there's others that're completely different. He's absolutely fearless when it comes to exploration, which is probably one of the signs of a really great artist -- when the need to explore and try things is greater than the need to simply stay where the success has been."

Although he and I disagree about the voice of "Coming Home" (and I might have tweaked the disc's sequencing), the end result is a complete work unafraid to take the many shades and vicissitudes of romance as its central theme. Without prematurely forecasting, Once Again's power is evident. When artists find it easier to (belatedly) drop anti-Bush rants than sing about love in all its complexity, Once Again is definitely Legend's gauntlet cast at apathy and mediocrity.

And "Show Me" has elevated Legend above the fray, moved me beyond thought. In my opinion, the late Jeff Buckley, aka the Mystery White Boy, was the greatest, bravest soul singer of the past 15 years -- and truly one of the minute cadre of artists that gave my generation any claims to glory at all. Early spins of Once Again had already caused me to jokingly refer to Legend as "sepia Rufus" in reference to the disc's arrangements (especially the exquisite, string-laden Street songs and another favorite, the hothouse lush "Maxine's Interlude"), similar to Rufus Wainwright's in confounding the narrow purview of pop. Wainwright is also an avowed Buckley heir, and the finest pianoman preceding Legend to have expanded songcraft and pop's lyrical vocabulary in the recent digital age.

Personally and as a music fanatic, I remain disconsolate over the loss of Jeff Buckley; as a critic, I am pained and baffled by my colleagues' generally poor reception of Wainwright. And so I had resisted writing this story; this is my saison en enfer, and I cannot carry the burden of caring about artists of John Legend's caliber. I know my late Mother would have loved "Slow Dance," if not all of Once Again; I can envision her bouncing around her flat, pestering me, "Who's that boy? That's my song!" -- dancing a fearlessly sensual, funky drag from her youth in West Philly, where Legend honed his skills. Four days after she died, listening to "Show Me's" spectral strings in the studio, I was haunted and moved to tears. I do not want to feel nor be reminded of why music is my Great Mystery, and yet there it is: "Show Me," ghost notes speaking volumes, refuses to diminish its glory. In performance, Legend delights in sonic dialogue with Buckley's spirit, bravely lifting his voice as the guitar emotes and rises with him intimately, and I, who don't believe in God but my Ancestors, can hear them aloft where my Mother has joined them, cloudsplitting over Legend's divine accomplishment. I may'nt want to, but still ken carnal and spiritual meaning when he sings: "Show me that you love me / Show me that you walk with me / Hopefully, just above me / Heaven's watching over me..." It is ethereal beauty, it is truth for the floating world I am adrift in and, yes, it's my song.