Happy 15th Anniversary to John Legend & The Roots’ collaborative album Wake Up!, originally released September 21, 2010.
I don’t know a lot about horoscopes. It’s not my thing, really. I do know I’m a Scorpio though, which apparently makes me generally loving and loyal until, suddenly, I’m not. The old sting in the tail and all that. Annoyingly, it appears those fateful stars have got me about right.
I am stubbornly loyal when it comes to music. I was, after all, still buying Prince albums in the late ‘90s, when round my way it was about as popular as necrophilia to most folk. This was brought home to me when I recently found myself in our overcrowded, spider-infested loft, searching for something that we “needed.” Having found said item, I then couldn’t resist a stop by the CD collection that took years and plenty of cash to assemble.
Since I started streaming a few years ago (not a decision I’m especially proud of), those hundreds of CDs have languished among the cobwebs and the other assorted jetsam of our lives. Unused, except for the odd scuttle up the shaky foldaway stairs to find an inlay card for one of the more obscure anniversary pieces I have written for Albumism.
As I crouched there, lost in the collection, I couldn’t help but reminisce and remember albums I’d forgotten all about. It was then that my stubborn loyalty became exceptionally evident. And, if you’ll pardon me turning into Carrie Bradshaw for a moment, I couldn’t help but ask myself a question: Why the fuck did I have so many John Legend albums?
I couldn’t tell you the last time I’d played any John Legend song, let alone a whole album’s worth and aside from his debut album, I couldn’t remember much about them. And then, in a thought that felt almost sacrilegious given my love of some of Questlove’s work, my eyes alighted on the assembled throng of Roots albums and I wondered the same thing.
Aside from Things Fall Apart (1999), when did I last reach for a Roots album and play it? And reflecting on them, I realized that most Roots albums left me feeling that they were less than the sum of their parts. I have played Black Thought’s more recent work with other producers much more and have found myself wondering when I realized that the Roots’ music left me uninspired.
Listen to the Album:
But then I saw it. As a man who alphabetizes his music collections by artist name, duet albums always bothered me but there, nestled among the Roots albums, was one that I thought I would happily reach for—Wake Up! by The Roots and John Legend. Released in 2010, it features a set of (mainly) covers of soul-stirring social anthems from the ‘60s and ‘70s. And John Legend has never sounded better, backed by a band who seem to relish the opportunity to play the classic material.
It was inspired by the 2008 Presidential election when Barack Obama became the first Black president of the United States (“United” doing a lot of wishful thinking there, as ever). Legend spoke to Billboard magazine at the time and said: “I was in the middle of campaigning for Barack Obama and feeling inspired by the atmosphere at the time, so I wanted to do something musically that reflected that moment. The original idea was to some sort of covers EP, but the more I got into it with the Roots, it felt like something that should be heard and marketed on its own.”
He elucidates further in the liner notes for the album (yes, I have the dust-filled lungs of a man who has scrabbled through a loft in ways my decrepit knees shouldn’t): “We live in a time of seemingly unlimited possibility and ground breaking, historic change, yet we’re also in the midst of a deep recession and war. Poverty and disillusionment still afflict a large portion of humankind. This intense brew of possibility and persistent poverty, optimism and despair, activism and unrest and global connectedness and intractable global conflicts is the reason Wake Up! exists.”
So, the intentions are good—what about the end product? In truth, it is a mixed bag and listening now, its impact is much less than it was at the time of release. It is at its best with the grittier songs. The opening two songs “Hard Times” (written by Curtis Mayfield and performed by Baby Huey) and Eugene McDaniels’ classic “Compared To What” are good cases in point. There is a swagger and chunky forthrightness that permeates the playing throughout that renders them powerful and decent versions of classic songs.
Of course, the musical partners have the good sense to retain one of the USPs of the Roots—Black Thought’s remarkable, bristling flow and cadence. He gets a verse on “Hard Times” and then leads off the cover of Donny Hathaway’s “Little Ghetto Boy” with another verse of his typically dexterous verbal skills, before it is proved that not many people can cover something Donny Hathaway sang and come out on top.
The same goes for the cover of “Wholy Holy” when Legend pales in comparison to Marvin Gaye. I mean, who can beg and plead to the Lord above better than Marvin? Not many, that’s for sure. “Wake Up Everybody” lapses into the kind of saccharine fayre that makes it clear to me why I stopped buying Legend albums but Mike James Kirklands’ “Hang On In There” sails by smoothly enough to add to the credit column.
Towards the end of the album though is a boisterous, muscular extended version of Bill Withers’ Vietnam War protest song, “I Can’t Write Left-Handed.” There is a palpable sense of the band really enjoying the chance to stretch out and jam as the song builds to its conclusion—with some flaming guitar work courtesy of either Kirk Douglas or Randy Bowland leading the way.
There is one original song here, “Shine”, written by Legend for a documentary about the broken education system. It is perfectly passable, but it loses some luster by the very fact that it sits cheek by jowl with songs of incomparable power and quality.
While around 60% of the album works, it is slightly disappointing that the remaining 40% settles into pale imitations of the originals but, I guess, that’s the glory/peril of these types of albums. If one person hears “Hard Times” and tracks down Baby Huey’s one and only album, then it’s worth putting up with the rest, right? Right?!
Listen: