Singer Gregory Porter is known for his rich, unmistakable baritone, a voice that draws equally from jazz, gospel, blues and soul.
But before he became a two-time Grammy winner, before he was performing for thousands of people around the world, he was a little boy singing in storefront churches in Bakersfield, California, alongside musicians old enough to be his grandparents.
"I was kinda living in a music documentary, and I didn't know it. I was singing with some old gospel saints that were singing old Southern gospel songs," he remembers.
Porter was one of eight children. His mother was a preacher, and when she traveled to other churches to deliver a sermon, she often brought young Gregory along to sing.
"I was her songster,” he says. "She would always say, 'I wonder,' but there was no wondering. It was mandatory."
His mother wasn't only concerned with saving souls. She also worked to help people struggling to survive.
Her ministry took her to Lakeview Avenue, a rough stretch of Bakersfield that locals called simply The Road. Among the people she helped were migrant agricultural workers, many of them Black Americans whose families had traveled west looking for work.
Those childhood experiences would eventually become the inspiration for one of Porter's most enduring songs, "Take Me to the Alley."
He says, "Take Me to the Alley was me remembering the experiences I had with my mother. She was a storefront preacher in storefronts that were on the worst streets in my city. I remember them, Alley-Oop, Skull Cat, Frenchie, Chief. Interesting characters, but sometimes they were troubled and difficult and they needed help and my mother was there for them and they encouraged my music."
The song appeared on Porter's 2016 album of the same name, which won the Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album. A decade later, Porter has been revisiting that music, and says the memories have become even more powerful.
He explains, "I love the way it came out on the record, but there's more emotional depth as I have time to think about the powerful stories and the people's lives that she changed on that street.I like the fact that that was a big part of my childhood, and I found a way to put it into my music."
His mother's influence wasn't limited to the subject matter of his songs. She also taught him something about how to sing them. She said, 'Sing with an understanding.'"
"Understand what it is you're singing, let it come through your body. When you're singing, think about something in that lyric that applies to you," he says.
Porter was already a young man when his mother died. He had gone to college on a football scholarship, but an injury had ended his athletic career. Music was still something he loved, although he wasn't certain it could become his profession.
In one of their final conversations, his mother encouraged him to keep singing.
He says, "When your mama gives you some fuel, that fuel burns hotter and it lasts longer than any other words from anybody else in the world."
Gregory Porter didn't release his first album until he was nearly 40. Today, he's one of the most recognizable voices in contemporary jazz.
And when he returns to the music of Take Me to the Alley, he's also returning to the people and places that helped him find that voice in the first place.
Gregory Porter performs at NJPAC in Newark on Friday, November 13, as part of the TD James Moody Jazz Festival, celebrating the tenth anniversary of Take Me to the Alley, with special guests Madeleine Peyroux and Catherine Russell.
