And once again it's back to Bakersfield, California, where Gregory Porter was raised together with seven siblings, and where his mother Ruth's Nat King Cole record collection awakened his love of music. "Sing, baby, sing", she told him. Gregory Porter stands in life like a tree whose roots are everything. His cultural awareness reaches far and wide. There’re the musical influences: Nina Simone, Leon Thomas, the Bakersfield Southern Gospel sound, Motown, jazz. And there's the racial discrimination. He was discovered in the jazz clubs of San Diego. The musician with the unmistakable baritone has catapulted jazz singing back onto the international stage. His Grammy-winning albums Liquid Spirit and Take Me to the Alley from 2013 and 2016 reached the top ten in the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and many other European countries.
