Vibes: Interviews.Features

Chester Gregory Interview

Chester Gregory
This multi-talented singer wants to take us “In Search of High Love”
By Damon Percy

Chester Gregory is one of those rare talents that can sing on the drop of a dime. There have been a few talents that have transcended the Broadway stage and become mainstream musical stars (i.e Melba Moore, Jennifer Holliday and Gregory Hines), but Chester’s talent speaks volumes. The possessor of a five octave voice, he is ready to unleash his debut project In Search of High Love to the world. Gregory has spent nearly the last decade as an award winning Broadway star, leading The Jackie Wilson Story, Hairspray, Tarzan, CryBaby and most recently as Donkey in Shrek. After three long years of labor love, Gregory finally found time to share his unique blend of artistry with us. Gregory took a few moments out to talk with Nu-Soul Magazine about his career, music and the state of the industry today.

Nu-Soul: Tell me how your debut In Search of High Love came to happen.
Chester: This album started out as my final attempt to prepare a demo for record executives, but realized that I was compromising my music trying to please them. I started over, listened to my heart and allowed the album to flow. Eventually, it started to assemble itself. Then I decided to re-release the album, because I was doing 12 hour rehearsal days for Dreamworks for “Shrek,” so of course I didn’t have time for interviews or press for my project and that just ended late fall.

Nu-Soul: How different is the creative process for you recording an album as opposed to being on Broadway and doing live shows? Do you miss feeling the immediacy of a live audience being replaced by audience of one in the sound booth?
Chester: This is an entirely different muscle. I have been in the studio on various soundtracks, Broadway casts, but the studio is more of an intimate thing. Film is VERY different from being on stage. You go from a 2500 seat house to a crowd of 8, with a camera right in your face. It’s humbling and fortunately you are able to do certain things over. My album took 3 years because I wanted to make sure every song was right, and I wanted to keep the integrity of the song, didn’t want it to be too big or too showy, but sometimes I couldn’t help it, because my voice is big and showy. I like to bounce phrases, bend notes and play with my vibrato.

Nu-Soul: Who are some of your major musical influences?
Chester: Influenced by J. Dilla, From Gary, Indiana., home of the Jackson family. Michael Jackson is ideally my biggest influence. The king of Pop is from Gary. It was when I first saw the “Thriller” video that I realized then that I wanted performing to become my life and that I wanted to make a living doing it.

I first started listening to Kim Burrell around 96 and Jackie Wilson is another major musical influence on me. Influenced by vocalists like Rachelle Ferrell, Ledisi, Kim Burrell and Donny Hathaway and I really am influenced by entertainers as well, Michael Jackson, Sammy Davis, Jr., Gregory Hines.

Nu-Soul: How would you describe your style of music?
Chester: I would describe my style of music as R&B/Soul. It has a throwback feel to it and is much more different than the current music being played on the radio. Because my music has a lot of trip beats, I may be categorized as a neo-soul artist. But I try to make it clean, and it can be considered as elitist music by some and hip-hop music by others, but the songs are R&B influenced, so that’s why I combine the genres together.

Nu-Soul: How did you get started on Broadway?
Chester: I have always performed in theatre and began around the 5th grade, mostly in the Chicagoland area. I did “The Jackie Wilson Story” for 3 years and the show toured a little bit, and went to the East Coast. An agent from “Hairspray” saw me in the show and wanted me to replace the original actor as “Seaweed” and I performed that role for five years.

Playing Jackie Wilson was tough enough on its own, because people have their ideas of how they want you to sound as the artist and their memories of them. So if someone is doing Prince or Michael, then it’s kind of tough. When I did the show in Detroit, there was really a lot of pressure, because a lot of his family is there. It was fun to play there and after about 10 minutes into the show, I got them by intermission. Interpretation is great, but you want to give of yourself after a period of time.

Nu-Soul: How important is it for you to write your own material? Because in your bio, you said that you are “ready to reveal to the R&B/Soul world that the regular guy behind all of the dazzling characters in the man that you face in the mirror every day.”
Chester: My own material is more personal and more meaningful to me. I’ve sang the words of others, but the words I write and melodies and songs that I’ve created, are of my experiences and I create them from my viewpoint. This album is to reach out to people who are in various stages of love, whether it be an upstate, broken up, in love or out of love, there is something on this album that encompasses all parts of love for everybody.

Phil Collins would come and watch the show on the nights that he wasn’t in it and wrote a wonderful statement for my press kit, saying that I was the only one who took liberties with the melodies, but stuck to the integrity of the song.

Nu-Soul: Does the current state of the music industry, specifically R&B, bother you?
Chester: Hmmmm, the current state of R&B is questionable. I believe that this is the age of the independent artist, who can be creative at marketing and promotion and make themselves heard worldwide without compromising who they are. Look at where Obama was two years ago, and with the internet and online visibility, it helped him. For people who have right brain thinking, the sky is the limit. Too much of today’s music kind of has the same formula and it’s the same kind of R&B, which makes it stagnant. Creatively, music is changing over to a new medium that independent artists such as myself want to try. Ten years ago, you wouldn’t have thought to release an album independently and be successful. In the end, however, the music speaks for itself. People are looking more to independent artists for good music, and checking on Itunes, CD Baby and places like that, instead of major record companies these days.

Nu-Soul: As an eclectic musician, what three albums do you feel should belong in ALL real music lovers collections?
Chester: Fantastic Vol. II – J. Dilla. He really changed the game in hip hop and will always be remembered. Ledisi – Feeling Orange, Sometimes Blue – Just a terrific, TERRIFIC album and of course, ‘In Search of High Love,’ by yours truly, (said with a smile in his voice.)

www.chestergregory.com
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