Gregory Porter
The Travel Diaries
Holly Rubenstein
4.5 • 813 Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2021
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On today’s episode, I’m joined by the multi-Grammy winning singer, Gregory Porter. Gregory’s was originally set to become an American football player, and it wasn’t until he turned 40 that his rich jazz baritone caught the attention of industry bigwigs and subsequently, jazz heads around the world. His major label debut Liquid Spirit went on to become the most streamed jazz album of all time. He's played Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage, sung for the Queen and prior to Covid was travelling over 200 days a year, playing to his adoring fans around the world. So with all that travel and all those miles covered, it’s no surprise that today’s episode is a long haul, feature length episode.
Gregory joins me from his home in California, and this is a really touching, personal, evocative episode. Gregory says it’s like therapy - he remembers his travels so vividly, and each destination is full of emotion as he describes it to us. We’ll go on a journey from the West to the East coast of the United States, across Russia on the Transiberian Express and to a secret French island that I’d never heard of, which is now firmly added to my travel wish list. Oh and he serenades us not once but twice on this episode, so prepared to be soothed by that velvety voice!
Destination Recap:
- Bakersfield, California, USA
- Yosemite National Park, California, USA
- Santa Monica, California, USA
- San Diego, California, USA
- Brooklyn, New York, USA
- Harlem, New York, USA
- Siberia, Russia
- Tokyo, Japan
- Kanazawa, Japan
- Porquerolles, France
- Ukraine
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Tel Aviv, Israel
- Jakarta, Indonesia
- South Africa
- Sierra Leone
- Ghana
Gregory Porter’s album All Rise is out now.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Travel Diaries podcast. |
| 0:09.9 | I'm Holly Rubinstein. |
| 0:11.3 | I'm a travel and entertainment journalist. |
| 0:13.7 | And here each week I'll be speaking to a very special guest about the seven chapters in their life's travel diaries. |
| 0:20.6 | From their earliest childhood travel diaries. |
| 0:25.3 | From their earliest childhood travel memory and the first place they fell in love with to their hidden gem and what's at the top of their travel bucket list. |
| 0:29.6 | We'll be uncovering their adventures around the world and the travel experiences and |
| 0:34.4 | destinations that have shaped their lives. |
| 0:37.5 | I'm joined today by the multi-Grammy winning singer Gregory Porter. |
| 0:42.0 | So Gregory's trajectory, this is a really interesting one. |
| 0:44.5 | He was originally set to become an American football player, |
| 0:47.7 | which is a huge career in the US. |
| 0:49.6 | And it wasn't until he turned 40, 40, that his rich baritone jazz voice caught the attention |
| 0:56.9 | of industry bigwigs and subsequently jazz heads around the world. |
| 1:01.1 | His major label debut Liquid Spirit went on to become the most streamed jazz album of all time. |
| 1:09.4 | He's played Glastonbury's Pyramid stage, sung to the Queen, and prior to |
| 1:13.2 | COVID was travelling over 200 days a year playing to his adoring fans around the world. So with all |
| 1:19.4 | that travel and all those miles covered, it's no surprise that today's episode is a long haul one |
| 1:24.7 | feature length episode. Sir Gregory joined me from his home in California. |
| 1:30.0 | We spoke on Zoom and this is a really touching personal evocative episode. Gregory says that it's |
| 1:38.5 | like therapy and he remembers his travel so vividly that each destination is just so full of emotion as he describes it to us. |
| 1:46.3 | We're going to go on a journey from the west to the east coast of the US, across Russia on the Trans-Siberian Railway, |
... |
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