In Conversation: Stevie Mackey
Being a huge vocal nerd, I initially discovered Stevie’s Instagram almost a decade ago, around the time he was working with JoJo, and ended up falling in love with his craft right away. Ironically, it was also around the time I launched METAL & DVST, and, of course, I thought that it would be great to interview Stevie one day. However, I’m a true believer that there’s a time and place for everything, and now was the time. Yes, it took me that long. Was it worth it? When I finally came to LA in February, my birthday month, it was raining for two days straight, but not on the day I was supposed to interview Stevie, not on this particular Sunday: it was as beautiful and sunny as it can get. Jesus loves him. Oh, yes, he does. Here we are, two design geeks, music fans, Disney kids, laying on Stevie’s couch on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, with his doggie Teddy and years of parallel life experiences between us. After talking for hours on end and, as a result, getting familiarized with each other’s musical influences, Stevie jumps on the keyboard and starts singing Last Train Home by Pat Metheny Group, followed by Kelly, I Will Always Love You, knowing how much these two artists mean to me. We all have good days and bad days, but there’s just a handful of days that I can recall when I felt the happiest: the day I got into Marc Chagall Art School, the day I took my dad to the Earth Wind & Fire show at MSG, the day a nurse put Alexis on my chest, and that Sunday I got to spend with Stevie. Now, you tell me: was it worth it?
KELLY KORZUN: Today is Sunday. Did you go to church?
STEVIE MACKEY: I grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and we do Saturdays instead of Sundays, but I didn’t go yesterday because I was rehearsing all day. However, that day that was very close to what I’d consider a Sabbath: a day full of rest, nature, fun, fellowship and staying away from the worldly things like too much shopping and other self-indulging activities. Typically, I try to do things that are focused on nature and talents. Yesterday was all about resting and hanging at the beach, and I was at the beach in the rain. All my family would always go to church on Saturdays no matter what, and sometimes on Wednesdays, so I went to church on Wednesday night here in LA and it was very nice.
KK: Is it a regular church or one of these fancy LA churches with VIP green rooms for celebrities?
SM: That's the church I went to on Wednesday. Pastor Judah Smith is a really good preacher and teacher, and they have good music there. They had Israel Houghton this past Wednesday, so I went there for him, but, you know, churches are churches and they have their own styles. Sometimes my parents come down to visit me and we all go to my church in Inglewood, which is a bit more jazzy, more gospel, with a little more Black American church feeling. Yes, there are these fancy churches, but I don't focus on that because I'm from LA. My church is Breath of Life Seventh-day Adventist Church, which is known for teaching and lots of great music. Many musicians grew up in that culture of going to church on Sabbath: Take 6, Sheléa, Brian McKnight, Little Richard. Brian and I went to the same school.
KK: Wait, you and Brian went to the same school? Fun fact: Brian’s CDs were the first records that I bought with my own money. A few years back, I reached out to him for an interview. Brian, hit me up! It’s not too late.
SM: Yes, Brian, Take 6, Little Richard, Prince, and many others. Who else have you approached?
KK: A few. Brian McKnight, Bobby McFerrin, Stevie Mackey. Obviously, Pat Metheny. One step at a time.
SM: Exactly. Considering how much you love music, I wouldn’t be surprised.
KK: Looking back on your background and upbringing, how do you think your relationship with God transformed over the years?
SM: I think as we get older, all of our relationships become more personal because when you're little and therefore have very little experience, you're taught things that you should do and shouldn't do. Later, as you get older, you start thinking about how it can be applied to your actual life, and you have more life to apply it to. In the past couple years, I've really come to understand God as a designer more than just a creator and a maker of music, a designer just like me, who really, really loves and understands the intricacies of beauty and design, even architecture and landscaping. Yes, the world has been through a lot, but I think it was once very perfectly designed. Today, I see God as a friend, a leader, and as a creator of all music, less fearful being, more loving.
KK: I also think that God is love. When you experience something beautiful, be it design, architecture, music, you can see God in all these things because God is just love and this loving and forgiving creative energy.
SM: Exactly. God is love. He doesn't just possess love; he is it to the core. Whenever we see someone who’s loving like that, almost Christ-like, and they may not be a professed Christian, they may not have any titles, yet they are choosing to be loving.
KK: In one of the interviews you mentioned that you come from both conservative and artsy background. When it comes to your personality, what parts of it do you recognize as conservative? Do you think it gets in the way of your artsy side or, on the contrary, complements it?
SM: I think the best artists in the world always have a certain duality about them: Prince, Whitney, Little Richard, and many other artists who came from church. The Seventh-day Adventist Church is evangelical and rather conservative, with a lot of rules. However, being from California, my parents are very artistic: they love to sing and play piano, they love design, that side of life. Yes, we were raised with strict morals, but it all comes down to what morals make sense to keep and what morals don’t really make any sense in 2023. My heritage and tradition is something I really respect, but, at the same time, I’m a very progressive soul, always thinking about the future of music, technology, where it’s all going. The historian in me loves looking at the past and studying it. There’s a spirituality in singing together, which is very important to me, and I don’t see it ever changing. In my case, both sides compliment each other, making me a better artist and giving me some structure and a framework amid chaos that goes on in my mind.
KK: When I started doing bikram, it made me realize that most of the time we are completely disconnected from our bodies, and yoga has been great in terms of checking that balance. Breathing is oftentimes taken for granted, yet it’s one of the most powerful tools when it comes to stress management, and I think the same thing applies to our voice: it’s always there, yet we know so little about it because we see it as a function. What’s the most best thing the general audience can do to better connect with themselves with the help of their voice?
SM: You have great questions. They're not general. It's very interesting because I must say something controversial first: I think singing is absolutely unnecessary, it’s not required for survival at all. When someone sings, it goes beyond normal communication and into an area where it is all emotion, adding a whole different layer and becoming a universal language. For instance, you can hear similar tones when a child is sad and when a dog is sad because there's a universal language of tone and inflection that we have inherited, these universal frequencies all around us. Actually, I was talking to my good friend Jacob Collier about a question that I always ask people about: if we were born and raised on an island, in isolation, would we know a sad song from a happy song by just the melody, or are we conditioned to learn that through cartoons and everyday life? We both agreed that there are some intervals that naturally make us feel good while others make humans feel uncomfortable. For many years, religious music didn't have augmented chords or chords, it had certain intonations that were jarring to the ear, only somber ones. There are melodies and chords in nature that we naturally feel, but I also believe that we inherit our parents' tone, whether they sing or not: we may laugh like them, sound like them, and since we've inherited their DNA, we don't have a lot of control over our tone outside of just normal muscular adjustment. Now, what do we do with this fingerprint, this tone that we have? Getting back to your question, I think the best thing a person that doesn't sing can do is to put on some of their favorite songs or movies and try to mimic a character. As a singer and a vocal coach, I use mimicry a lot because I believe in the ear and the power that ear has to help your voice become something else and to have fun: try to sound like their favorite actor, see if they can do that accent, or a cartoon voice to see how close they can get to sounding like something that's not them – you'll find that not only it stretches your voice, but also your mind. Some people go as far as to judge the intelligence on the sensitivity one has to sound, which is an interesting subject for me.
KK: What led you to your role as a vocal coach on The Voice? Have you ever thought about auditioning?
SM: It all came from church. My dear friend Denosh Bennett got a job on the first season as a backup singer and mentioned they might need a guy to come in and join the band. When me, Dinash and Kara, the other backup singer who’s become one of my closest friends, were rehearsing in the studio, we had a great blend, which Paul Mirkovich, our musical director, really liked. The show was new and no one had any idea if it’s gonna be a hit or not, so I thought it would be just for a few weeks or months. Later, the show expanded and so did our roles: bringing our friends to the choirs, doing arrangements, singing on nearly every song, learning up to 15 songs a day. Actually, I auditioned for both American Idol and the test season of The Voice, prior to the first one, but I don’t remember much of it, and I don’t think I did that great. Sometimes things don’t work out, but if you love music enough, you won’t give up on it.
KK: Being a music historian, what era resonates with you the most? If you had to pick one person to represent that particular era, who would it be, and what influence that person had on both the music landscape and your personal world?
SM: I think about that question a lot and I've had serious discussions with big music minds on that very question. And since it’s a big question, I would first divide popular music of the past hundred years into two eras: 1900 till 1950 and 1950 till now. Let’s choose the era first. This might sound very commercial, but I’d say the movement of what we consider pop music is from the 70s to the 90s, which is very iconic, and for this era, I’d pick Michael Jackson because he had a career with lots of longevity and diversity in his sound, a fusion of R&B, disco, soul, pop, Broadway, you name it. On a personal level, he had a voice that was kind of high tenor like mine and, you know, he kind of looked like me, came from a music family, he was very soft spoken and loved all types of music. As much as I look up to Whitney as the greatest singer on Earth, it’s hard to imagine my musical journey without Michael: he loved music so much, he loved people and he was very shy, which I can also relate to. Sometimes, I think his impact on music is outshined by other stories, his personal life, dancing, all that glamour, but he was a phenomenal singer who had a very innate sense of what makes black music special.
KK: Thriller was actually the first movie I ever watched, followed by the making of it on that same VHS showing how they got the costumes from the Salvation Army, the art of prosthetic makeup, all that. You know, I never wanted to be in the spotlight, but watching this little documentary made me fall in love with production and the creative process in general, so I wanted to contribute to art in that way. Yes, Michael is a very controversial figure, but he is the king of pop music, which is something no one can take away from him. Michael meant so many things to so many people, and I think that one of the most important missions any artist can have is to inspire the next generation of kids to pursue their dreams. Whitney was that person to me. Growing up, I had very little knowledge of her personal life, yet I sensed all that power and vulnerability in her voice, and it gave me strength to move forward.
SM: Yes. Usher, The Weekend, or Bruno wouldn’t be who they are without Michael’s influence, and he keeps inspiring generations and the top music we hear today, which has a lot of Michael Jackson sound. He did that. Historically speaking, we wouldn’t be where we are today without Bill Crosby, a true pioneer of singing on a microphone who filled homes with the intimacy of his soft voice, and Louis Armstrong, the voice of American music and an architect of jazz. There are so many moments in music history that have brought us to where we are today, but it’s always been led by technology: the invention of the piano, the microphone, phones, all the way to our time where TikTok is shaping music. Technology will always dictate how we absorb content, and there’s nothing we can do about it.
KK: The second wave of jazz only happened in Chicago because jazz musicians had to migrate from New Orleans to bigger cities with better recording equipment in order to record higher quality music material.
SM: Back then, you couldn't record at your home: you had to go to a studio in order to sound good. Like Capitol Records here, they would build chambers underground for reverb, and that was something you could only do if you recorded in a cathedral.
KK: Have you watched the documentary that Mark Ronson did?
SM: Yes, on reverb and all that stuff. As artists, we have a love-hate relationship with technology, but we can’t run away from it.
KK: Speaking of Whitney. You recorded with her on her holiday album The First Noel. What’s your recollection of the time you got to spend with her?
SM: When I was fresh out of school, Mervyn Warren, a family friend who started Take 6, reached out to me saying that there’s a gig coming up and asking how good my sight-singing was, which was pretty good back then. No one would send you music in advance because of potential leaks, so I walked into the studio having no idea what’s it for and saw a group of people, Whitney, all singing and recording these beautiful Christmas songs, and I was in a complete shock; I was very young, in my early twenties, and I remember I was standing next to people who were way more experienced than me and learning from them, and kept thinking that I couldn’t believe I was getting paid for this.
KK: Did you get a chance to actually interact with her or say how much you admired her?
SM: No, it's not proper studio etiquette. There's a lot of things I’d like to say to artists, which I may never get the chance to say to them, and I'm fine with that. If I'm hired to work with them, I want to be professional, and if I'm offered the chance to tell them what they mean to me, I'll take it. Singing with Whitney was my first real studio session, and I remember driving back home and being so happy, feeling like I was on top of the world. She had her brother Gary and Sharlotte Gibson singing with her, who was a good friend of mine, and two other girls, who were her live singers at the time. It was very choral, with this cinematic, music-score kind of sound.
KK: Given your talent, I always had a feeling that one day you’d put out your own record, but I definitely didn’t expect the first one to be a holiday album. Making a Christmas record might seem pretty straightforward, but it is a big challenge because even though these standards were revisited million times before, you still need to somehow breathe a new life into these tracks, and, since it’s challenging to innovate when it comes to holiday albums, they rarely get recognized by the Academy. What was your philosophy when approaching this album? How did all these musical collaborations come about?
SM: It all happened because of the pandemic. When everything shut down here in March, my friend James, who’s also a great pianist, suggested we should do a Christmas project while we have time on our hands. We recorded most of it here: everyone brought all their equipment into this house, set it all up, plugged everything in with computers, microphones, keyboards, guitars, everything, and started studying our favorite Christmas music. Ultimately, we compiled a list of the songs we liked, but we wanted it to sound fresh. The reason why we chose Chrtistmas was because holiday music is inherently jazz, and it’s one of the only times the whole world is listening to jazz music because of the popularity of Christmas in the jazz era. Christmas music is very diverse, containing many different genres from gospel to classical to soul. The main reason why The Recording Academy doesn’t always recognize it is because it’s hard to categorize Christmas music – it doesn’t fall in one place, it’s not a stand-alone genre.
KK: Also, some of our favorite Christmas songs have never been intended as Christmas songs like Coltrane’s version of My Favorite Things; it’s not a Christmas song, it just has this kind of jazzy holiday vibe.
SM: Exactly, but one of the benefits of recording a Christmas album is that you can mix different genres, and it will still sound cohesive. Every single one of my friends said yes, and we did most of it online, even the choir – we would dub our voices over and over to sound bigger. Making this record was a lot of fun, and it was just a God-given project that I’ll always be very proud of.
KK: In one of your Instagram clips, you compared vocals to painting, and I really liked that analogy. You’ve been working with Jennifer Lopez for quite a while now, and her vocal style is very different from many of the artists you’ve worked before, say, JoJo or Avery Wilson, whose main style is soul and r&b. What brought the two of you together in the first place, and what kind of painting are you creating with Jennifer’s voice?
SM: We met when I was working at the AMA's with Selena Gomez, and it was one of these star-studded events. Jennifer's always a step ahead: she knows the people in the industry who work hard and she knew that I was working with different artists, including Selena. During the AMA’s, she called me to a dressing room and said she really wanted to focus on her singing and hone in on it to become the best singer she could be, which I really respected. Also, I knew that she was a hard worker and that we would have a lot of fun working together, so I remember going to meet her in New York and starting to prepare for her final performances at American Idol and then the residency in Vegas.
KK: What was the main focus there? Considering how much she’s dancing and moving on stage, I assume a big part of that training was working on her breathing technique so that she can pace herself throughout the show?
SM: When you sign up to do a residency, you have to start getting ready physically: your body has to start planning it and conditioning itself to be on stage for 90 minutes or more, sometimes up to two hours. Like you said, it starts with a lot of breathing, with a focus on placement and tone while you’re moving, the dynamics, storytelling. Jennifer loves stories, she loves acting, she’s a great communicator, so the question was: how do we strengthen and sharpen what’s already there? As a vocal coach, I like just being at the piano with a microphone and singing with people to bring out the musicians in them, and Jennifer has a lovely ear for music because her mom raised her doing a lot of Broadway, Motown, soul, R&B, she knows it all. Apart from breathing, I really wanted to focus on the power in her voice and to develop her confidence as a vocalist. As far as dynamics go, I love when artists can show both their power and their vulnerability. The word effective is the only criteria I use when it comes to singing: if your singing touches someone, it’s effective. That’s it. However, my approach needs to be adjusted to make sure it’s about them, without pushing it to be my way too much. Just like you said, it’s all about creating this painting. Coming from a design background, I think that being a designer of a voice is one of my natural talents. Just like in design, voices also consist of primary colors, and there are four major components that can be mixed in one voice: high and low, which is pitch; loud and soft, which is volume; adjusting tone by adding air or taking it away; and adding a vibrato. As artists, we are responsible for the paintings we are creating, and I think we’re closest with the creator when we’re creating and using our talent.
KK: Because we become the creators, we become Gods, but only if it comes from a place of love, not fear. Tyler, the Creator. Stevie, the Creator. Kelly, the Creator.
SM: Yes, we are the creators. We’re given this. We can even make little humans. It’s crazy.
KK: But it won’t happen until you learn how to love, and if there’s anything we need to master in this world collectively as a society, it’s love. Without love, acceptance, forgiveness, non-judgemental attitude, we won’t become the best creators we can possibly become. This is my personal philosophy.
SM: It's mine too. I believe in that so much. That's so true.
KK: In 2004, Sia released the track Breathe Me, which sold over a million copies. While Rolling Stone magazine called it delicate and haunting, the reality behind that track was a lot deeper because the very night Sia wrote it, she attempted suicide, something she didn’t reveal until a series of interviews in 2018. Sia has suffered from depression for years, but for many of her fans and followers, her music became a form of therapy, so I wanna talk about the healing power of music and its spiritual aspect. Can you recall a difficult time when music healed you and gave you the strength to move forward?
SM: Yes, I can. We've been around each other from time to time, and she's just so interesting, so magical, such an incredible singer. Yes, she’s singing from a place of pain, and she wants to preserve her identity and what she’s feeling to make sure she’s in a safe place. When I think of music being that therapy, that healer, the medicine for me, there were two incidents in my life that I can think of. The first one was when everything stopped during the pandemic, so every song, every lyric, even you’re here there’s nothing to fear from My Heart Will Go On started taking on a totally different meaning, and it was very powerful, very therapeutic. Many years ago, when I just started playing and singing, doing all that in front of people was terrifying. During that time, something tragic happened: the guy my sister was dating, a great guy, passed away in a car accident, and I remember I had to sing for his funeral. Growing up in church, you have to sing for the good moments and for the sad ones, and for everything in between. Ultimately, I had to go through my worst nightmare and just do it because I was the only one who knew how to play the song that I wanted to sing, and I remember going in the backroom, practicing and praying, hoping that it would be effective and mean something. As I was performing on that stage, it felt absolutely incredible because of the way I was able to manifest the message and the way the audience absorbed it. Finding a purpose that was bigger than me was life-changing, a real purpose behind my talent, which gave me strength and changed me in a very short time. One of the things that I always teach artists is that you don’t have to wait for a perfect moment to feel like singing: you should sing first and it’ll feel good to you, but it’s important to not just wait for this feeling to come to you, but give yourself some discipline by practicing regularly. There will be times when you have shows you don’t feel like doing. You still have to do it. There’s no choice.
KK: When I interviewed Galen Hooks a few years back and asked her to name one artist she has worked with who wasn’t a professional dancer yet surprised her the most, she named Chris Martin. You were featured on Coldplay’s track BrokEn, which was dedicated to Brian Eno, former producer of the band, and his initials B and E capitalized in the title. This track is also a part of Coldplay's Sunrise Performance at the Amman Citadel, Jordan. Singing gospel in a call-and-response manner with one of the biggest music stars of our generation in the Middle Eastern kingdom of Jordan, what was that experience like?
SM: My goodness. It was like someone took me to an incredible Disney movie set like Aladdin, Lion King, Hercules, all of them put together. Chris is one of the most incredible people, and yesterday we spent all day together rehearsing for his Coldplay tour and then singing in the rain. He is one of these Christ-like people, and I look up to him so much because of that. When he offered me to go to Jordan, it sounded like a really artistic and cool thing to do, and there’s so much history there. This whole experience represented unity in a way that I hadn't seen in a long time, the dichotomy and the different circumstances surrounding us. It really showed the power of love, the power of music, which is so uniting. It was such a beautiful moment, and I remember singing, looking out over this view and, in that moment, realizing once again that I was doing what I was supposed to do in life. Chris and I have been to Dubai and many other places together, and he’s always speaking to the people there, he’s focused on the community and those who are in the builders of the community. There's a song Everyday Life that I really love, and that's what he's focused on.
KK: When I first discovered your Instagram almost a decade ago, it was this mix of your singing videos and some random Instagram memes. Usually, the more successful and famous artists become, the more refined their Instagrams eventually become, yet, fast-forward ten years, and your Instagram is exactly the same. Is it a continuous choice to protect your authenticity? What role does social media play in your work?
SM: That's a great observation because most people don't know how long I’ve been on Instagram, and I am older than a lot of the people that are active on social media. I’m 41, and you’re 37, so we both were born in a pivotal era, and some of us chose not to be on social media much while others chose to go along with it, and since I’m one of those embracing technology, I was able to use it to my advantage very early on. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always wanted to make people laugh, to inspire them, and to share music moments with them. Posting that type of content was my way of letting people know me as a person without getting very personal with my own life like the kids do now. When Instagram introduced videos, it helped my career a lot because I was able to share a lot of moments from voice lessons, Taco Tuesdays and other music parties. That being said, I regret not hiring a camera person early on because that would’ve allowed me to produce a higher quality video content. And, just like you, I’ve never wanted to be a lead artist, in front of everyone all the time, not once did I dream of becoming that person. I’ve seen that. Thank you, that’s nice over there, but I’m good over here. My team understands me very well now, but they always push me to post more, so I started doing more reaction videos, which is relatively simple, but it keeps content going while doing more podcasts and professional things because I’m a serious person, a deep thinker. Although I don’t always take myself seriously, I do take life and my purpose in it seriously. Since I’ll never be this happy-go-lucky person, I like to show this lighter side of myself every now and then to make this world a more positive place.
KK: The other day, I went to Gregory Porter’s show, something that’s been on my bucket list ever since I heard If Love Is Overrated. Gregory also grew up in California, and his background is rooted in church as well because his mom was a minister. The thing that crossed my mind during that show was realizing that I’m so used to music being something extremely personal to me, something I’m used to listening to in silo, that being immersed in that church-like collective energy made me feel somewhat uncomfortable: I’m not used to sharing this particular type of music with anyone else. For you, it’s a completely familiar and normal experience. What does giving back to the community and specifically Taco Tuesday mean to you? Is there any type of music that you’d only want to keep to yourself?
SM: That's an interesting question. When I’m alone, I listen to different things: sometimes it’s more complicated music like jazz, something more somber, music that people wouldn’t expect to hear here; other times it’s the music that I studied in college, some of the choral music that holds a special place in my heart, which is rare to find outside of my house, so I like to play different arrangements of anthems, hymns, requiems, or Negro spirituals. Traditionally, music has been public and congregational, it was made for the masses until the microphones gave one person power to sound louder than everyone else. I’ve always been taught that music is for everyone, and it’s made to open the hearts of everyone – that’s the idea that I wanted to bring into Taco Tuesdays. Initially, I wanted Taco Tuesday to be a place where people felt like they were all singers and to make it more inclusive, so I tore out my wall to make people see music right away. Tacos are very common in California, and I didn't have a lot of money back in the day, so we'd start making tacos on a little skillet, and my friends would come over and sing. Occasionally, I'll do it at different people's houses, but I feel the most comfortable here, at my home. Now, we have taco trucks, and sometimes valet parking, sponsors and stuff, but it's still the same. I'm not afraid of people coming into my house. I grew up in a house with people rehearsing and singing in it all the time, so I want people to feel like they’re welcome in my home, and I want them to feel more important than things. As an introvert, I always recharge alone, but having people over pushes me to be more social, and I think people are better when they’re pushed to be with others because when we are alone, we tend to get in our own heads, and everything becomes bigger than what it is. As singers, we think that everyone’s watching us, everyone’s thinking about us, and it’s not true. Nobody’s thinking about you – they’re thinking about themselves. Perspective is one of my favorite words, and it just gives you perspective. Also, LA is not a home for many people who are here, so I want them to feel like they have a place that feels like home, even if just for a minute, just for a while. If something breaks, that’s fine. I don’t care. That being said, I wish my home was a bit bigger, more spacious and open, but it is what it is. If I get a whole lot of money, I’ll be overlooking the ocean. That’s one of my dreams.
KK: Someday, Abu, things are gonna change. We'll be rich, live in a palace, and never have any problems at all.
SM: Yeah. Someday. Don't know why I chose to be a teacher, but one day this house is gonna be overlooking the beach. Then I'll be good. And I need a swimming pool too. And a jacuzzi. I'll still teach. I'll still do everything.
KK: Could you think about a moment in the past when you were doubting yourself feeling lost? What would you say to that person, your younger self?
SM: Well, I kind of have to do this every morning because I don’t wake up with a lot of motivation to take over the world, but I wish I could be one of those people. Like any artist, there have been some darker times and lighter times. My family has always believed in me, and because of that loving foundation I got lucky with, those moments of darkness never lasted long. However, there are a few things I would have told myself. You don’t have to be perfect, Steve. Don’t be so judgy and critical, young man, because you learn by mistakes and imperfections. Also, be bold in your choices and don’t be afraid to speak up for yourself. There are also some things I wish influential people or characters had said to me like Alice in Wonderland, Michael, Ella Fitzgerald, or Nat King Cole. I’d love Ella to give me advice.
KK: What's your favorite Nat King Cole song?
SM: That Sunday, That Summer. If I had to choose just one day to last my whole life through… It's so beautiful. Of course, it's Christmas stuff.
KK: Beautiful. Love Nat King Cole. Love Ella. Natalie Cole’s version of Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye is one of the three songs that always make me cry. The other two are Both Sides Now and Moon River.
SM: Yeah, Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye is so good. Wait, I have to write that down to learn it.
