Gregory Porter: 'Once I heard Irish music, I was like, ‘That’s the blues of another kind’'
US jazz singer Gregory Porter is at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival. (Francois Guillot/AFP via Getty Images)
When Gregory Porter was 21, his mother told him to follow his dreams and become a singer. Her words stayed with him– not least because she was seriously ill with cancer at the time and would die soon afterwards. Through all the years that followed – the many highs and the occasional low – the Grammy-winning artist has carried that final wish close to his heart.
“It sounds like such a simple thing – our last conversation. But I had no licence before that to pursue a music career,” says the acclaimed jazz vocalist, speaking ahead of two sellout Guinness Cork Jazz Festival shows at the city’s Opera House on Thursday, October 24 and Friday, October 25.
