Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz Page 0,15
told me it was Foster singing “Misdemeanor.” Then he showed me a publicity photo of Foster sporting a globelike coif so gigantic it practically covered his eyes. That’s when I decided I had to out-Foster Foster. Though just a kid, I was Black and proud.
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At the same time, I was a multicultural kid, too, and, like my Jewish cousins, I wanted to have a bar mitzvah. Mom and Dad had no objections. That’s when I learned that yarmulkes weren’t made for Afros; I couldn’t get the thing to stay on my head! Also, as the only Black kid in Hebrew school, I felt a little out of place. The rabbis and the other kids didn’t say anything; they didn’t have to. Their looks said it all. I could almost hear them thinking, What’s this kid doing here? I didn’t stay long, and the bar mitzvah never happened.
But that didn’t keep me away from Jewish tradition. Grandma Jean and Grandpa Joe always had us over for the holidays. I remember one Hanukkah celebration at a big social hall on Long Island. My cousins and I got ahold of a bottle of Manischewitz, snuck into a corner, and finished it off. At first all was fine, and when the party was over, my folks drove me to Bed-Stuy. That’s when I started to feel funny. By the time I got to my grandparents’, I was losing it. I went upstairs with Grandma Bessie, who put me in bed with her. I tried watching The Waltons Christmas special but couldn’t focus. The room started spinning. Dizziness turned to nausea. I got up to change the channel, and before I knew it, I’d thrown up all over the television. That’s when Grandma took me downstairs to the bathroom and put me on the toilet. It was coming out of both ends. It was a mess. I was sick for hours and spent the next week in bed. I never felt worse. I have never been drunk since.
MASTER LEONARD
One summer, Mom brought me to California to visit my godmother Joan Hamilton Brooks. Aunt Joan, along with her husband, Bobby, and daughter, Heather, lived in Santa Monica. My first impression of Southern California was positive. I liked the beach. What I liked most, though, was the music I heard at the Forum.
Seeing the Jackson 5 at the Garden was life-changing, as was seeing James Brown at the Apollo. But never before had I seen anything like Earth, Wind & Fire. The spectacle was mind-blowing. The songs—“Shining Star,” “That’s the Way of the World,” “Reasons”—were monumental. The costumes were otherworldly: the band looked like alien kings from another planet. The polyrhythms, amplified by the pyrotechnics, intoxicated me. Even as a kid, I sensed that underneath the huge Egyptian symbols, the pyramids and icons, were hidden messages.
The EWF audience was more mixed than that for James Brown at the Apollo, but the funk was just as strong, the crowd just as wild. I loved watching Verdine White poppin’ his bass while levitating over the stage. Verdine’s big brother, Maurice, was the maestro. On his recordings, he seamlessly stacked multiple melodies: vocals, strings, horns, percussion, backgrounds. At the same time, his tracks never sounded choked. They breathed. How’d he do that? I’d have to figure it out. I spent years studying his techniques.
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The opposite of the EWF experience were evenings spent with Mom and Dad at the sophisticated Carlyle Hotel, on the Upper East Side. Another family ritual.
On any given Saturday night, we’d take a pleasant stroll down Madison Avenue. Mom in a black cocktail dress, Dad in a dark suit, and me in a sport coat and bow tie. The Carlyle was an old-guard establishment where presidents, ambassadors, and movie stars stayed without drawing attention to themselves. To the right of the lobby was Bemelmans Bar, the walls decorated with illustrations by Ludwig Bemelmans, the man who drew the famous Madeline children’s books. Then we’d proceed to our spot in the Café Carlyle, where Mom’s friend Bobby Short held court.
It was an intimate space. The lights were dim. Women in pearls smoked Parliaments. Men in Brooks Brothers suits drank martinis. And Bobby was in a tux, complete with patent leather pumps with black satin bows, and no socks. “Now, that’s chic,” my dad noted.
Bobby called himself a saloon singer, but he was much more than that. He played piano effortlessly. His repertoire was vast. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the Great American Songbook.