Let Love Rule - Lenny Kravitz Page 0,80

was beautiful, highlighted by a moment of serendipity. Godmother Cicely Tyson, who lived in an apartment building overlooking that spot, happened to walk out on her balcony and heard music coming over loudspeakers. She was certain that she recognized that voice. Next thing I knew, someone was tapping me on the shoulder. I turned around to see Godmother’s smiling face.

I was shocked. “How could you tell it was my voice coming through the park up to your balcony across Fifth Avenue?”

“I know my godchild’s voice.”

We embraced.

Dad also happened to be in New York that day and came by the shoot. He had to see what all the excitement was about. Unlike Godmother, he didn’t say that he was proud of me, but I could see that he was pleasantly surprised. He was in good spirits. I took it as a sign of solidarity.

The U.S. promotional tour was a grind, but I had no complaints. New artists have to pay their dues. That meant driving all over the country, either alone or with a promoter, and going to radio stations big and small to play live acoustic sets and be interviewed. At first, the album itself languished, while the single “Let Love Rule” was getting some play on alternative and college radio. In an era when hip-hop was coming on strong, marketing me was tough. But I had a great radio team, led by Michael Plen, whose nickname was “the Attack Hamster.” When it came to getting me on the air, he was relentless.

When the label sent me to Europe, I was ready to go.

For six grueling weeks, I hit England, France, Holland, and Germany, just me and my guitar, doing radio promo and playing little clubs. Here and there, I got mentions in the press. It was a tough trip because Lisa and Zoë were back in the States.

It was on that tour where I made up my mind. Acoustic sets were fine, but I was always going to have a band. I was a rocker, not a cabaret singer, and I needed a full-tilt rock ’n’ roll show. I knew that to get over, I would need a smoking rhythm section and horns behind me to mirror the record. The bedrock of that band became Zoro on drums; bassist Lebron Scott, who joined me with the blessing of his boss, Curtis Mayfield; guitarist Adam Widoff, whom I’d met at Bennington College; saxophonist Karl Denson, who’d played on the record; Kenneth Crouch, nephew of gospel legend Andraé Crouch, on Hammond organ and keys; and Angie Stone, who played the first leg of club gigs on sax and sang background vocals.

Virgin booked me at France’s Rencontres Trans Musicales, a music festival in Rennes, in Brittany. Over four days, bands from dozens of countries performed in a variety of venues before eighty thousand fans. The festival was famous for launching the next rising star. I was told that the ratio of those who made a splash in Rennes to those who didn’t was one to a hundred.

I was twenty-five years old. My experience as a show performer was limited. I’d been locked up in the studio for the past four years. I’d forgone the usual route of putting together a band, touring for years, getting a deal, and then making a record. I’d reversed the process. The record was already made. Now the live show had to be formed, and in a hurry. I’m usually confident, but this time I was a little nervous. Foreign country, new band, no time for a sound check, no hit songs to play, and a lead singer who, in this international venue, was untested, not to mention unknown.

The stage was tiny. The curtain was closed, the band assembled around me. We all took a deep breath. We prayed. Then the curtain opened, and there they were: an audience in my face, only inches away. I could see right into their eyes. The immediacy of it all kicked in, and I responded like a wild man. We turned it out.

The crowd reaction was crazy, but I couldn’t really calculate my impact until the following morning, when my manager, Steve, brought me the local paper. There was a picture of me on the front page. The review was glowing, better than anything I could have imagined. Within hours, word came back from Virgin: this was the breakthrough they’d been hoping for. The European tour was extended. In quick succession came three other breakthrough concerts: Paris, Amsterdam, and Hamburg.

In