In our August/September issue, Lenny Kravitz takes us on an enchanted journey from his Pinto to Paris.
The manic energy of Manhattan morphs into slow motion as Lenny Kravitz walks the streets of the Meatpacking District. He’s uncharacteristically conservative in a black oxford shirt, David Ruffin–style glasses, a gray blazer, and a peacoat while click-clacking across the cobblestone streets in what he calls “church shoes.”
He doesn’t travel with an entourage or a security guard or even a pet toy poodle. “He’s cool with everybody when we walk the streets in New Orleans,” says Trombone Shorty, who guests on Kravitz’s new album, Black and White America.
“I think the fact that he raised a child on his own has made him an incredibly balanced man,” says singer and former Prince protégée Jill Jones, referring to his and ex-wife Lisa Bonet’s daughter, Zoë.
“He never lost touch with his old friends,” adds Jones, who went to Beverly Hills High School with him. “I think that keeps him strong and grounded. “At his cookouts and barbecues, people are there from our high school years. That rock star stuff, it only goes so far.”
Kravitz’s fifth year of life looms large in his memory. It was the year he would fantasize that he was the Jackson 5’s long lost
brother—and the year his dad surprised him with tickets to see them live at
Madison Square Garden.
“I remember all the flash bulbs going off. They sang “The Love You Save” and
I lost my mind. Aretha Franklin sat next to us; she had on this white fur stole
with the matching fur hat. The music just hit me,” Kravitz reminisces, sitting
on a couch at the Greenwich Hotel, one leg folded under him, still thrilled by
the moment he found his calling.
When the family moved to L.A. for his mother to do The Jeffersons, Kravitz didn’t
so much attend Beverly Hills High School as he was enrolled.
“Lenny would move easily through all the groups. There were black kids who
hung together in the cafeteria, the geeks, the Asians, surfers, the rocker kids. He
hung with all of them,” says Jones.
“I was the kid they knew was different. They knew who my parents were
and would call them Mr. Day and Mrs. Night, or they’d call me zebra,” says
Kravitz in reference to his Jewish father and his black mother. “I didn’t stick
to one group, and I ended up listening to all kinds of music,” he remembers.
He
would come home occasionally but spent most of his time in studio sessions and
gigging around town with his band. On occasion, someone would take him in.
One of them was a lady who pushed a 1957 pink Thunderbird with a license
plate that read “Lady T.”
Teena Marie became like his big sister. “She would cook a lot. It was her and
Penny Johnson, Rick James’ little sister. They looked after me, fed me. She took
me to concerts. She took care of a lot of folks. The big reason why I am here
[is] because of this sister. She was for real,” Kravitz recalls.
Lady T. helped him out musically, too, giving him instruments and taking him
to studio sessions, where he learned the ropes watching her. “She was self contained,
a multi-instrumentalist, a writer, producer. She was so talented."
Kravitz is strangely relaxed for someone with such a full plate. He’s sloped
sideways on the couch explaining that he just came back from New Orleans
to see his daughter perform last night. Before that he was touring with U2,
performing for four dates on their 360° tour. He just signed on to play Cinna,
the designer from the popular Hunger Games science fiction novels that have
been made into a film slated for a March 2012 release. He also designs furniture
and fixtures at Kravitz Design, his own interior design company.
The 47-year-old also foresees that maybe one day he won’t belong just to his
fans or to his daughter, whom he calls his best friend, but maybe he’ll hook up
with the right woman: “I am single and open and waiting,” he says with a hint
of devilishness.
“All of my albums are all
over the place musically. I have a difficult time making a record and staying
on one path,” he says. His enviable
resolve and calm shape his life as well as his music. “I just do what I feel, and
it just comes out.”
Black and White America is slated for release on August 30.
Source :
uptownmagazine.com/2011/08/behind-the-scenes-lenny-kravitz/