HITTING A FESTIVE NOTE WITH HIS LATEST ALBUM GREGORY PORTER TREASURED MEMORIES OF HIS BELOVED MUM AND PERFORMING TO ROYALTY

Listening to Gregory Porter talk has a similar effect to lying in a hammock or soaking in a warm, deep bath. His speaking voice is as comforting as his singing voice – a smooth, slow, rich, reassuring baritone that makes you feel all is well in the world.

- ROSALIND POWELL

It’s the same with his latest album Christmas Wish, a loving tribute to the jazz singer’s favourite time of year, which celebrates the festive period but is also steeped in nostalgia for his childhood and longing for lost loved ones.

“It’s an opportunity to keep my family in my life, so that they’re still there and the emotion and passion that comes from that feeling finds its way into the music,” says Gregory, 52, jetlagged but charming as we sit in his record label’s London office after he has flown in from the US.

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

It feels a little premature to be discussing Silent Night and Little Drummer Boy – two of the album’s classic songs – in November, but Christmas Wish is much more than what Gregory calls the “sweet, delicious, creamy, chocolate part of Christmas”. Three of the songs are written by him and are deeply personal, remembering how he spent Christmas as a boy.

Raised in Bakersfield, California, where he still lives with his Russian wife Victoria and sons Demyan, ten, and Lev, two, Gregory was the seventh of eight children raised by his single mother Ruth, a church minister. The young Gregory – now a double Grammy Award winner who has sung countless times for royalty – found his voice in the church choir.

Although they had very little, his mother, who died when he was 21, would give away the family’s food and belongings to those she considered less fortunate, which Gregory sings about in the title track Christmas Wish.