Lenny Kravitz

It’s a crisp bright morning in Paris and Lenny Kravitz is calmly surveying the bustling metropolis outside the hotel window. “Wow, it’s gorgeous,” he smiles, alluding both to the continental weather and the enviable beauty of the French capital below. For someone who grew up in the sun-drenched state of California, a good climate, he admits, always buoys him up. “Yeah, things look better when it’s sunny,” he laughs. Right at the moment though, Lenny Kravitz has a little more to be cheerful about than simply a favourable forecast predicting many weeks of clement weather ahead. Right now, as he prepares to embark on a hotly-anticipated tour of [Italy/Spain/Slovakia etc etc] which forms part of his long-awaited 49 date European tour ‘LLR20(09)’ the outlook would appear to be very bright on all fronts – not just the meteorological one.

This year Lenny Kravitz, now in his early 40s and still considered one of the sexiest men in rock, can look back and survey two successful decades in the music industry that have seen him blaze a trail in the firmament of rock as one of the best-selling artists of his generation. When he released his debut album, Let Love Rule, in 1989 critics immediately sat up and took notice. First there was the sound. It stood out from the crowd, managing to incorporate a seemingly effortless and eclectic mix of rock, funk, reggae, psychedelic and folk, all within a sort of signature ‘retro’ style. “He’s a flower child in a computer age,” said one enthusiastic music critic at the time. Then there was Lenny himself. There was just no getting away from the fact that the young singer-songwriter, then only 25, was a multi-talented force of nature. As well as writing and orchestrating all the tracks, he played virtually every instrument himself: guitars, bass, organ, piano, drums. You name them, and he was probably on them. The resulting sound – raw and largely acoustic – produced an album that’s now considered something of a classic, and it’s still a collector’s item for every rock enthusiast worth his salt. In fact, to mark the 20th birthday of Let Love Rule, an expanded and digitally re-mastered Anniversary Edition is released globally this year.

Since its release there have been eight more standout albums, a batch of hit singles on both sides of the Atlantic and a roll of plaudits from fans and critics alike. And if you add to this a CV that lists collaborations with some of the biggest names in music, a shelf groaning with accolades and awards (including four prestigious Grammys) from the good and the great in the industry, as well as a Grand Jury Award at the Sundance Film Festival this year for Precious, a film in which he has a break-through part, then you’d be forgiven for thinking that Lenny Kravitz might just want to sit back on his laurels for a while; maybe have a little rest even. Not so. “You know, the awards and the hits and everything, that’s all been really great,” says a reflective Kravitz. “But the thing I value the most is that I wasn’t just a one-hit wonder. I’m still here, still hungry and I’m still making music. Yeah, I think the best is still to come.”

Lenny Kravitz was born in New York City to successful, talented, middle-class parents. His father, Sy (Seymour) Kravitz was a prominent NBC TV news producer - and jazz promoter - of Russian, Jewish descent. His mother, Roxie Roker was a black Bahamian actress who found fame in the ‘70s as the character Helen Willis in the hit TV sitcom The Jeffersons. In a country that was still battling with the legacy of the Civil Rights movement, the Kravitz marriage must have been fairly untypical at the time, even for an ‘edgy’, open-minded city like New York.

But the young Lenny, ensconced in a cultured and tolerant household, remembers being blissfully unaware of any tensions that may have existed in the wider world.
“I was just very, very lucky to have the parents that I did,” recalls Kravitz. “I grew up not even knowing what prejudice was. Our home was a great cultural mix, a cocktail that has made my life so rich. And I was fortunate in other ways. Even when I was very small my parents took me places with them. You know - concerts, plays, clubs, museums, restaurants. So I was constantly exposed to wonderful music, great art and outstanding drama. At that time – in the late 60s and early 70s – New York was just booming culturally, and almost through osmosis I soaked up all these diverse influences. It’s why I’m the way I am, and I have to thank my parents for that, for making me so open-minded - in the broadest sense of the term.”

But of all the influences to which the young Lenny was exposed, it was music that really caught his imagination. “When I was six, I was taken to see The Jackson Five perform and I was just blown away. I was hooked. I came home and asked my parents for a drum kit. But we lived in an apartment and they didn’t want to upset the neighbours, so they said no,” laughs Kravitz. Even so the young Lenny soon found a way to improvise. At mealtimes Mrs. Kravitz was often puzzled by the regular disappearance of her pots and pans from the kitchen cupboard. She quickly discovered their whereabouts, finding them stacked in her son’s bedroom where he’d hauled them off for impromptu drum practice. “I was pretty much self-taught when it came to music,” recalls Kravitz. My father gave me an acoustic guitar when I was nine, and I’d practice on my parents’ piano as well.” Could that have been the very same piano on which Duke Ellington – a Kravitz family friend – played Happy Birthday for a 5-year-old Lenny one year? “Uh huh. The same piano,” nods Kravitz. Other legends, such as Count Basie and Ella Fitzgerald, were regular dinner guests too, reflecting the standing of Sy Kravitz as an influential New York jazz promoter.

For Kravitz, jazz remains a strong influence on his work, although, when asked, it’s clear he’s amassed a wide and comprehensive mix of musical influences over the years. “Well, Stevie Wonder and everything Motown,” he begins before launching into a heterogeneous inventory that includes: Miles Davis, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, The Stones, Nina Simone and The Who. “Good music is good music, whatever the genre,” he states simply. But the admiration, it seems, is mutual, as Lenny has been invited to collaborate with some pretty big names over the years, including Mick Jagger, and two of his particular heroes, Curtis Mayfield and Stevie Wonder. He’s even had a call from the singer who, all those years ago, got the Kravitz ball rolling (so to speak) when he watched him perform as part of the Jackson Five. “Michael’s a genius, no doubt about it,” says Lenny. “If you think of the way he sung when he was, say, ten or eleven; well it’s pretty amazing. His interpretation, his pitch, his voice, everything. He’s still a great singer now, but for me, my favourite Michael is the child Michael. There was a kind of soulful man inside that angelic child, and I just shake my head in wonder.”

But what of the child Lenny? Did the Good Fairy of Rock, perhaps, pay a flying visit to the Kravitz household when their only son was born? Maybe she stood by his cot for just a moment, and bestowed on him all the necessary attributes that a rock god would need when he came of age. Innate musical ability? Check. Soulful singing voice? Check. Film-star good looks? Check. A cool, calm charisma? Check.


They’re the very qualities that are still on the wish-list of every self-respecting rock musician today. Lenny, however, seemed to possess all of them in effortless abundance, although they wouldn’t fully emerge until his teen years when he began to create the sort of music that would eventually grab the attention of some major record labels.

It was when Lenny was ten, and the Kravitz family relocated to Los Angeles for his mother’s role in The Jeffersons, that the seeds of a long-running love affair were planted. Here he discovered rock music and before long the young Lenny was holed up in his teenage bedroom listening to The Stones, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. “We had a house in LA so I could crank up the volume a bit and not worry so much about the neighbours,” recalls the singer. By the time he was 15 the love affair had become an-all consuming passion. “I was attracted to the cool style, the girls, the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle,” he says. Very soon, any spare time – and any spare cash
– were spent on making music demos in hired studios. The end result was Let Love Rule, and the rest, as they say, is history. More albums and a string of hits followed, including It Ain’t Over Til it’s Over and Fly Away.

That Kravitz didn’t lose his head at this time in the sybaritic world of rock, can be partly explained by his status as new husband and father. In 1987 he had married Lisa Bonet, a young actress who was then in the hit TV sitcom The Cosby Show, and together, they had a daughter, Zoë. “That responsibility definitely helped to keep me grounded. Yeah, I was young and I was in rock and roll, so I did have my moments. But being a father really kept me focussed and it’s been a real joy to watch this young girl bloom into such a beautiful woman,” says Kravitz of his daughter, who now has a band of her own.

Although Kravitz and Bonet divorced in 1993, love clearly remains a potent agent in his creative writing process. At least he certainly seems to be no stranger to its highs and lows. But which creates the more powerful music; the pain or the pleasure? Kravitz considers for a moment. “Both,” he says finally. “You need to understand both emotions to make a really great love song. But I believe that love – in all its forms – is what we’re here to experience. After all, we were made out of love, weren’t we?”

The one person who might be able to hasten the message of love that is embodied in so much of Kravitz’s music (not least his last album, It’s Time for a Love Revolution) could be the new man sitting in The White House, President Obama himself. Kravitz admits that the two men spoke on the phone when the senator was running for office, and it seems rather fitting, somehow, that the urbane and self-possessed man of politics should make contact with the cool man of rock. But what did Kravitz make of Obama’s election? “Amazing, just amazing,” says the singer almost wistfully. “The achievement was not just our overcoming the race barrier. It’s also that we, as a nation, elected a man with integrity and soul, heart and intelligence. When Obama got in, the first person I thought of was my mother’s father because he’d been through so many struggles in his life. I’m just sorry that he wasn’t there that night. It felt like a new beginning.”

And one for Lenny, too, perhaps? With a sell-out European tour going strong and the re-release of Let Love Rule exciting critics all over again, it’s no wonder Lenny Kravitz feels that the best is yet to come. Or to paraphrase one of his greatest hits: It Ain’t Over. Not Even Close.

Alex Canfor-Dumas