A POWERFUL baritone with a winning smile, there is no stopping Gregory Porter.

A fateful shoulder injury turned Porter from a sports star to a singing sensation as a Grammy-award winning jazz musician.

The Californian first discovered his voice in church where his mother Ruth was a minister, growing up with seven siblings and with a father who he rarely saw. 

Always framed by his trademark peaked cap with ear flaps, the 44-year-old Porter is swinging his way round the country ahead of the release of his new record Take Me To The Alley.

HENRY HOLLOWAY catches up with the singer before a stop at the Brighton Dome.

The Guide: You have risen to prominence slightly later in life than many artists, how do you feel this has affected your music?

Gregory Porter: For me it has been helpful. My talent does not rely on the smoothness around my eyes or my youthful sound. I think for me, musically, it took me some time to season. I have been able to go through some life experiences which probably inform my performances and my recording. I am where I am supposed to be at the right time. Would I liked to have been here when I was 25? Sure, but I am here now and I am happy.

Do you ever reflect on what could have been with regard to your sports career?

I have to say I do not think about what could of been because I think everything happens for a reason. Though it did take me a long time to get to the place where I am now, and who knows where I will be in the future. Everything does happen for a reason, the shoulder injury lead me to this place and gave me a deeper understanding of humility, which is something that features in my music. I do not reflect much on the injury, but I do think about American football. Though I love to watch, I realise I will not force my son to play because it really is a dangerous game. I will let him decide what sports he wants to play. If he wants to be a great tennis or golf player I will not frown at that and I will appreciate that.

How much did your musical talent develop while you were rehabbing the injury?

It was more when I was rehabbing from the passing of my mother. The long period of mourning I was in was eased by music, by her encouraging me on her deathbed. It was a much deeper emotional experience in losing my mother which created an avenue or a vent for the pain and frustration I had about losing the biggest, most important, person in my life. It was an emotional watershed moment and really in a way helped me think inward in terms of my songwriting and realise the personal is universal sometimes and I was not the only one going through pain, or the only one going through joy, so to express those human emotions in music came from this deep experience.

How much did winning the Grammy for Liquid Spirit mean to you?

It was a very important moment in my career and it felt wonderful being honoured by my peers. In a way it was encouragement for the way I write and perform the songs, and in using the influences from my childhood and infusing that with my approach for jazz.

How much did your large family upbringing, with seven siblings, influence you?

It was very important. Finding a way to be different and to stick out in a way to be recognised by your mother, so I was known to do things my mother liked – singing, cooking and foot massages. These were things she enjoyed and encouraged. I had so many brothers and sisters competing for attention, not love, she loved us all, but attention. But also just bouncing ideas, thoughts and experiences off your brothers and sisters is available. 

How important was your relationship with your mother to you personally and your music?

In a way much of my lyrics are a synthesis of her thoughts or maybe sometimes her sermon. Some of the things she said go through me as poetry. As I go through my music and listen to the songs, I hear a lot of her, I cannot get away from it. I think the point I decided to embrace that, as opposed to running away from it, was when my success started. Even with my voice, when I started to embrace the fact and idea my voice was nurtured in church and I started to sing like I had for years in spiritual pursuit it helped my own personal music.

You father was absent, how did that affect you?

The understanding of the loss and absence of something you desired is very important in music. You do it with lost love, this is central to songwriting and my songwriting. The understanding of something you did not have has been very important to me, so I am thankful to him for the genetics of my voice and after sometime I could positively look at it as giving me a story and a message to sing about.

Who are some of the artists who have left the biggest impact on you?

Both known and unknown artists have affected me, from little known blues artists to the great stars like Nat King Cole, Bill Weathers, Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, and female singers like Carmen McCray and Abbey Lincoln. Storytellers. But in particular male singers who have had some experience in their childhood singing in church in this emotive style.

What sort of things are you exploring on Take Me To The Alley?

Mutual respect, the ups and downs of love, I have a protest song with Fan the Flames, and even the title track has some politics in there as well.

Jazz is often considered quite a niche genre, why do you think that is?

It is because of the vast umbrella that it sits up under. A person can listen to the most extreme expression of jazz and think that is the entirety of the music. Sometimes it takes great understanding and study, and even study of personality, to understand some of the music that is under the umbrella of jazz. But there is music which is accessible as well. Herbie Hancock has proven instrumental in being on both ends of that spectrum with the experimental forward-thinking music and harmonies that expand the mind as well as being on the funky, danceable music, all being under the jazz label. To say you think you know exactly what jazz is upon one listen is an impossibility, it takes years and thought to full understand it. 

What is the story behind your famous hat?

It is just my thing. It is mine.