Although there have been plenty of incredible musicians all throughout history, the internet has made all of them much more accessible.
Now that the last decade has come to a close, plenty of people are taking to social media to make lists of their favorite songs, albums and performances.
What makes things like YouTube unique, however, is that the performances that get put on there aren’t necessarily bounded by timeliness—no matter when they happen, they can be rediscovered and become relevant again!
And that’s definitely the case with the clip we’re talking about today.
The performance we’re talking about today was put on YouTube in June 2017.
It was first captured at the Polar Music Prize Ceremony in 2017. For anyone who doesn’t know, the Polar Music Prize Ceremony is an awards ceremony that dates all the way back to 1989.
Every year, the award is given to one contemporary artist as well as a classical musician. Still, though the show is designed to honor the great achievements of several artists, other artists also perform at the show.
And one of the artists who performed that year was Gregory Porter.
Porter is an American singer-songwriter who performs vocal jazz records.
He’s been active in the music scene since 2010 but has somehow kept a relatively low profile so far. Even so, Porter has an incredible singing voice and a great presence on stage—and he showed off both in this performance.
As the clip begins, Porter steps out onstage before a packed house. After the applause dies down, he picks up the microphone and begins to sing as the band tunes up.
Before long, everyone is on the edge of their seat!
The song he decides to sing is “It’s Probably Me,” originally performed by String and Eric Clapton.
Although the original song is a classic rock, Porter reinvents it into something soulful and funky.
Before he’s even one verse in, the crowd is already spontaneously whooping at him—and in the meantime, Sting is watching the performance from the crowd as well! As it turns out, it was Sting who was one of the people honored that night, and Porter was doing a performance in his honor.
As the song goes on, it builds and builds in intensity and only gets better.
Towards the end, Porter stops singing for a moment so that there can be an instrumental break.
After that, he comes back in just as soulful and strong as before. Although most of the song is sung relatively low, Porter gradually gets higher and higher as it goes on.
Even so, he loses none of his power and precision as the song continues. At the very end, his voice goes even higher than ever before and stays flawless the whole time!
Towards the end, even Sting is nodding along with the music.
When the clip is finally over, the crowd gives him a huge round of applause!
Since it was posted, the performance has been viewed more than 17 million times and it’s easy to see why.
Although an artist’s intentions need to be honored when covering a song, it’s clear that Porter still found a way to bring his own personality and influence to the song. Judging by the reaction, we’re guessing everyone there appreciated his take.
Congratulations to Gregory Porter on an awesome performance! Be sure to watch the whole thing in the link below:
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