Legend could live up to name

The term “legend” is tossed around so indiscriminately these days as to be virtually meaningless.

Can a new musician restore some value to the word?

That’s what some in the music world are saying about John Legend, whose Columbia Records debut album, “Get Lifted,” arrives Oct. 26.

“He’s like Musiq Soulchild but sitting at a piano,” says Tawala Sharp, music director of Los Angeles R&B; station KKBT-FM (100.3), who is predicting Legend’s album to be the big breakthrough of the next few months. “He’s a male Alicia Keys.”

E Man, music director at rival KPWR-FM (105.9), agrees.

“Which album do I think will be the big surprise of the year? John Legend,” he says. “Not only does he have Kanye West on his side, but he’s really good. John Legend is going to be huge.”

The Kanye West connection is key. Legend is all over the rapper’s own blockbuster debut album, “The College Dropout,” as a writer, producer, musician and singer. And he’s getting a featured spot in West’s show on a current tour headlined by Usher.

Legend has also been building an impressive, um, legend as a go-to guy with a long list of prominent credits on recordings by such top figures as Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, Janet Jackson, Keys, Britney Spears and Black Eyed Peas.

“That wasn’t the plan to build it that way,” says the 25-year-old Ohio native, whose real name is John Stephens. “I was already trying to be a solo artist. I was putting out CDs on my own, had a website, but was a little under the radar. It never came together until I was working with Kanye, which made it look like, ‘Oh, he’s a behind-the-scenes guy.’ ”

Intentional or not, the approach seems to be working, much in the way similar launchings worked with such now-major hip-hop figures as Snoop Dogg, Eminem and West himself. All built buzz via featured spots with other performers before stepping out on their own.

But Legend is not a hip-hop artist. Rather, he is a classic R&B; performer and songwriter in the tradition of Stevie Wonder. He’s a formally trained musician, and his role with other performers has been as a piano player, background singer and writer.

He also has a strong gospel background, having served as choir director and head of the music department of the Bethel AME Church in Scranton, Pa., while he was attending the University of Pennsylvania as an English major.

“Lately this kind of career launch has been known in hip-hop,” says Will Botwin, president of Columbia Records. “But this guy’s music should transcend the urban world and have crossover success. There is a strong grass-roots campaign that’s building, the direct endorsements and involvement with Kanye West and his track record with Jay-Z and Alicia and others. That gives him a big advantage in the marketplace.”

To further build the buzz, Legend has been making appearances after shows on the Usher/West tour or between dates, just him at the piano in sold-out clubs. He’ll do his own full tour with a band around the time the album is released.

Meanwhile, Legend (who despite his stage name is humble and soft-spoken) acknowledges that the kind of music he makes has been dominated by female performers in recent years, hence his being referred to as “the male Alicia Keys” by Sharp and others.

“I think it’s just a matter of the right artist coming along,” he says. “We’ll see if it proves that I’ll be that artist, six months or a year from now.”

Deserving the royalty treatment

When he was a teenager in the late ‘60s, one of John Simson’s favorite songs to play with his garage band was “Psychotic Reaction.” Now he’d like to pay back the Count Five, the band that originated that song. The Count Five is just one of thousands of acts that have not claimed royalties for Internet and satellite radio play collected by nonprofit music industry association SoundExchange, of which Simson is executive director.

But if the members of Count Five who recorded that song -- and any other artists or labels who may be owed money -- are out there, they’d better hurry. The right to claim royalties accumulated since 2001 expires after Dec. 31.

“There’s a three-year period of time that someone has to claim their royalties, a regulation set by the copyright office,” says Simson. “Anyone who doesn’t make that claim loses that right.”

Simson says that amounts being held for artists range from about $50 to $5,000. For those who miss the deadline, though, Simson says it’s not all bad news. Future royalties from digital uses look to be even bigger. Total collections for 2004 are projected to be about $15 million, he says, up from $10 million in 2003.

But in 2005, he says, with satellite and Internet radio use growing rapidly, the amount is expected to explode to as much as $35 million.

Those who have collected their royalties in recent months include Martha Wash (of disco group the Weather Girls) and Phoebe Snow, and Simson says several performers came forward after hearing about SoundExchange’s efforts from a guest at Liza Minnelli’s wedding in 2002.

“We keep saying we need Liza to get married again to help spread the word,” Simson says.