Video: The Roots and John Legend on Their Soul LP 'Wake Up'

John Legend and the Roots' ?uestlove recently stopped by the Rolling Stone offices to preview their upcoming "gritty and raw" soul collaboration Wake Up! . The LP features Legend and the Roots adding some funk flavor to socially conscious songs by soul legends like Donny Hathaway, Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye while putting a modern twist to obscure cuts like Baby Huey and the Babysitters' "Hard Times," with ?uestlove calling their rendition "the funkiest song ever created in the last 10 years."

The Roots drummer says Wake Up! is "a reaction to what passes as soul music." "Black music, all forms of it, lost the emotional spirituality and realness that it once had," ?uestlove tells RS. "With hip-hop, although they sample '70s music, they dress it up with very contemporary flourishing… with this record, I get to become vicariously a member of the JB's," referring to James Brown's legendary backing band. For more on Wake Up!, due out September 21st, check out the video above and The Roots, John Legend Refresh Sixties Protest Songs on 'Wake Up.'

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Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

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