Before her 2007 Grammy performance with John Legend and John Mayer, I’d heard of Corinne Bailey Rae and heard just little bits of her music, but I didn’t really pay attention. After that performance (watch it here), I got her album and have been listening to it a ton. I love it. Just try to tell me that this is not a catchy-ass song.

Rewind a couple years. I was sitting in my home office when I lived in East Ukrainian Village and I had the TV on the VH1 Countdown for some background noise. A song came on and it immediately caught my attention. The lyrics and melody and style were so simple and honest and maybe it just struck me at that point I was at in my life at the time, but I really was fighting tears right there. The artist was John Legend. The song? Ordinary People (watch John Legend’s 2006 Grammy performance of Ordinary People here). I remember I bought the song on the iTunes music store right away and then I had Dallas get me the album. It took a while, but we both started listening to it and loving it. John Legend quickly became a favorite of ours. We sing his songs around the house, to each other, under our breath when we’re not paying attention, on the train on our iPods. When his second album came out we got it right away. We’ve also seen his live performance at Royal Albert Hall in London at least twice on TV (you can view clips of it here).

Fast forward back to present day. Last week I got a Jam Productions email that John Legend and Corinne Bailey Rae were going to be performing together at the Chicago Theater on April 13. !!! Last week Saturday Dallas and I were sort of hungover but not so much so that I couldn’t get up, get my laptop and my credit card and get back in bed to order tickets when they went on sale. So excited! And, I was wondering if, since John Legend and Kanye West are buddies and have worked together a lot and because Kanye sings on John Legend’s song Number One …. we were wondering if, since Kanye is from Chicago… maybe he’d make an appearance? That would be awesome. He showed up for that show in London (see it here) and the crowd went crazy. That would be the icing on the already sweet sweet cake.

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