Wayne Brady

Wayne Brady is best known for being a comic, but his real passion is in singing. He will release his debut album A Long Time Comingthis September, and features covers of some all-time favorites. TheCelebrityCafe.com's Dominick Miserandino spoke with Wayne about music and performing.


DM: I saw the track list for the album. How did you take so many styles and narrow it down?

WB: I went with the songs that I wanted to sing. I wish I had more of a scientific answer. We went with songs to go with change. In this political climate, with Obama and everything happening, we picked songs we felt right for covering. It was also picking songs I loved as a kid. We wanted to do Sammy Davis Jr. I love Sammy Davis Jr. but I didn't want to do an impersonation of him. I wanted to do my own take. The album took me so long to do because I didn't feel I had enough experience yet to really write songs. I didn't want to be a novelty actor-cover song act.

DM: I've seen you sing in every genre you can imagine. How do you reflect everything you can do on this one album?

WB: I don't think I did everything I can do on this album. If I did that would be doing myself a kind of disservice because it would be giving everyone the entire thing and then there'd be nothing left. What I think I did do is take the diversity people know me for and expound on that. Hey I'm this guy on TV and film doing this this and this and now I'm here doing the same thing in a music form. But it's not every single thing that I love to do. There's a lot of it but it's not the complete package. Because I think I've got a few more albums in me to paint a complete picture. I'm still growing. This is my first album out to date and I don't know what the response will be. I hope it's favorable. Even now I know I can come up with better things to put on this album because I'm growing.

DM: I've read about how people are surprised you've come out with the album, but really I've always known you can sing from watching you on TV.

WB: If you look at this guy, this Wayne Brady, in the last 10 or 12 years I've been on television and people think they know me from when they caught me. Hey that's the funny guy from Whose Line Is It Anyway, or that talk show host, or isn't that the guy who played in a couple comedy movies? So what I am trying to do with album is coming back to being the whole person. I grew up on music. That's why a lot of my comedy is music based. That's where I come from. I'm not a stand up. My comedy and acting and even me as a person is all channelled through music.

DM: I think that was clear on Whose Line for example. I'm sure Drew Carey is a brilliant singer