Charlie Puth might say that he manifested the appearance of sax legend Kenny G on his new single, Cry, but it wasn’t just throwing his dream out into the universe that helped him to seal the deal - a piece of groundbreaking music production software was involved, too.
In a video on Instagram, Puth explained: “One day, I said to myself, ‘I really want a song on this album that has a Kenny G’ solo. But there was an issue. I don’t know Kenny G... but I had an idea.”
Enter Melodyne, the legendary pitch and timing manipulation software, which enables you to move, bend and twist existing audio notes to your will. Being the knowledgeable type that he is, Puth knew that if he grabbed a recording of an existing Kenny G solo, he could put it into Melodyne and adapt it to fit his own song.
“I made my own Kenny G solo without Kenny G,” Puth confirms, but this was just the start of his plan.
“This was my manifestation because, in my mind, I was going to send this to Kenny G and hopefully he would play it for real.”
After building up the arrangement, Puth sent the song out to a few contacts who suggested that they might be able to get the demo to Kenny G. “The manifestation was officially out to the universe,” he says.
After hearing nothing back for a couple of days, Puth decided to press on and finish the song, adding lyrics and other production elements. “More time went by and I still hadn’t heard from him, but I just kept building the song,” he explains, a process that included flying to Nashville to record some guitar and bass.
“And then, I got a mysterious text message: ‘Hi Charlie, this is KG’”. This was, of course, King Kenny. A flustered Puth quickly got on the phone to G, who asked to hear what he’d been working on. “He writes back - ‘give me one hour’ - and I get this back.”
Yep, Kenny came through with a solo. “Manifestation is real,” says Puth, and the proof is in the fact that Cry is now available for everyone to listen to, and will also be included on Puth’s new album, Whatever’s Clever, which is set for release on 27 March.
This isn’t quite the end of the story, though, because last night, Puth was in San Francisco at Super Bowl LX to sing a jazzy version of the US National Anthem. And who should also be there to add some sax flourishes to proceedings? Yep, the one and only Kenny G.
And it’s all thanks - well, not completely, but in part - to Melodyne.
