Living Legend

He’s been killing it on the keys since he was a kid, but, as Mickey Rapkin learns, John Legend’s prowess goes beyond the piano—just ask his groupies. (And we’re not just talking about his wife, Chrissy Teigen.)

Legend may not be his real name, but damn if he isn’t living up to the moniker. John Legend (born John Rogers Stephens) is a 10-time Grammy winner who added a Best Original Song Oscar to his fireplace mantel last year for “Glory,” the rousing anthem he cowrote with Common for 2014’s Selma. Legend’s wife—TV host, model, and cookbook author Chrissy Teigen—meanwhile won the Internet equivalent of an Oscar for her “cry face,” which became an instant-classic meme. The two married in 2013 in Lake Como, Italy, and welcomed a baby girl, Luna, earlier this year. Theirs is a modern love story chronicled on Instagram: After they announced they were pregnant, no less than Kim and Kanye took them shopping for the essentials. (Actually, Kanye fell asleep in a chair. Kim hashtagged the photo: #TheReal LifeOfPablo.)

It’s been a wild ride from the beginning. Legend, 37, grew up in Springfield, Ohio—the son of a factory worker and a part-time seamstress—and studied English at the University of Pennsylvania, where he sang in an a cappella group on campus while earning extra cash playing piano part time in a Scranton church. He worked in management consulting briefly after graduation, but happily for him and us, he couldn’t stay away from music. His biggest hit, “All of Me,” a wedding anthem written for Teigen, is one of the top-selling singles of all time, and his next album is due out this month. He also puts his musicianship to work onscreen as a jazz guitarist in the absurdly romantic Oscar hopeful La La Land, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.

ELLE: You’ve got a track on the new album called “Penthouse Floor,” about your fight to stay true to your roots in the face of extreme fame.