LISTEN: Darius Rucker, LeAnn Rimes, Keb'Mo' play on Jimmy Carter podcast, 'Last Sundays in Plains'

In honor of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday, Atlanta musician, author and entrepreneur Kabir Sehgal has created an innovative new podcast that sets recordings of Carter's famous Sunday School lessons to music.

The project features Sehgal's collaborations with musicians including Darius Rucker, Jon Batiste, Keb' Mo', LeAnn Rimes, Nicole Zuraitis, Joe Alterman and others. 

Last Sundays in Plains takes listeners to the pews of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., to hear some of the prayers, parables and spiritual yearnings espoused by Carter during his decades-long tenure as a Sunday School teacher at his home church.

The podcast is available on multiple platforms. 

Sehgal, who has written several books — including 2008's Jazzocracy and 2011's Walk in My Shoes: Conversations between a Civil Rights Legend and his Godson on the Journey Ahead, co-authored with Ambassador Andrew Young — approached the Carter family about a way to combine the power and emotional influence of his spoken words and love for music. The result is a 10-track podcast that celebrates the 39th president's faith and his artistic view of the world. 

On Facebook, Keb’ Mo’ wrote, “It was truly an honor to participate in 'Last Sundays in Plains: A Centennial Celebration. ' This album … uniquely combines soulful music with President Jimmy Carter's teachings on love and forgiveness…”

Darius Rucker said in a post, “My hope is this project shines a light on his incredible legacy and unites families together to relish in the beauty of life together.”

GPB's Kristi York Wooten spoke with Kabir Sehgal to find out more.
 

TRANSCRIPT

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Kristi York Wooten: How did the project come about and what do you hope it means to listeners, especially now as we [arrive at Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday].

Kabir Sehgal: Last Sundays in Plains is really a final culmination of President Carter's Sunday school lessons for years, for decades. He taught Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. And I was blessed to see [his Sunday School class in person]. And my family relationship with the Carters goes back decades, when my father first came from India to America via Alabama and Auburn University, and he met Jimmy Carter's mother. So I visited with my family and President Carter, a couple of years ago, and we talked about perhaps collaborating on a project. His health was declining. And then later I spoke with Jason [Carter], who was also a family friend. And we decided to embark upon this project of setting President Carter's last Sunday school sermons to music. And it's taken a lot of time, effort, love to put this project together, but we hope that these final words are something that inspires generations for years to come.

Caption

Kabir Sehgal (right) meets with Jimmy Carter at the Carter Center in this undated photo.

Credit: Kabir Sehgal

Kristi York Wooten: I know some of your background with the Carter family, but tell us a little bit more about that: how old you were when you first knew of Jimmy Carter and maybe when you first met him?

Kabir Sehgal: I mean, my father met President Carter back in the 1960s. And he likes to joke with President Carter that he knew him before, really, the world did. And I grew up as a little boy — I can't even remember the first time I met him because he's always been just part of the extended family in a way. And my mother helped create an organization named for the Carters that celebrates academic service, learning, basically students going into the communities and helping their local communities. So I've been very blessed. But it's not the relationships you have, or you're born with, it’s what you do with it and how do you share that with the world.

And so, I'm a musician. I'm a music producer, and I've always thought, “How do I help immortalize people through art,” right? Because that's one way. That's my gift or my way of creating a gift for other folks is to create art out of their words, out of their thought process. And Jimmy Carter really is an artist. We think of him as a politician. We think of him as a president that just happened to be in his or his arena. But not all presidents write 30 books and create poetry and children's books and create furniture in his studio. And, you know, he has a very active mind, I think of him almost kind of like a Walt Whitman character, like a patron saint, writing about America through his meditations on not just what's going on in the country, but the soul of the nation, you know.

I hope setting music to his words will help people see Jimmy Carter in the way I've always seen him, which is as an artist. … So this is really an opportunity for me to just show the love I have for President Carter's family through the music.

Kristi York Wooten: … So tell me, what was your musical process when you approached each of these, you know, essentially spoken word pieces and then how do you mesh that into music?

Kabir Sehgal: Totally. Well, the first part of it was identifying what spoken word passages to use, because some of these passages were quite long, right? And we thought, how do we, I guess, clean up the recording? Because there are live recordings, right? And some of my favorite jazz performances of all time are like Sunday at the Village Vanguard with Bill Evans, and you hear the people dining and clinking the silverware. Similarly, in this project, you hear people coughing and their phone notifications [in church]. The audience doesn't know they're going to be part of recorded history, right? But there was a lot of audio engineering to make sure that the listening experience was smooth throughout the process and also sort of trimming and making sure things were on message, but also optimal for listening. So once we had done that, it was all about trying to figure out which music to pair with the message.

The music at Rosalynn Carter’s funeral .. was one of the sources of which I drew upon. I know that the hymns they chose for that funeral service and tribute service — they meant something to both the Carters. So, for example, when you start listening to this album, the first thing you hear is me playing the guitar for “Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring,” which is a piece by Bach. Now that's a very common hymn to hear. But actually, you know, Bach lived to a relatively old age for his era, 65. He was very religious. He was, you know, the musical director of his church. And I thought that was a nice parallel with President Carter's life of, you know, his commitment to his faith, also living to an old age for our era.

Every single hymn that we chose throughout the process tries to match what President Carter is saying. Either the message of the song … or this the vibe of the larger point he was he was trying to make. And then, of course, the two standalone pieces we knew we had to do — “America the Beautiful” and “Amazing Grace” — “America, the Beautiful” by Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish and Leann Rimes just did a remarkable job of “Amazing Grace.” Both of those artists are big fans of President Carter, and it was lovely to include them on this project.

Kristi York Wooten: I love that “America the Beautiful” is getting its due. Give us a rundown of everybody who was involved with the project.

Kabir Sehgal: In addition, we have Keb’ Mo’, a great blues guitarist/Americana artist, and he sings on “Blessed Assurance,” which is a prayer. Jon Batiste — we all know Jon is a great jazz musician and pop star. He plays on a prayer as well, and I think it’s one of the musical highlights of the project, playing solo jazz piano behind President Carter and then takes a solo on one of the prayer tracks. [Atlanta’s] Joe Alterman, a friend of mine, plays a piece on a song, more of a bluesy jazz feel.

Kabir Sehgal: So music is kind of a subordinate role in in this project. … When you start to speak over music, it's almost like things start to float. And we wanted that effect. And one of the ways we created that effect was to add strings. And so when you hear President Carter starting a prayer, all of the sudden, strings start to swell. And I'm hoping that the tears start to swell, or some emotions start to swell, right? That we're kind of evoking that sentiment within the listener.

Kristi York Wooten: How did you get inspired, maybe before you started working on the project, from a faith perspective? Like what attracted you to that aspect?

Kabir Sehgal: I read several of his books. I read President Carter's Book on Faith. But I went back and looked at my notes and then I listened to a lot of his speeches. Not just the ones that we worked on, but public speeches, C-Span. And, you know, it's very comforting what he's saying about life and afterlife and faith. And his Christianity is one of welcoming and being, you know, a big tent … And because the audience that comes into Maranatha is very transient and has people come from all over the world, Carter’s lessons tend to be very easy to understand and it almost kind of functions as self-help, a very informed self-help guidance. You know, “Don't go to bed angry with your partner.” Or just bake a cake for a neighbor or take a kid to a ballgame. Like, these are simple things we can do. …There’s something for everyone here about how to live a better life.