Louis York for Hollywood Life
Louis York – powerhouse producers and songwriters Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony — visited HollywoodLife for an EXCLUSIVE shoot & interview. The pair are known for writing and producing for a long list of music for R&B and pop heavyweights, which includes penning hits for likes of Rihanna, Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus, Christina Aguilera, Mary J Blige, John Legend, Celine Dion, Jazmine Sullivan, Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston among many others. Louis York released their hit single “Don’t You Forget” in August and were announced as iHeartRadio’s “On The Verge” program, where they will get radio airplay in a number of key markets across the country including Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, New Orleans, etc. The two also dropped their debut album, American Griots – The Album, in November 2019.
Click through our gallery for EXCLUSIVE photos of Louis York!
How They Inspired Each Other To Form Louis York
“We were totally comfortable being behind the scenes. And then, I just started going through a process where I felt like I wasn’t inspired anymore. And so I confided in him, and he confided in me that he wasn’t inspired anymore. So we are actually confessing to each other that we were going to quit music. That was maybe five years ago.
On The ‘Birth’ Of Their Music
“Music is birthed out of pain,” Chuck said. “It is birthed out of pain. And if you’re doing it right, then it’s documenting your way out of it,” Claude continued.
On Creating Louis York
Louis York visit HL studios at PMC.
On Creating For Themselves vs. Other Artists
“It’s more intense because I never viewed my music, even though it was universal and I’ve worked with a lot of big artists, I never viewed it as speaking to people. I only viewed it as trying to climb this ladder of what I thought success was,” Chuck said. “Now in the music I have so much more meaning and so much more purpose. You’re way more intentional about what you say and what you do because every lyric, and every melody, and every instrument, and every drum beat, all of that stuff matters so much more, in such a bigger way.”
On Performing Live
“We just don’t hold anything back and every performance is different,” Claude explained. “We’ve never done a song the same way twice.”
“Then every time, Chuck plays it differently and brilliantly and every single time and I sing it differently and brilliantly every single time. I think everyone, before we say it, everyone understands they’re getting a unique Lewis York experience,” Claude added.
On Working With Rihanna
“She’s one of our favorites. Even though we’ve done stuff with her, she’s still on our vision board. It’s greatness.”
Performing At The Grande Ole Opry
“Do you know how big of a deal to be doing that? And for two black men to be doing that? That’s crazy. Our friend Jimmie Allen asked us to perform with him and we did our song, ‘Teach Me A Song’ and got a standing ovation, and the people asked us to come back!”
Their Friendship With Kathy Lee Gifford
“She’s our neighbor and a really good friend in Franklin, Tennessee Where our workshop is, Weirdo Workshop. And we became good friends and we wrote this beautiful body of work. It’s called Oratorio, which is 27 minutes, 27 minute oratory, which is like a mini musical boy, with real songs tucked in between. It’s the spiritual journey about the realistic stories of what happened in the New Testament, and it’s all recorded now with the Nashville Orchestra.”
