- We are back.
I'm chatting it up, but Jimmy Allen.
Give it up for Jimmy. - Hey.
(everyone claps)
- So for my birthday we are celebrating the gift of music
'cause it's my show and I can celebrate what I want.
So it's been quite a journey for Jude
since we first met him at the start of this year.
My music director, Jason Halbert's,
totally taken him under his wing
'cause we fell in love with him
and they've been working hard on creating an original song
that matches Jude's vision,
so check this out.
Well Jude, do you know what you wanna be when you grow up?
Is it something involving with music?
- Well, I wanna do music professionally
and I hope I can write songs, I'm getting closer.
(upbeat organ music)
- From the first moment we all met Jude on the show.
You better what? - My, my, my.
- We knew he was special and we all fell in love with him.
Playing with the band.
Jason has offered to mentor you.
- Ooh. - To help develop your sound.
- What? - So in a few months,
we'd like you to come back maybe and play for us.
- Oh my god. - Of course, of course.
- So we can hear what you've been working on.
(audience cheers) (upbeat rock music)
Jason started his mentorship
by heading to Jude's home in Colorado
to really see him in his element.
- When did you start playing, Mr. Jason?
- I started playing around six years old.
It was very similar to you in that I had no lessons.
And when I was a kid I was diagnosed autistic,
which as you know,
there's many different types of autism, right?
- Oh, and I'm autistic, too. - Yeah, and my son is as well.
- [Kelly] As Jason and Jude quickly bonded,
Jude's incredible talent was so obvious.
- I heard you already started on a song, right?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And do you write lyrics as well
or you just kind of focus on the music?
- [Jude] I just kind of focus on the music.
I wanna write about hope and faith.
- [Jason] Everyone can use hope and so that's a good...
- [Jude] In the good times and the bad.
- [Jason] Absolutely.
So that's a good universal topic.
- [Kelly] We asked Jude about his favorite artist
and there was no hesitation in his answer.
- I do like CeCe Winans, too. - She's my favorite,
I've been trying to get her on our show forever.
(laughs)
Her new song, I Believe, is incredible.
- [Kelly] Jason and Jude continue to meet virtually
and work together on the song.
- Hi, Jude.
I got to see your house,
I wanna show you my rehearsal room right here.
- Oh wow. - My B3 and my keyboard.
And next time you're here,
we're gonna bring you up here so we can play around.
- Oh, yeah. - Then here's where we do
all of our engineering and recording.
And this is the program I was telling you,
I'm gonna get you a copy of this.
Yeah, so I do need your help with something.
When it's the verse, hold up a V.
- Okay. - And when it's the chorus,
give me a C. - C.
(relaxing music)
- Well, Jude, you've already done all the hard work.
You've given us a great song to start with.
(upbeat music)
- [Kelly] When Jude came back to the show,
he blew us away as he sat in with the band all hour long.
Jason also had a special surprise for Jude that day.
- I've got to your own laptop,
which we're gonna get Logic on here.
- Thank you. - And we're gonna work
on your song on this. - Thank you so much.
- [Kelly] With his new laptop,
Jason made sure Jude had the best music software
to continue arranging his original song.
- So this is Logic. - Yeah.
Ah, it shows the chords.
- Yeah.
You ready to record it?
(relaxing music)
- So your 11, right? - Yes.
- Good, so you can't take my job until you're 18.
(laughs)
All right, love you, man.
- [Kelly] Once the arrangement was finalized,
the song was ready for lyrics.
So Jason enlisted Grammy Award winner Kyle Lee to help out.
- Oh, hello everyone. - Good, how you doing, Jude?
- You know we talked about your song right now.
You have a lot of melodies in the piano plan
and if you're comfortable, I would love you
to go to a chorus or a verse, play the chords
and just sing a melody that comes out.
It doesn't have to be words,
you can be like "da da da da da da da"
or you can be like, "da da."
And there's no rules, it can be anything.
But the cool thing is what's coming outta you
might inspire something in Kyle or myself.
- Yeah, of course.
(humming)
- Now that we have some melody direction from you, Jude,
it'll just be taking some of these concepts
that we've talked about.
Things that are important to you
and things that are your life experiences,
and then just developing lyrics around those thoughts.
- Thank you so much. - Yeah, thank you, Jude.
- Thanks, Jude.
- While Jude, Jason and Kyle
put the finishing touches on the song,
we asked Jude to come back to see us
for one more big surprise.
(audience claps)
All right, so you've seen him sitting in with my band,
y'all throughout the hour again because we love him.
He is back on the couch,
y'all say hi to Jude and dad, Isaiah.
- Hello. (audience cheers)
- And Jude's very proud mentor, Jason,
give it up for him, y'all.
(audience cheers) (Jude laughs)
- Jimmy, when did you start singing and playing music?
And do you, do you write first
or do you have to have the melody and lyric first?
- I started when I was like six or seven.
- Yeah? - I wasn't that good.
Nowhere near as he was. - I'm still not that good.
- Exactly. (laughs)
I started when I was young,
but now it just depends on the day and the mood.
Sometimes I have a lyric and I go into write the lyric.
Sometimes I just have a piano or a guitar,
and sometimes I'll have a track and write over a track.
So it just depends on the day. - Yeah.
I like that, too, I do it all different ways.
So Jude, you love working with Jason
but who is your favorite artist?
Who would you love to like work with?
- I would say CeCe Winans. - CeCe Winans.
She's, that's aimin' for the top man,
she's incredible, right?
I like it, gotta dream big.
So you've come so far.
Jason, in such a short time.
So, and you always have a surprise whenever Jude's here.
So do you have anything today?
- I do.
I'm so excited.
First of all, I've had so much fun working with Jude.
Like it's been the highlight for me.
- He really has.
He says this when you're not here.
- It's so cool.
And you know, and I love my job
and the favorite part about my job,
but not only do I get to play for Kelly
but I get to play for all these other artists.
So it's really cool.
There's people I grew up listening to
and then Kelly brings 'em on the show
and I get to play with them, which I love.
But there's one person I've never played with
and I've been listening to her since I was 11 years old,
and that's CeCe Winans,
'cause we talked about that in Colorado.
- Yeah. - It's been a dream for me
to play for her but she's never asked me
to play for her yet.
- Oh. - But,
when we, like we talked in Colorado,
I'm, you know, since I'm friends with CeCe
and the people in her world and I told her all about you
and CeCe has invited you to come out to her concert.
(excited gasp) I'm gonna come with you
and you're gonna play piano with her on stage.
- Whoa! (audience cheers)
- Yes! - So exciting!
- [Jason] I am, too.
- I would love to play with her.
- And I'm so jealous.
I wanna hear, I mean, I'm gonna be there right behind you
watching it and thinking "I wish that was me over there."
(laughs)
But you be thinking about what song you wanna do,
'cause I know you love Believe for it,
and whatever song you think we're gonna,
we're gonna get in touch with her.
- I appreciate it so much Mr. Jason.
- Well, thank you.
You deserve it. - My mentor.
- Okay, oh my gosh.
I'm gonna lose it, okay.