Lesley Duncan was a singer songwriter from Stockton on Tees. This beautiful song called Love Song was covered by Elton John and Lesley did backing vocals on his version. She played the Lanch c 1970 / 71.
"Lesley Duncan born August 12, 1943 was a British singer / songwriter. She was mainly a singles artist
After Elton John recorded "Love Song" this landed Lesley Duncan a recording contract with CBS / Columbia Records. Producer Jimmy Horowitz gathered some of the top studio musicians in England to record on Lesley's albums including Chris Spedding and Peter Frampton. Her first album "Sing Children Sing" included Elton John on Piano. "Sing Children Sing", "Love Song" and "Help Me Jesus" would all be released as singles in the US. Top tracks from this album were "Mr. Rubin", "Love Song" and "Lullaby". These songs would all be covered by other artist like Olivia Newton-John and Long John Baldry. In 1972 her second album "Earth Mother" was released. Unlike the first this was not available in the US. Top tracks from this album include "Time", "Fortieth Floor" and the title track "Earth Mother". Due to the unsuccessful singles from the first album in the US, Columbia decided to issue "Earth Mother" as an import only. She also sang on Joyce Everson's album Crazy Lady" which was recorded in 1971 and released by Warner in 1972. It wasn't until 1974 that the single To Be A Pilgrim was issued from the album in England. This ended her time with Columbia and her next album was issued by the GM label in England." Read more on her website http://www.snvweb.net/ld/
Lesley recorded "Sing Children Sing", her first album, for CBS (UK) in 1970, 2 years before "Love Song" appeared on "Tumbleweed Connection" and, in fact, Elton himself played piano on most of the tracks on that first album.
ReplyDeleteLesley and Elton were friends, but their friendship had nothing to do with her getting a contract with CBS.