Monday, 12 October 2020

Lesley Duncan, 5 albums

 























Singer and songwriter (born 12 August 1943 in Stockton-on-Tees, England - died 12 March 2010 in Scotland on the Isle of Mull). Sister of the songwriter Jimmy Duncan.
Active from the 1960s well into the 1980s, she recorded several solo releases and sang backing vocals on numerous albums. As a songwriter she was best known for Love Song, recorded by Elton John in 1970.

There are five albums here from this underrated artist that I had never known about before, the plethora of images above is due to varied covers I included because as usual I'm entranced by the lovely classic seventies artwork.

From the first album, the song called Love Song was covered by Elton John but written by her, and then dolled up by Olivia Newton John some years later, but in her original is just timelessly classy:




My only objection here would be that her voice is not as crystalline as my childhood favourite Olivia's but the understated production is supernal for sure.

From the second album called queasily, but typical for the times, "Earth Mother" the title track is surprisingly well thought-out and not silly-hippy as you would have initially surmised a prima facie, approaching the extremely inventive pop of Carita Holmstrom:





The third album is even better, more refined, more composed, more arranged in a professional production manner similar to Christian-American star Karen Lafferty, featured multiple times here but the fourth called Moon Bathing reached an apex of beauty in the songwriting, consider Heaven Knows:




And the fifth album (Maybe It's Lost), unfortunately, just missed the summit of the former.  We all have to reach a peak sometime, and for me sadly I have to recognize it's in years past, distant past even. Except when it comes to collecting tons and tons of LPs where I'm currently at the peak.

Beautiful stuff though in these 5 works.  It's not as 'perfect' (or proggy) as our lovely discovery Carita Holmstrom's seventies albums, but very very good.  

And look at that beautiful innocent smile:






11 comments:

  1. https://www18.zippyshare.com/v/Tlb58usF/file.html
    https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/7fqsbp

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  2. Nice excerpts. She certainly deserves to be remembered, and deserved greater popularity.

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  3. Thank you. I'm looking forward to making some time available to hear these. I first came across her name when she contributed vocals on a 1969 Keith Mansfield LP, Face On The Wind. Again, not proggy, but very much of its time. h**ps://youtu.be/kW58Ycrns7E

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  4. Thanks! I agree her albums really improves once the music gets more refined and arranged - and Moon Bathing is her peak. What a lovely album. "Heaven Knows" is gorgeous but "My Soul" from Everything Changes is the tune that sounds like it could have been a big hit to me. She sure would have deserved it.

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  5. Following the discovery of unreleased albums, I have now discovered this next treasure and am in the process of lifting it up.
    A great voice that really deserves a lot more attention, so thanks for the very fine reminder!

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  6. Pleeeeese! repost this set?
    many thanks

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  7. Amazing set....please repost?
    thanks

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  8. the sendspace link still works, here is zippy
    https://www11.zippyshare.com/v/mbJt8g4N/file.html

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    Replies
    1. Perfect thanks, always loved Elton John - Love song, never realized Leslie wrote that song. had to hear the rest of her material, thanks for this.

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