FEATURE STORY
LEONA
www.BREmagazine.com
From Britain’s Pop Queen to America’s Sweetheart
BY RUTH ADKINS ROBINSON
hen the famously
curmudgeon Simon Cowell
was stunned into silence by
the vocal power of a young
singer on his show “The
X-Factor,” the U.K. show
similar to “American Idol,”
that nationwide audience sort
of shook its collective head in
wonder.
When Cowell told the
Associated Press, “It was
blindingly obvious when this girl
came on the show that this wasn’t
just someone who had the potential
to be a good singer, this was someone
who had a potential to be a star,” England started to speculate
just how big the impact would be of the young singer who’d
thrilled them all with her talent. No one quite envisioned just
how massive the impact would become.
The canny Cowell had been looking for a talent like this.
According to highly regarded BBC TV and radio host Dotun
Adebayo, “Previous winners of our Cowell-created televised
talent shows have been purely Anglo pop bands with limited
appeal outside the U.K., but Leona was groomed for the
American market from day one. Cowell identified something in
her that would appeal to the Yankee market that he now knows
so well.”
Cowell wasn’t working with someone who just tried out on
a whim. This was a serious, hard working young talent. Music
runs in her family. The daughter of a Guyanese part-time DJ
and a Welsh ballet teacher, Lewis grew up exposed to a variety
of genres. She got the performing bug early, before she was old
enough for school. “I would put on little shows, stand up on
tables and perform for my family,” remembers the singer. Her
LEWIS
parents struggled financially to pay for vocal lessons. At the age
of five, she attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School and later
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the Italia Conti Academy and the BRIT School. She worked
hard enough to earn a scholarship to the prestigious BRIT
School when she was just 14. She wrote her first song at age 12
and appeared in local talent shows. But in her early teens, it
was opera, and not pop, that captured her interest.
“My training is kind of classical, so I’ve done a lot of opera,
and I was very interested in Leontyne Price,” Lewis confides.
“As I got older, I got more into jazz, soul and blues.” After
graduation, she took a laundry list of odd jobs to pay for studio
time, cut a few tracks including the Minnie Riperton classic,
“Lovin’ You,” but the going was tough.
“I was quite frustrated because I really wanted to be able to
make a living from it,” she said. “I’d been going into the studio
and writing and working with different producers and I’d be
auditioning for different shows... it was quite a struggle.”
Her break came when she auditioned for “The X Factor,”
singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” She earned a spot in
the competition and over the course of the season, the British
audiences watched her grow.
There were machinations on various levels as the season
progressed. According to Adebayo, “Leona’s mum, Maria,
mounted a big media campaign just ahead of the finale to
suggest that her daughter, even though she was by far the best
of the contestants, wouldn’t win because Britain was not ready
to vote a Black, winner of the popular talent show. Well that
was like a red flag to a bull, and the country voted for her in
the millions.” Lewis won the competition in December 2006
and became the first Black/mixed heritage winner of “The X
Factor” and also the first female to win.
Meanwhile Cowell, who is permitted to mentor the
contestants in the British talent show, unlike “Idol” where the
judges can only comment on performers, was crafting a career
path for the singer. As part of her prize, she was signed to a deal
with Cowell’s label with Sony BMG, Syco, but Cowell wanted
some diva insurance. He called Clive Davis and suggested that
Davis might like to see the “next Whitney Houston.”
Lewis remembers the day she went to audition for Davis at
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She is an artist who will be a true star

for many years to come.
—Clive Davis
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his famed haunt--one of the pink bungalows at the
Beverly Hills Hotel.  She sang “four or five songs …this
right on the spot. I was immediately knocked out
by her range, her versatility, and the pure beauty
of her voice,” said Davis. “She is an artist who
wasn’t
will be a true star for many years to come.” And
so it was that two of the industry’s most powerful just
men formed a joint venture to launch Lewis into
superstardom. someone
The planning was intense at every level. First they
assembled a roomful of chart-topping elite writers
and producers who could almost guarantee a hit. who
Davis and Cowell could get the talent in the
room, but Lewis knew it was up to her to seal the
deal.  She “sang my heart out” in that room, she
had the
potential
recalls.  Not surprisingly, everybody who was invited
“agreed to work with me,’ she added.
So for the next year, schedules were juggled,
songs were written, studio time booked and Lewis
spent a lot of time on airplanes working on the
to be a
album that came to be called Spirit. Lewis recorded
tracks for the album in London, Miami, Los
Angeles, New York City, and Atlanta. Among the
good
impressive list of hitmakers are Dr. Luke, Dallas
Austin, Max Martin, Stargate, Walter Afanasieff, singer,
Salaam Remi, Kara DioGuardi, Per Magnusson,
David Kreuger, Richard Page and Novel. She also
recorded a track with Ne-Yo. Two further tracks
this was
were recorded in early 2008 for the U.S. release
of the album: “Forgive Me” featuring Akon and someone
“Misses Glass” featuring RockCity.
Like everyone who comes in contact with Lewis,
these high-powered players all praise her. One
who
Republic’s Ryan Tedder and pop prince Jesse
McCartney co-wrote her first single, “Bleeding had a
Love.” “Leona is the first vocalist that I have heard
in well over a decade that, between her voice and
her appearance and presence, had the different
potential
elements that I thought were necessary to be a
world-class singer,” said Tedder. to be a
Hitmaker Ne-Yo, who wrote the track “I’m You,”
describes her as a “beautiful person, inside and
out.” He says, “She’s not just a pretty face--her voice
star.
is undeniable.”
For Spirit, a collection of power ballads inspired —Simon
by ‘90s R&B, Lewis also collaborated with former
Britney Spears songwriter J.R. Rotem. “I also worked with
Salaam Remi, who has written and produced for Amy
Winehouse; Billy Steinberg, who has written for Madonna; and
Walter A, who is my idol because he has written songs for people
like Celine Dion and Mariah Carey,” she continues. “I love the
big singing divas so it was great to write with him,” she adds.
The hitmakers and the press are heaping such praise on
the young 23-year old singer, they’ve put her into rarified
company. She’s been compared to Mariah Carey and Whitney
at every turn. That can twist the sense and sensibility of those
who achieve it.  But this young British girl is knocking over old
statistics with an élan and a graciousness that surprises and
delights all who meet her. Lewis has some different thoughts.
“Those are very good compliments,” she says, “but I have a
ways to go before I can be compared to them.”
Truth be told though, her vocal range is staggering and
her tonal quality is at once elegant and warm. Hopeful young
singers will someday be directed to look to Lewis for both her
singing prowess and her character. Simply put, Lewis is an
amazing talent who is both grounded and secure. A peek at her
MySpace page reveals how much fun she is having. Her down-
to-earth postings are collecting ever more American fans,
while she racks up new high points in statistic shattering.
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Some of those stats: her debut album Spirit
entered the U.K. album chart at #1; Spirit’s lead-
off single “Bleeding Love” claimed the U.K.’s #1
spot for seven weeks selling more than one million
copies in the U.K. in just five weeks. Ushering in
2008, Lewis received four prestigious Brit Award
nominations, the U.K. equivalent of the Grammys.
The U.S. market got all excited about Lewis when
she performed at Davis’ hot ticket Pre-Grammy
Party. Her single “Bleeding Love” came out of the
gate as one of the most played and most requested
songs at Top 40 and Black radio. She’s also the first
British female artist to have a number one song in
the U.S. in 20 years.
As of March 2008, Spirit had surpassed the 2.5
million sales mark and debuted at #1 in Germany,
Switzerland, Austria, Australia, and New Zealand.
In February 2008, Lewis broke the major American
charts as “Bleeding Love” entered the Billboard
Hot 100 at #1 where it returned for at least four
non-consecutive weeks in three separate runs
beginning on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart
dated April 5. The song was immediately certified
Gold and Platinum in both the U.K. and U.S.
Even before the album hit, she’d appeared on
“The Oprah Winfrey Show,” MTV’s “Discover and
Download” and VH-1’s “You Oughta Know.” The
Oprah appearance was one of the chances of a
lifetime, unheard of for a new artist.  Lewis was
nervous about the appearance, but realized it was
her chance to break it big time in America, which
previously hadn’t cared too much for winners of
Britain’s talent quest “The X Factor.” They had
enough “American Idol” contenders to contend
with.
‘‘The thing for me was to remember it was an
opportunity to share my music with people and
share it on a very wide scale,’’ Lewis says. Oprah
gasped and gushed and her ringing endorsement
sent music buyers to retailers, creating U.S. chart
history.
The music that she is sharing on Spirit includes a
mix of mid-tempo songs sprinkled with ballads, like
her remake of Roberta Flack’s classic “The First
Cowell Time Ever I Saw Your Face.” But Davis cautions
against typecasting Lewis as a balladeer: “I really
see her as a contemporary singer who is versatile and who can
do all types of material,” adding, “She knows she’s got to work
for it and she is indeed working for it.”
Accustomed to working hard, Lewis says, ‘‘I’m not taking
this for granted. You never know when this is going to end.’’
She seems to have missed the diva gene entirely. On her way
to the first NewNowNext Awards show in New York recently,
her car broke down. Instead of waiting on a replacement and
not wanting to keep the production waiting, Lewis jumped
out and hailed a cab. She was rewarded for her efforts. Lewis
picked up the Kylie Award as the Next International Crossover.
To get a real peek into why Britain’s Pop Queen has become
America’s Sweetheart, read her MySpace posting:
“The past few weeks have felt like a dream.  I didn’t think
things could get any better after being number one in the
U.K. and then more and more just keeps on happening in
other countries and now to be #1 in America! I just want to
thank everyone for the brilliant support and to America for
welcoming me. Everybody’s been so lovely and supportive. 
I feel so privileged that I get to sing and do what I love
everyday.  It’s hard to express how this makes me feel but I’m
just so thankful.” 
So are we, Leona, so are we.
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