Linda Lewis, Backing Singer for David Bowie and More, Dead at 72

Linda Lewis, a backing singer for David Bowie, Rod Stewart and others, died on Wednesday at the age of 72.

The information was confirmed on social media by her sister, Dee Lewis Clay. “It is with the greatest sadness and regret we share the news that our beloved beautiful sister Linda Lewis passed away today peacefully at her home,” Clay wrote.

Lewis was born Linda Ann Fredericks in West Ham, an space of East London. She started performing at an early age, showing in 1961’s A Taste of Honey and as one of many screaming followers within the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night film from 1964. She additionally carried out “Dancing in the Street” with John Lee Hooker at a membership exterior London within the early ’60s. “It was in the afternoon, it was 1961 and I was with my mum,” Lewis later recalled in an interview with Blues & Soul. “My mum was like, ‘Go on, get up there and sing!’ I didn’t even know who John Lee Hooker was! And she said, ‘Go on, go and ask him!'” Hooker then launched her to a musician named Ian Samwell, who in flip launched her to supervisor Don Arden. It was round this time that she modified her final identify to Lewis, a tribute to R&B singer Barbara Lewis.

Lewis recorded with a number of teams within the late ’60s — together with White (*72*) and the Ferris Wheel — and additionally appeared at the primary Glastonbury Festival, the place she sang with Terry Reid and David Lindley. She signed a solo take care of Warner Bros. Records however centered a lot of her time working as a session musician, singing on Cat Stevens’ Catch Bull at Four (1972), Bowie’s Aladdin Sane (1973), Hummingbird’s self-titled debut (1975), Rick Wakeman’s Lisztomania (1975), Stewart’s Blondes Have More Fun (1978) and Tonight I’m Yours (1981), amongst others.

One of her solo hits, a music she wrote referred to as “Rock-a-Doodle-Doo,” landed at No. 15 on the U.Okay. chart in 1973. “I was listening to Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro thinking, ‘Ah, that’s what I could do if I want to,'” Lewis stated in 2018, recalling her shift to songwriting. “I’d been in soul revues, doing covers in my long frock, but I wanted to sing my own songs.” An even greater hit peaked at No. 6 two years later with a canopy of “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss).” 

Listen to Linda Lewis’ ‘Rock-a-Doodle-Doo’

Lewis launched six albums in the course of the ’70s and another within the ’80s earlier than principally retreating from public performances. She did seem at Glastonbury once more in 1984 and resurfaced in 1992 to sing on Joan Armatrading’s album Square the Circle.

“When I look back, I realize I’ve lived an extraordinarily rich life,” Lewis wrote in her memoir [via The Guardian]. “Would I do it all again, given a chance? No. Would I do some of it again? Certainly.”