Leona Lewis - Spirit (2008)

Spirit by Leona Lewis

BioGraphy
Leona Louise Lewis (born 3 April 1985) is an English pop and R&B singer-songwriter, and the winner of the third series of the United Kingdom television talent show The X Factor. Leona Lewis was born in Stoke Newington, in the London Borough of Hackney, to parents Aural Josiah Lewis, an Afro-Caribbean Guyanese youth worker, and Maria Lewis (also n?e Lewis), a Welsh social worker. At the age of five, she attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School, and later the Italia Conti Academy and the BRIT School.

Lewis wrote her first song at the age of twelve, and won a number of talent competitions. After leaving school, Lewis took a number of jobs to pay to get into a recording studio, including waitressing and several receptionist jobs.

She wrote and recorded a number of songs including a demo album called Twilight. When she was fifteen years old, she recorded a version of Minnie Riperton’s “Lovin’ You” with music producer Marley J. Wills, after which Lewis and Wills were invited to the U.S. by Sony. Wills commented that “Leona could hit the notes and I think she did it better than the original.”

Her UK debut single, “A Moment Like This“, broke a world record after it was downloaded over 50,000 times within 30 minutes. Her second single, “Bleeding Love“, was the biggest-selling single of 2007 in the UK, topped over thirty national singles charts and became a number one single on the first week in France and number one in the United States.

Her debut album, Spirit, was released in Europe in 2007 and became the fastest-selling debut album ever in both the United Kingdom and Ireland. Released in North America in 2008, Spirit debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart and made Lewis the first British solo artist to top the chart with a debut album.

With her album reaching number one in at least three continents and nine countries, Lewis has had one of the most successful launches of any television talent show contestant ever.

About the Album
With her natural beauty and stunning vocal range, Leona Lewis is the kind of artist you’d expect to see winning American Idol. But since she’s from the U.K., Lewis won X Factor, a similar talent show that was created by Simon Cowell and is produced by his production company. Still, the results are much the same.

Having won over British audiences, Lewis has come to American soil with her debut disc, Spirit. Co-produced by Cowell and the legendary Clive Davis, the album is everything you’d expect from such great musical mentors. Lewis brings an amazing vocal range and versatility to every song she sings, which has won her favorable comparisons to artists like Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston. With this album, she is poised to make a name for herself far beyond the comparisons.

With her first American single, “Bleeding Love,” she broke into Billboard’s Hot 100, becoming the first British female to accomplish that since Kim Wilde back in 1987. The song is a beautiful introduction to her elegant style, which is enhanced by excellent song selection. On this lead off single, she has a gentle pop approach that shows influences of her musical idols but never sounds like an imitation.

A pair of ballads, “Better In Time” and “I Will Be“, show just what a beautiful instrument her voice is, but five tracks into it she kicks things up a notch with the upbeat, attitude-filled “Forgive Me.” There’s a bit of Beyonc? shining through in this saucy, sassy anthem about losing one’s man and, in the process, finding one’s self-worth. It’s catchy and infectious, and makes a great little dance number.

It takes considerable courage to take on the work of legends, but Lewis’s cover of Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” is nothing if not memorable. She makes the song as thoughtful and emotional as it was intended to be, lingering on the words with a heartfelt sentiment that makes this track one of the most stirring ballads on the entire collection. As she builds to the chorus and finally lets her voice explode, she finds the ability to draw goosebumps from her audience.

The dramatic “Take A Bow” is worthy of a soundtrack; the comparisons of a relationship to a theatrical performance work extremely well and when she hits the chorus, the full force of her emotions shine through. It’s another powerful song that Lewis lets build in intensity and the payoff comes from her vocal explosions as the song progresses.

Spirit is a wonderful introduction to a fantastic new talent. Despite constantly being compared to other vocal greats, it’s safe to say that it won’t be long before we all are saying her name.

 

Bleeding Love (live)

 

Spirit album tracklists are:

01 Bleeding Love

02 Whatever It Takes

03 Homeless

04 Better In Time

05 Yesterday

06 Take A Bow

07 I Will Be

08 Angel

09 Here I Am

10 I’m You

11 The Best You Never Had

12 The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

13 Footprints In The Sand

14 A Moment Like This

15 Forgive Me

16 Misses Glass

17 You Bring Me Down

18 Forgiveness

19 Bleeding Love [Jason Nevins Ext. Mix]

 

Buy the CD Album Spirit

Free Mp3 Downloads Spirit

 

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