Linda Lewis died on May 3 at her home in Waltham Abbey, outside London. She turned 72.
Her sister Dee Lewis Clay confirmed the death, but did not specify a cause.
Ms. Lewis received critical acclaim for her high five-octave vocal range and impressed listeners with her genre-hopping instincts, drawing from folk, R&B, rock, reggae, pop and – with more than a nudge from label executives – disco.
She grew up studying Motown hits note by note, and her first single, “You Turned My Bitter Into Sweet” (1967), was an upbeat up-tempo song straight from Berry Gordy’s recording studio on West Grand Boulevard in Detroit sounded.
She then joined the Ferris Wheel, a rock and soul band popular on the British club circuit, before moving on to a solo career as a guitar-strumming singer-songwriter, signing with Reprise Records in 1971.
“That was a great time,” she said in a 2007 interview with Record Collector magazine. “I lived in a kind of commune and a lot of people walked in and out. Cat Stevens showed up a lot, as did Marc Bolan and Elton John. There was a lot of jamming there, some very creative vibes.
Eventually she toured the world with Mr. Stevens (who later took the name Yusuf after converting to Islam), and lent her voice to such albums as David Bowie’s “Aladdin Sane” (1973) and Rod Stewart’s “Blondes Have More Fun”. (1978).
Her first solo album, “Say No More”, released in 1971, failed to make a commercial success. The following year, she released “Lark,” an album marked by a California lightheartedness that received critical acclaim and included the song “Old Smokey,” which the rapper Common sampled in his song “Go!” A 1973 US tour helped create buzz.
But she still needed a hit.
That same year she found one, with the lively, punchy single “Rock a Doodle Doo”, which reached No. 15 in Britain (although it failed to chart in the United States). It showcased her range with vocals swinging from husky lows to shimmering highs, to the point where the song could be mistaken for a duet.
In the mid-1970s, she signed with Arista Records, whose founder, Clive Davis, chose to package her as a disco diva like Gloria Gaynor. That decision paid off, at least commercially. Her 1975 single “It’s in His Kiss,” a Studio 54-ready spin on Betty Everett’s 1964 hit “The Shoop Shoop Song (It’s in His Kiss),” reached No. 6 in the UK, though it also failed to make much of an impression. . in the United States.
But Mrs. Lewis was shocked by the forced career change. “I haven’t really stuck to my position, I’m afraid,” she later said. “I saw myself as a singer-songwriter; they didn’t.”
Still, with the single “Not a Little Girl Anymore”, the album reached No. 40 in the UK, with Rolling Stone noting that it “brought this versatile English artist into the mainstream of contemporary R&B”.
By the 2000s, her music had passed on to a new generation, as she sang on albums by Oasis, Basement Jaxx, and Jamiroquai.
Linda Ann Fredericks was born on September 27, 1950 in Custom House, an area in the docklands of East London. She was one of six children born to Eddie Fredericks, a musician, and Lily Fredericks, who worked as a bus conductor and managed pubs. (It’s unclear why the singer chose Lewis as her stage name.)
Her mother had great ambitions for her as a performer and enrolled her in acting school, an experience Mrs. Lewis does not look back on fondly.
Her compass was set to music. She got her first taste of the spotlight in her early teens, when her mother took her to a John Lee Hooker performance at a club and pushed her onto the stage to perform, with the permission of the bluestitan, a rendition of Martha and the Vandellas from to feed. “Dancing in the street.”
In addition to Mrs. Lewis Clay, she is survived by two other sisters, Shirley Lewis and Patsy Wildman; her brothers, Keith and Paul Fredericks; and her son Jesse. Her three marriages ended in divorce.
While Mrs. Lewis tried to escape drama school as quickly as possible, her flirtation with acting was not a complete waste. She made a brief appearance in the Tony Richardson movie “A Taste of Honey” (1961). She also appeared as a screaming fan in the Beatles film “A Hard Day’s Night” (1964).
She wasn’t the only future musical to stand out in the crowd of hysterical Beatlemaniacs. Phil Collins, in his schoolboy jacket and tie, was also on set as an extra. “Many years later I ran into him and said, ‘Hey, we made a movie together,'” Ms. Lewis told Record Collector. “He looked at me very funny. I think he thought I was an idiot.”
