STEVE STAPLEY & LYNDA HAYES: Sleepy Old Town - Lullabies and Songs of Childhood
14 Beautiful New Lullabies and Children’s Songs – Straight from the Heart – From Our Family to Yours.
Influences
Biggest influence is my Mom, Marcy Rénee, amazing classy big band singer. Next is my husband Steve Stapley. I love his guitar picking. It is unusual and he makes it sound like a full orchestra with just one guitar part. I have never heard anyone else play like him. We sing real good together. His voice makes me tremble and I wish I could sing like him. I am also influenced by my long time Louisiana friend and pianist, David Guillot. He introduced me to more music than anyone I have ever known. Nobody plays piano like David either. My other influences are Tracy Nelson, Rickie Lee Jones, Bonnie Raitt, Elvis, Gladys Knight, Chet Baker, Peggy Lee, Martina McBride, and Karen Carpenter, Al Green and even Florence Foster Jenkins!
Sounds Like
Here I am; half Lynda half Geoffrey, inspired by my Toys R Us jingle as created by ingenious artist Damien Weighill for his Yourface project. Check out his brilliant Yourface site by clicking on my Lynda as Geoffrey portrait. I am face number 269! Your face can get a number too! All you have to do is send him a picture of you and he might make your face and display it on his outrageous website!
or you could go to http://yourfaceblog.blogspot.com
by clicking here
So here it is, the longest running ad I have ever sung on:
Death By Country - Great fun!
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Here is the coolest commercial I ever sang on.
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A bit of Jim'll Fix It. I liked singing this especially the Bah Bah Bah bits - but I couldn't find a video with those on it! If anyone knows where one is, please let me know :)
Wow! Steve Stapley's new album Beyond the Blues has finally been released! YAY!!!!! It is the most incredible music I have heard in more summers than I have spent on this earth! I know you will love it. Plus I sing on many of the tracks. Check it out on this link:
Here is his new video for his song the Writing on the Wall. He sure looks handsome. Click below to see him in actual motion. (YUM!)
Steve Stapley the Writing on the Wall, taken from Beyond the Blues.
LYNDA HAYES
Singer, actress, voice-over artist and radio presenter, Lynda Hayes was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. After graduating from LSU, Lynda toured America singing in clubs and concert venues. Working all across America, Lynda opened shows for comedians such as Kelly Monteith, Rodney Dangerfield, Jackie Gayle and many others.
Lynda decided to stay in London after headlining at The Playboy Club in Park Lane. She was soon managed by Ronnie Scotts and performed many weeks there with jazz legends such as Yusef Latiff, Kai Winding, 'father' Earl Hines and other greats. Her proudest time there was three - 2 week runs with Dizzy Gillespie. There is a wonderful story where the last time she saw Dizzy was about 2 years after they last played Ronnies. Lynda was walking down Frith Street in Soho and Dizzy was walking towards her. She was unsure if he would remember her so she walked up to him and said, 'Hi Dizzy! I dont know if you will remember me but...' and before she could finish, he said, 'Remember you? Why just now I was walking through Soho Square and some guy came up to me and said, 'Aren't you the guy who used to play at Ronnie Scotts with Lynda Hayes?'
Lynda soon became part of the small session singer elite in London and began recording and/or touring with wonderful artists such as Nik Kershaw (Human Racing), Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, Meatloaf, Bonnie Tyler, Barry Manilow (including the Royal Variety Performance before Prince Charles and Princess Diana, weeks before they separated), All About Eve, Ocean Colour Scene, Spike Milligan, Katrina and the Waves and many others.
Lynda sang backing vocals and the lead rap with George Michael; on Young Guns which went into the top 5 in the charts worldwide. She says, 'I was all over that record like a rash. Besides the Backing Vocals, I had a feature part doing the rap with George Michael. Then they gave me the news that their friends Pepsi and Shirley would be miming to me on TV and in the video! In the 80s, many artists were miming to session singers here in England. I tried to stop them doing that, but Wham!'s producer threatened me with the old 'You'll never work in this town again' thing, and I was then managed by Bullit Promotions who were promoting the record, so Bullit told me to let it go. I did, but everyone knows Pepsi and Shirley were NOT rapping on Young Guns by Wham! It was bizarre seeing my voice coming out of other peoples faces! Ive never spoken publicly about this before. During the session, George was still writing the rap lyrics and could not get the last 2 lines. The session was running late; the horn section had been hanging around for ages, I had a dog food commercial to go to afterwards, so to hurry things along I wrote the lines: 'Shut up chick thats a friend of mine, watch your mouth babe, youre out of line' just so we could all get on with the session. No one was using those words in England at that time. It was pure USA/Chicago slang!'
Lynda had the worst ever Christmas number one record with Mr. Blobby where she sang lead vocal, backing vocals and was vocal arranger. There is another story about that one, but suffice it to say, she got a £150 session fee and that record went platinum and won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Selling Single of that year. "One of the best bands I ever played in was 'Death by Country'. The line-up included Rory McGrath, Phil Pope, B J Cole, Bob Loveday and Johnny Trotter. We were a sensation at the Edinburgh Festival, Oh yes... that was fun! Real funny too. Johnny Trotter, Phil Pope, Bob Loveday, and Steve Stapley played on Mississippi Monsoon, which is above in my playlist - Steve Stapley wrote it."
As a singer and voice-over artist, Lynda's voice has helped sell thousands of products including Coca Cola, Lincoln Mercury, Mercedes Benz, Martini, Barbie Dolls, Nescafe, American Airlines, Toys R Us and countless more. Some of the people she has worked with on voice-overs include, Robbie Coltraine, Willy Rushton, Jeffrey Palmer, Lenny Henry and Lulu. (Lynda Hayes Voice-Over Agent is Hobsons International. www.hobsons-international.com).
Lynda has presented her own radio talk show, 'Lovin' with Lynda' on London's LBC - which achieved laudable listening figures and made her a London-wide celebrity. She would broadcast every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night from 9pm till 1am on a variety of subjects ranging from relationship problems, alcoholism and alien life forms to transvestites and psychic phenomena. She became known as 'London's Big Sister'. Her husband Steve Stapley wrote all of the jingles for the various segments of the shows. They both sang on all of them. Her signature tune, 'I Wish You Could be My Radio', was also written by Steve and of course, the haunting vocal is sung by Lynda. You can hear excerpts from the show above.
Lynda has recently recorded the title track for the Lauren Bacall film, The Limit, as well as a feature vocal on These Boots are Made for Walkin for the BBC TV series Blackpool, and featured in the Sky series HEX singing Look Me Over Closely. Celebrity Big Brother played out Lyndas Jim'll Fix It theme song, which has since become a ring tone!
Married to singer/songwriter Steve Stapley, They have 2 sons. Lynda and Steve created 'Sleepy Old Town' an inspirational, intelligent body of 14 songs that seems to fulfill the emotional desire for a safer, more loving and reassuring world for children.
They wanted their children to hear real instruments on beautiful songs, played by wonderful musicians. There was little on the market to fill this void. Lynda says, 'Steve started writing it. I spoke to Tony Edwards, publisher of the Deep Purple catalogue, and told him we wanted to create something beautiful and loving for children. Together with Tony, Richard Niles arrangements, Steve's songs, our voices and an excellent array of awesome musicians, we made Sleepy Old Town. It is a perfect antidote for these troubled times. We have had brilliant feedback from so many people telling us how soothing the songs are for their whole family. This is what we were aiming for and it seems to have worked.' You can find out more about Sleepy Old Town at:
www.myspace.com/sleepyoldtown and at www.sleepyoldtown.com. If you are interested in buying a copy, it is available through CD Baby. It is also available as a digital download.
STEVE STAPLEY & LYNDA HAYES: Sleepy Old Town - Lullabies and Songs of Childhood
14 Beautiful New Lullabies and Children’s Songs – Straight from the Heart – From Our Family to Yours.
thx for the add. chi-town lady!! very cool songs, and well recorded and arranged. very sweet voice, and i can see why after reading your bio!! best of luck to you! have a great weekend! respect from chicago. glenn
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