OPEN POST: Manor Music Monday With The Lovely Lea Roberts!

Greetings, music sloots, and welcome to another edition of Manor Music Monday. Are you good at solving mysteries? Because DJ Li'l Scratch has a nice one today, and maybe you can help solve it. Be forewarned, it's a lot more complicated than his recent mystery, "Where's my stash?" or the one just after, "Seriously, where's my stash?" and the one following, "Im'a cut a bitch unless we find my stash." At any rate, tonight only at the Manor's "It's Pink Inside!" after-hours club and dinette, the DJ will be playing tunes by a mystery lass who really ought to be better known - and celebrated, too. 

Who is Lea Roberts? Here's what we know. She was born Leatha Roberta Hicks in Dayton, Ohio in 1946, where her mother led the "Sweet Chariot" gospel choir at Corinthian Baptist Church - and gave Lea her musical start as a wee choir member. Years later, in the early 1960s, she briefly relocated to Detroit, Michigan to work as an uncredited background session singer before moving to the New York City to pursue a solo career.

She recorded a handful of albums, a few of which hit the Billboard charts - and that's it, that's all we really know, though it's mentioned here and there that she later returned to Ohio to raise a family, though it's not confirmed. She's a strange anomaly; virtually forgotten by the late-1980's, then rediscovered in the early-aughts, to a certain degree, by a few now-abandoned music blogs. Is she still alive? Is she still singing - somewhere? Bueller? Bueller?

You'll likely find these questions a bit more urgent after you listen to her, because she sounds like a gloriously funky, blissed-out cross between Aretha Franklin and Della Reese, though you won't mistake her for anyone else. Just give a listen to her take on the Free's classic "All Right Now" which all but obliterates the original with its driving high energy and vocal ferocity.

Or her version of "Laughter In The Rain," which, according to Neil Sedaka's bio "My Own Story" sent him and his management into a panic when it hit the airwaves - and the charts - well ahead of his own version. "We've got to push up our release before she gets too much airtime!" he exclaimed at the time. Lea beat him to the punch by an entire month.

The rest of her work runs the gamut from rock to gospel-tinged ballads and more. Yet there's still no Wikipedia entry for Lea, no Billboard bio and precious little information about her on other sites beyond her LP credits and date of birth. She's a mystery wrapped up in one of the most versatile voices of her era.

Ready for more Lea? Marvel at her warm, soulful crooning in her bluesy 1982 LP, "My Silent Place." It was sadly her last. 

What are you listening to this week? DJ Li'l Scratch wants to know.
Till next time...purr, bitches, purr! 🐾

Photo Credits: Skies Unlimited, United Artists Records