Leo Sayer live on stage with a lifetime of songs

LEO SAYER never really left the stage.

Not in spirit, anyway. Even during long pauses between tours, or quiet spells at his home in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, the stage is where he says he feels most alive.

“Somebody asked me the other day where do I live,” he says. “And I said between the bandstand and the front monitors. That’s home. The rest of the time? That’s just passing time, you know.”

Now 77, the singer-songwriter is back on the road with a full band and no support act, performing what he calls “the story of my life on stage” – a full retrospective, delivered as only Leo can.

“We take you all the way through the career,” he says. “The narrative comes from the songs, really.”

It is a career that has spanned more than five decades and crossed every imaginable musical border, from the ballads of the British charts to American R&B, disco, soul and even a Grammy-winning dancefloor jam. And although his catalogue includes number-one hits and global tours, Sayer still finds joy in the quieter details: the lemon-and-ginger tea he swears by for his voice, the fresh outfit change between sets, the ritual of walking calmly on stage to meet an audience ready to celebrate.

“They’re not gonna hold back,” he says of Australian crowds. “They’ve paid their money and they’re gonna have a good time. I love that.”

 

His return to the road this year follows a period of renovation and rest.

“I wanted to take the first part of this year off,” he says. “I’m renovating my house at the moment, and also, you know, only a couple of weeks ago I was 77. So you want to kind of pace it a little bit.”

But not for long. He has just completed a sold-out tour across the UK and Ireland and is now heading home to Australia for a short run of concerts and festival dates, including a performance at Twin Towns Services Club in Tweed Heads on Saturday, September 6.

“We did the Good Times tour during COVID,” he says. “Every act was on it, Joe Camilleri, Russell Morris, Marcia Hines, John Paul Young. It was very hard to complete the tour. It took about a year because all the states had different rules. It was tough.”

Sayer knows a thing or two about perseverance. He found his voice as an altar boy in Shoreham-by-Sea, later singing in school bands and jamming on harmonica in art college. He arrived in London just as the counterculture of the late 60s was taking off. He designed record covers and wrote poetry, lived on a houseboat for a time, and gigged anywhere he could. It was after teaming up with drummer-turned-songwriter David Courtney and producer Adam Faith that he became Leo Sayer. The voice, the curls, the white face paint of Pierrot – all became part of a remarkable rise.

In one of his first American shows, he walked on stage in full makeup, performing to a stunned Memphis crowd.

“It was the black part of Memphis, you know,” he recalls. “You can only imagine, look at that guy, look at the clown. What is he doing? They thought it was the KKK coming to visit.”

By the end of the week, he was sneaking back into venues in jeans and a T-shirt to eavesdrop on the crowd.

“I’d say, what did you think of that guy? In a terrible American accent, of course. But at least I could find out firsthand.”

The stories roll out: playing Central Park, a show with JJ Cale by the Mississippi, and a surreal 180,000-person concert on Long Island with the Beach Boys and a parking lot full of Hells Angels. The stage was barely big enough to stand on, but the memory that remains is what happened backstage.

“Brian Wilson saw me from his trailer and said ‘hey, that’s Leo, go get him’. I was hoisted into Brian and his wife Marilyn’s trailer and it was lovely. We just chatted and chatted. I was able to quiz him about all my favourite songs and he answered every one.”

One of Sayer’s biggest hits, You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, emerged not from a studio session but from a jam. In 1976, he and legendary drummer Jeff Porcaro were fooling around in between takes. The band, including Ray Parker Jr. and Marvin Gaye’s keyboard player John Barnes, just kept playing. Unbeknownst to them, producer Richard Perry hit record.

 

“The week later he played me the tape,” Sayer recalls. “I went yeah, that was fun. He said ‘no, that’s your number one hit. Get the chorus for that and you’ve got a number one’.”

The song did just that, topping the US charts and winning a Grammy for Best R&B Song – the first white artist to do so in that category. In 2006, nearly 30 years later, a remix returned the track to the top of the UK dance charts.

“I was miming to a vocal I did in 1977, in 2006,” he laughs. “A strange thing, but magical in its way.”

Despite the awards and accolades, he says the real reward has always been the connection. Songs continue to find new life in front of a crowd.

“Every time I sing Giving It All Away it feels like it’s today,” he says. “It’s a very determined song. You paid all your dues. It still relates.”

With more than 400 unreleased songs in his vault and a new album on the horizon, Sayer is not finished yet. He laughs off the suggestions of retirement.

“We could be like John Farnham or Suzi Quatro where it’s the endless end. So it will never be quite over.”

He has even been thinking about naming a future tour after an older song.

“One is called Is That All There Is? and I’ve been thinking of calling the next tour that,” he says. “But we’re not done. People keep inviting us back.

“We never thought it would last this long. We were just expressing our times, you know. Now it seems the words we came up with are still relevant as we get into our 70s and 80s. It’s remarkable really.”

Leo Sayer performs at Twin Towns Services Club in Tweed Heads on Saturday, September 6.

For tickets and details, visit the Leo Sayer website.