Leo Sayer: songs, scandals and a spooky phone call from Elvis

Leo Sayer is full of stories. Now 77 and living in Australia, the pint-sized pop star remains energetic and talkative, recalling a 1970s peak that included a famously disappeared Top of the Pops pierrot performance — removed, he says, because of Jimmy Savile’s prominent role — and the brisk cheeriness that has long been part of his stage persona.

He had two successive US number ones with You Make Me Feel Like Dancing and When I Need You, alongside hits such as Moonlighting, Long Tall Glasses, Thunder In My Heart, One Man Band and Orchard Road. A self-described lyrics man who admired Bob Dylan, Sayer built a career on songs that told stories and on a falsetto-inflected pop sound that became synonymous with the decade.

Born Gerard Sayer and raised in Shoreham-by-Sea, he moved to London in the 1960s to work as a graphic artist, designing album covers including Bob Marley’s Catch a Fire and playing harmonica with folk artists such as Donovan and Bert Jansch.

Australia, Shoreham-by-Sea

leo sayer, moonlighting, orchard road, shoreham-by-sea, london, jimmy savile, pierrot, elvis, bob dylan, bob marley