• WATCH DAVID ON "THE TONIGHT SHOW/JAY LENO" WITH JT'S BAND ON TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29

• READ THE DISCOVERIES MAGAZINE FEATURE STORY ON DAVID!

Tune in to The Tonight Show With Jay Leno on Tuesday, October 29 to see David performing with James Taylor and band.

The October 2002 issue of DISCOVERIES MAGAZINE has a wonderful feature story on David by writer Carlo Wolff titled "DAVID LASLEY - The Best Singer You Never Heard Of," and you can read the text which is now posted on our REVIEWS page.

TRANSCRIPT OF DAVID'S LIVE CHAT
AT JAMES-TAYLOR.COM
NOW AVAILABLE

Click HEREto read the transcript of David's live chat at the James Taylor Online web site that took place on Saturday, September 21. Thanks to everyone for such a terrific turnout. David really enjoyed the entire experience and greatly appreciated all the lovely comments and interesting questions!

MUSIC CONNECTION MAGAZINE MENTION OF DAVID

MUSIC CONNECTION magazine's August 19, 2002, "Songwriter Profile" of Roxanne Seeman included this nice reference to David:

"She has rebuilt her career from the ground up, has resisted signing a major publishing deal, and prefers to work on projects and with artists who inspire her, including her longtime friend, blue-eyed soul master, David Lasley."

To read the February 17, 2002, "Songwriter Profile" of David himself, visit our PRESS COVERAGE page.

• WATCH DAVID ON PAY-PER-VIEW BROADCAST OF 2001 JAMES TAYLOR "PULL OVER TOUR" AIRING SEPTEMBER 8 AND OTHER DATES

• NEW FEATURED SONG FOR SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER FROM DAVID'S EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE CD

Watch David on the iNDEMAND pay-per-view broadcast of "James Taylor in Concert: The [2001] Pull Over Tour," which will air several times beginning on Sunday, September 8. Check with your local cable operator for times and other dates.

The U.S.A. version of David's EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE album was released a year ago this fall, so our Featured Song for September and October is "What's It Gonna Take" from the CD. (It's also on David's BACK TO BLUE-EYED SOUL retrospective CD.) This song was written by David, Robin Lerner (who wrote Faith Hill's "This Kiss"), and Marsha Malamet. Visit our SOUNDS page to hear it.

NEW "TALES FROM HOME" ABOUT BACKGROUND VOCALS
RECORDING SESSIONS FOR
JAMES TAYLOR'S JUST-RELEASED OCTOBER ROAD

Check out our new TALES FROM HOME featuring David's description of the background vocals recording sessions for October Road, the new CD from James Taylor. This "Tales" includes some rare photos of David singing with James throughout the years.

• MORE "ASK DAVID" QUESTIONS ANSWERED, PLUS LINK TO MASCARA ALBUM SONG "IT'S COOL" FEATURING VOCALS BY DAVID AND LUTHER VANDROSS

• NEW FEATURED SONG FOR AUGUST!

• WATCH FOR NEW "TALES FROM HOME" (COMING SOON) WITH DAVID'S COMMENTS ON RECORDING SESSIONS FOR JAMES TAYLOR'S NEW OCTOBER ROAD

Visit our ASK DAVID page, where David has answered some recent and not-so-recent questions, such as how background vocals are arranged, his stint with The Utopias at Fortune Records when he was just starting out, and his work with Luther Vandross as part of the groups Wild Honey (which issued Good Vibrations, an album of Beach Boys songs) and Mascara (which released See You In L.A.) .

Click HERE to listen to a RealAudio version of "It's Cool," a song from the See You In L.A. album that features lead vocals by Luther Vandross and David. (This link takes you to Luther's section on Soulwalking.com -- scroll down to the bottom of the page for the link to "It's Cool." While you're there, check out the section devoted to David on this site.)

Sorry again about the delay in responding to some of the older ones, but please keep "asking" because David is really enjoying everybody's interesting questions!

Visit our SOUNDS page to hear David's cover of James Taylor's "Looking For Love on Broadway" (the Featured Song for August), which is from his MISSIN' TWENTY GRAND album.

In late August, watch for the second TALES FROM HOME, David's reports from Los Angeles which appear periodically on our site. The new installment will focus on David's description of the background vocals recording sessions for James Taylor's new October Road album that's being released on August 13. While you're waiting, visit TALES FROM HOME now to read the first installment and the archived "TALES FROM THE ROAD -- David's Report from the James Taylor Tour (2001)."

• CHECK OUT OUR FEATURED SONG FOR JULY!


• DAVID MENTIONED IN BILLBOARD STORY ON NEW JAMES TAYLOR ALBUM


• DAVID QUOTED IN GOLDMINE STORY ON FORTUNE RECORDS

Visit our SOUNDS page to listen to the Featured Song for July, "I'm Waving My Flag," a "summer heartbreak" tune from David's DEMOS CD.

David's background vocals are featured on OCTOBER ROAD, the new CD from James Taylor which is being released on August 13. David was mentioned in the following excerpt from BILLBOARD magazine's June 15 issue interview with JT about the recording:

QUESTION: The "lay down" chant at the close of "September Grass" sounds almost African.

JAMES TAYLOR: I had that impression, too; that bass a cappella chorus sounds almost like Ladysmith [Black Mambazo]. The background vocals are David Lasley, Arnold McCuller, Kate Markowitz -- the singers that I usually work with -- and my Kim and me. That's a surprise at the end of a song like that, because my version of it is like that mellow California sound at the end of the '70s. You never really know where you're gonna end up, and that's what gets called forward and evoked. The left turns and things seeming out of place are the most interesting.

Click HERE to read the entire article's text, which is available at that location temporarily .

GOLDMINE magazine's May 3 issue has an interesting story by Carlo Wolff about Fortune Records, the label that recorded David's group, The Utopias, when he first started out in the music business. David was interviewed for this article; following is an excerpt from it:

One of the best sources for Fortune information is a relative latecomer to the label, David Lasley, one of the few white soul singers to record for the Browns [owners of Fortune].

Lasley, whose voice powered numerous disco hits and who has sung backup for James Taylor for nearly three decades, recorded with his sister Julie and her girlfriend, Joanie Hughes, for the Browns as The Utopias. A few of their Fortune and Hi-Q singles, "Girls Are Against Me," "Look At The Clock" and "Back In The Woods," have been reissued on BACK TO BLUE-EYED SOUL: COLLECTED WORKS 1966-1999 (Zacoda).

A song Lasley wrote about Fortune long after he'd left the Detroit recording scene depicts the Fortune world:

And we jumped around the corner
to hide from Mrs. Brown
She would make you sing for nothin'
Take the tapes and leave town
And you'd hear you on the juke box
Under someone else's name
Played by someone else's quarter
Whole fuckin' thing is insane

"On Third Street" by David Lasley
from MISSIN' TWENTY GRAND

Originally released in 1982 on EMI America, this great, blue-eyed soul album has just been reissued on CD as Zacoda 2001.

For details on all of David's recordings, click HERE.

• DAVID INCLUDED IN PERFORMING SONGWRITER STORY ON JAMES TAYLOR

• "OUT OF PAWN" FROM LAST DANCE (BY DAVID'S GROUP ROSIE) IS OUR FEATURED SONG FOR JUNE, WITH LEAD VOCAL BY DAVID AND BACKGROUND VOCALS BY JAMES TAYLOR

• LAST DANCE LP OFFERED AS BONUS WITH CDs PURCHASE (LIMITED TIME OFFER)

Performing Songwriter's extensive profile of James Taylor (May issue) includes several sidebar interviews. David, Kate Markowitz and Valerie Carter are featured in the sidebar at right that says, "We asked JT's backup singers, 'What Are You Listening To?'" Read David's response on our PRESS COVERAGE page

Visit our SOUNDS page to listen to "Out of Pawn," our Featured Song for June, in which the tables are turned as James Taylor sings background vocals to David's lead. "Out of Pawn" is on the LAST DANCE album from David's group Rosie. James's voice is most distinctively heard during the fade. (Also see special offer below.)

Check out our new LIMITED TIME OFFER!! Buy any three CDs (or coffee mugs or combinations of both) and receive an original, sealed LAST DANCE album (LP), the second recording from David's group Rosie, a true collector's item! For details, see our CONTACT/SHOP page.

• MORE "ASK DAVID" QUESTIONS ANSWERED

• NEW FEATURED SONG FOR MAY

Visit our ASK DAVID page, where David has answered some recent and not-so-recent questions. Sorry about the delay in responding to some of the older ones!

There's a new Featured Song on our SOUNDS page, "Roll Me Through the Rushes," from BETTER LATE THAN NEVER (RCA, 1976) by David's group Rosie. This is the album version of the song (words by Lana Marrano, music by David) that was also the first and only single released from the album. The shorter "single" version is on David's BACK TO BLUE-EYED SOUL retrospective CD. David sings the lead vocal mainly in his low voice (rather than in his trademark falsetto).

In the BACK TO BLUE-EYED SOUL liner notes, David has this to say about the genesis of BETTER LATE THAN NEVER and the song:

Rosie's record deal came about because singer Genya Raven (of Ten Wheel Drive fame), who had acquired a production deal at RCA, saw us performing at Max's Kansas City. At this point, Rosie included Ula Hedwig as well as Lynn Pitney, Lana Marrano and me, but we had just decided to go our separate ways. After working on the club scene for four years, we were starving while other groups like Manhattan Transfer and LaBelle had become huge. I went to my attorney's office for advice about the group's break-up, and, by a stroke of luck, I met Genya there for the first time. She offered to audition Rosie, liked what she heard and walked us into the RCA office of Mike Berniker (Barbra Streisand's legendary producer). We sang live in his office, with Marsha Malamet playing piano. Even though Ula had joined the Harlettes, she knew all of the parts and came along to the audition to help us out. We got the deal, and the record was released some months later. Ironically, The Harlettes later recorded this song, and Chaka Khan was in the audience while they were performing it at a Bette Midler concert. That's how she first heard the song and eventually went on to record it. I was lucky enough to sing background vocals on Chaka's version, produced by Arif Mardin, who I've known and worked with for 30 years.

• DAVID'S NEW "TALES FROM HOME" DEBUTS AS WE CELEBRATE SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF DAVIDLASLEY.COM

• TEXT FROM GIG MAGAZINE INTERVIEW WITH DAVID POSTED

We're celebrating the second anniversary of DavidLasley.com with our new TALES FROM HOME, David's reports from Los Angeles, which will appear periodically on our site. This first installment features descriptions of his experiences during the six months following the end of the James Taylor "Pull Over" 2001 Tour, including sessions he's done, trips he's taken, and random observations on life in Los Angeles and other environs, plus photos.

We've just posted the text of the December 2001 interview with David from GIG magazine in which he discusses his work as a background vocalist for James Taylor and others.

NEW FEATURED SONGS
FOR MARCH AND APRIL

There are two new Featured Songs on our SOUNDS page, "Revelations" from David's EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE and "Teamwork" from BACK TO BLUE-EYED SOUL.

"Revelations" was written by Roxanne Seeman and Jay Oliver. In a review of EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE, this song was described as follows:

"... moody with a strutting backbeat... could have been a Smokey Robinson song... the backing vocals [by David and Phillip Ballou] smoulder... spine-tingling and blissful."

In the BACK TO BLUE-EYED SOUL liner notes, David has this to say about "Teamwork":

"This song, from the movie Body Rock, was written by Bruce Roberts and Andy Goldmark, executive produced by Phil Ramone, produced by Bruce Roberts, and recorded at the old A&R Studios in New York, now torn down. Bruce and I did most of the vocals with Gordon Grody, Patti Austin and others joining in. Although the song was a mild hit, it found real fame for years as a popular number in aerobics dance classes -- maybe even yours."

"SONGWRITER PROFILE" OF DAVID
FEATURED IN FEBRUARY 17 ISSUE
OF MUSIC CONNECTION MAGAZINE

MUSIC CONNECTION magazine's February 17 issue spotlights David in its "Songwriter Profile" column. You'll find the text on our PRESS COVERAGE page. Also, David's new Expectations of Love CD was recently reviewed by the Germany-based "Smooth & Soul" web site. Excerpts are on our REVIEWS page.

• DavidLasley.com COFFEE MUGS NOW AVAILABLE!
• NEW FEATURED SONG FOR FEBRUARY
• MORE EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE REVIEWS ADDED; LINKS PAGE UPDATED

Check out our new DavidLasley.com coffee mugs on the CONTACT/SHOP page. They feature the cover image of David's new EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE CD on one side, and "David Lasley -- Singer/Songwriter/Background Vocalist -- DavidLasley.com" on the other. Mugs with cover images of David's other CDs are available, too.

The new Featured Song on our SOUNDS page, "Change All of That," is from EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE. Two MP3s from the CD can be accessed from this page as well.

Two new reviews of EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE have been added to our REVIEWS page. Also, our LINKS page has just been updated.

"CATCH-UP TIME"
(INCLUDING MORE "ASK DAVID" ANSWERS)

Now that the holidays are over, we've taken a moment to catch up on some things that we hadn't had time to let you know about.

Visit our ASK DAVID page, where David has answered a few more questions, mostly about the 2001 James Taylor tour.

David was quoted in an October 8, 2001, GRAND RAPIDS PRESS feature story about the fifth anniversary of Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the James Taylor tour performed last summer. David's comments in the article were as follows:

"The sound is very good there and, as far as venues go, it's one of the best," said David Lasley, a backup singer for [James] Taylor who's played two sold-out shows at Van Andel Arena the past three years and who tours arenas across the globe with the soft-rock star.

"It's one of the easiest to access, to get in and out," the Michigan native added. "It has a certain coziness in that size arena. People are a little bit closer."

With its acoustically treated walls and roof, sound experts say the facility has one of the shortest "reverberation times" (for sounds emanating from the stage) of any arena in the nation. That means no echoes.

More important, Lasley said, the facility has earned a reputation among pop and rock performers as being "a great venue" to play. "People talk about that," he said.

In 1987, David produced a song called "Navy Blue" for singer Diane Renay, who had a big hit with this same song when she originally recorded it in 1964. Renay has now issued a retrospective CD, which features what she calls "the David Lasley 'Navy Blue' mix." Visit Diane Renay's web site for info about the CD and to see two photos of David taken during the 1987 recording.

David's recording of his song "If I Can Dream" is featured on COOL TREASURES, a compilation CD released last July by Cool Sound (Japan) featuring previously unreleased material by artists such as David, Robbie Buchanan, Greg Guidry, Jason Scheff, Michael Sembello, Bill Champlin and others.

Cool Sound included David's recording of "I Fell Out of the Magnolias" on its AOR LIGHT MELLOW, another compilation CD (also from last July) that features tracks from albums released by the Japanese label. "I Fell Out of the Magnolias" is a cut from David's DEMOS album, re-issued by Cool Sound in 1999 as a 2-CD set with bonus tracks.

Cool Treasures and AOR Light Mellow are available from Cool Sound's web site.

DEMOS is available via our CONTACT/SHOP page.

And finally, watch for the first installment of David's "Tales from Home," coming soon, and a live chat with David on the James Taylor Online Web Site in a month or so.

INTERVIEW WITH DAVID
FEATURED IN DECEMBER ISSUE
OF GIG MAGAZINE

Check out the wonderful interview with David in the December issue of Gig magazine.

• DAVID'S EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE OFFICIALLY RELEASED IN THE U.S.!

• NEW SONGS (INCLUDING MP3s) AVAILABLE VIA OUR SOUNDS PAGE

We're very excited to announce that EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE, David's newest CD, has been officially released in the United States on the Thursday Market Music label.

The recording features David's vocals on 13 pop, R&B and smooth jazz songs written by such artists as Philip Bailey, Josh Kadison, Michael Kamen, Robin Lerner and David himself.

EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE was originally issued last year in the United Kingdom by Expansion Records, the highly regarded soul/smooth jazz label. The U.S. release contains the same tracks as the U.K. release along with an expanded CD booklet incorporating additional photos and comments by David.

Click HERE to read the PRESS RELEASE.

The two Featured Songs on our SOUNDS page are from EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE, and two MP3s from the CD can be accessed from this page as well. (We've also rotated in some new songs from David's other recordings.)

Click HERE more information about the CD, including David's comments, a track list, credits and links to reviews.

And you can order your very own copy (which comes with an autographed photo) from our CONTACT/SHOP page.