Lesley-Ann Jones | |
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Born | Kent, England |
Occupation | Author |
Language | English |
Nationality | British |
Children | Three |
Website | |
www |
Lesley-Ann Jones is a British author, [1] journalist and broadcaster who spent more than 20 years as a national newspaper journalist on Fleet Street. Of Welsh descent, she was born in Kent, England. She read French and Spanish at the University of Westminster, and worked in the music industry.[ citation needed ] She later followed her father, sportswriter Ken Jones, to Fleet Street.
In the 1980s, she worked for Chrysalis Records, London, the label of some major acts at the time (Spandau Ballet, Jethro Tull (band), Special AKA, Midge Ure & Ultravox, Blondie), where she wrote sleeve notes, prepared press releases and organised interviews for the national press. She moved into television at the inception of Channel 4. The prime-time Saturday-night pop-music magazine series ‘Ear Say’, which she co-presented with Capital Radio DJs Nicky Horne and Gary Crowley, led to guest appearances on a variety of TV and radio shows, including Capital's You Ain’t Heard Nothing Yet, a weekly music quiz produced by pop guru Phil Swern, and Radio Clyde’s Bill Padley Show, with Padley and singer/songwriter Jim Diamond. She also wrote a weekly column for The Sun . She spent six years as a showbusiness feature-writer for the Daily Mail , Mail On Sunday and You magazine, touring with Paul McCartney, David Bowie, [2] the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Queen [3] [4] and other star acts of the day.
As a freelance feature writer, her contributions to publications in the UK, US, Australia and Europe included interviews with Tony Blair, Frank Sinatra, Raquel Welch, Mel Gibson, Charlton Heston, Paul McCartney, Brigitte Bardot and Princess Margaret. She appeared weekly for several years on BFBS Forces Radio with the late Tommy Vance, and worked on documentaries on Stevie Nicks, Ken Russell and Jermaine Jackson. She also appeared on TV shows Fax!, Music Box and Livewire in the UK, and E! Entertainment and Hard Copy in the US. The Pampers diaper commercial she filmed with her baby daughter for Saatchi & Saatchi was aired across Europe for 18 months, one of the campaign’s most successful ads.
Following three years writing columns and features for the Sunday Express and the Mail on Sunday , she revised and updated her 1997 definitive biography of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury. Republication by Hodder & Stoughton in October 2011 (paperback 2012) was due to coincide with the release of a Mercury biopic to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the singer's death. However, production of the film was delayed, and it was not released until 2018. [5]
In 2010, she was appointed Showbusiness Editor [6] for SKY/Freesat's music channel Vintage TV. She wrote and presented their celebrity interview series 'Me & Mrs Jones' (produced by Transparent Television and featuring heritage rock and pop artists Rick Wakeman, Frank Allen of The Searchers, Leee John of Imagination, Kim Wilde, Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel, Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet and Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt of Status Quo.)
In December 2015, she wrote and co-produced The Last Lennon Interview for ShowBiz TV. [7] It was internationally acclaimed, and was first aired on the 35th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. It was the first time former BBC Radio 1 DJ Andy Peebles had publicly talked about his interview with John and Yoko Ono in New York only a couple of days before Lennon was murdered.
The mother of a son and two daughters, she lives in London and Kent, England.
Her father was sports reporter Ken Jones, [8] and her uncle is ex-footballer Cliff Jones.
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song by the British rock band Queen, released as the lead single from their fourth studio album, A Night at the Opera (1975). Written by lead singer Freddie Mercury, the song is a six-minute suite, notable for its lack of a refraining chorus and consisting of several sections: an intro, a ballad segment, an operatic passage, a hard rock part and a reflective coda. It is one of the few progressive rock songs of the 1970s to achieve both widespread acclaim and commercial success, and appeal to a mainstream audience.
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970 by Freddie Mercury, Brian May, and Roger Taylor, later joined by John Deacon (bass). Their earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock, and heavy metal, but the band gradually ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works by incorporating further styles, such as arena rock and pop rock.
Freddie Mercury was a British singer and songwriter who achieved worldwide fame as the lead vocalist and pianist of the rock band Queen. Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury defied the conventions of a rock frontman with his theatrical style, influencing the artistic direction of Queen.
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness was a benefit concert held on Easter Monday, 20 April 1992, at Wembley Stadium in London, England, for an audience of 72,000. The concert was produced for television by Ray Burdis, directed by David Mallet and broadcast live on television and radio to 76 countries around the world, with an audience of up to one billion. The concert was a tribute to Queen's lead vocalist, Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS on 24 November 1991.
"Under Pressure" is a song by the British rock band Queen and singer David Bowie. Originally released as a single in October 1981, it was later included on Queen's 1982 album Hot Space. The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming Queen's second number-one hit in their home country and Bowie's third, and also charted in the top 10 in more than 10 countries around the world.
Marc Bolan was an English guitarist, singer-songwriter and poet. He was a pioneer of the glam rock movement in the early 1970s with his band T. Rex. Bolan strongly influenced artists of many genres, including glam rock, punk, post-punk, new wave, indie rock, Britpop and alternative rock. He was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of T. Rex.
Kenny Everett was an English radio DJ and television entertainer. After spells on pirate radio and Radio Luxembourg in the mid-1960s, he was one of the first DJs to join BBC Radio's newly created BBC Radio 1 in 1967. It was here he developed his trademark voices and comical characters which he later adapted for television.
Queen II is the second studio album by the British rock band Queen. It was released on 8 March 1974 by EMI Records in the UK and Elektra Records in the US. It was recorded at Trident Studios and Langham 1 Studios, London, in August 1973 with co-producers Roy Thomas Baker and Robin Geoffrey Cable, and engineered by Mike Stone. It is significant for being the first album to contain elements of the band's signature sound of multi-layered overdubs, vocal harmonies, and varied musical styles.
A Night at the Opera is the fourth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 21 November 1975 by EMI Records in the United Kingdom and Elektra Records in the United States. Produced by Roy Thomas Baker and Queen, it was reportedly the most expensive album ever recorded at the time of its release.
A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are used in a broad range of popular music, traditional music, and world music styles.
"The Great Pretender" is a popular song recorded by the Platters, with Tony Williams on lead vocals, and released as a single in November 1955. The words and music were written by Buck Ram, the Platters' manager and producer who was a successful songwriter before moving into producing and management. The song reached No. 1 on Billboard's Top 100, and No. 5 on the UK charts.
Henry James Beach, known as Jim Beach or "Miami" Beach, is a British lawyer and band manager, best known for being the long-time manager of the rock band Queen, its individual members and the comedy group Monty Python. He was nicknamed "Miami" by Freddie Mercury, a play on his surname. He took over as manager of the band in 1978 after he had acted on their behalf as a lawyer.
John Richard Deacon is an English retired musician best known for being the bass guitarist for the rock band Queen. He wrote several songs for the group, including Top 10 hits "You're My Best Friend", "Another One Bites the Dust" and "I Want to Break Free"; co-wrote "Under Pressure", "Friends Will Be Friends" and "One Vision"; and he was involved in the band's financial management.
Lucy Boynton is a British and American actress. Raised in London, she made her professional debut as the young Beatrix Potter in Miss Potter (2006). She appeared in television productions Ballet Shoes (2007), Sense and Sensibility (2008) and Mo (2010), making guest appearances on Lewis, Borgia, Endeavour, and Law & Order: UK. Boynton portrayed writer Angelica Garnett on Life in Squares, which aired on BBC. She appeared as an isolated popular girl in The Blackcoat's Daughter (2015) and starred as a bold aspiring model in Sing Street (2016). She also appeared in horror films I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016) and Don't Knock Twice (2016).
"John and Elvis Are Dead" is a song by English singer-songwriter George Michael from his fifth studio album, Patience (2004). It was co-written by childhood friend David Austin. It was released on 30 August 2005 as a download-only single and was therefore unable to chart in the United Kingdom under the chart rules at that time. The song marks Michael's final single from a studio album.
Classic Rock, produced by Jeff Jarratt and Don Reedman, is the first album in the Classic Rock series by London Symphony Orchestra. It was released on 1 July 1978 by K-Tel International, and entered the UK Albums Chart on 8 July 1978, rising to number 3 and staying in the charts for 39 weeks. The album gained platinum certification from the British Phonographic Industry on 10 November 1978. The album was recorded at EMI Abbey Road Studios on 15–16 October 1976. A further nine albums in the series followed, between 1979 and 1992.
Marc Martel is a Canadian Christian rock musician. In 1999, he formed the band Downhere before going solo in 2013. Aside from his own work, Martel is known for his Queen covers and his vocal likeness to frontman Freddie Mercury. He provided some parts of Mercury's singing voice in the film Bohemian Rhapsody.
A Night at the Odeon is a live album by the British rock band Queen. The album is the first official release of the band's Christmas Eve performance at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1975, filmed by the BBC. The show was broadcast on BBC2 and BBC Radio 1, and included one of the first live performances of "Bohemian Rhapsody". It is the band's most popular bootleg.
Bohemian Rhapsody is a 2018 biographical musical drama film that focuses on the life of Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the British rock band Queen, from the formation of the band in 1970 to their 1985 Live Aid performance at the original Wembley Stadium. It was directed by Bryan Singer from a screenplay by Anthony McCarten, and produced by Graham King and Queen manager Jim Beach. It stars Rami Malek as Mercury, with Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joe Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, and Mike Myers in supporting roles. Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor also served as consultants. A British-American venture, it was produced by Regency Enterprises, GK Films and Queen Films, and was distributed by 20th Century Fox.
Ava Cherry is an American singer and model. She collaborated with English musician David Bowie between 1972 and 1975; the two met in New York City when she was a nightclub waitress and Bowie was touring for The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Afterwards, they began a period of personal and artistic collaboration that heavily influenced the Young Americans "blue-eyed soul" era. Following this, she struck out as a solo singer and backing artist for musicians such as Luther Vandross and Chaka Khan.