Houston (Texas) February 11, 1941 or 1942 Contradicting an Isaac Hayes, whose genius was to revolutionize the R & B, Leon Haywood skillfully surfed for twenty years on the commercial potential of the soul and funk for a career. To have learned his craft as a pianist in the formation of Big Jay McNeely and Sam Cooke, Leon Haywood very familiar with the musical history of rhythm & blues, which allows it to make its debut on the charts since 1965 under the name of Leon Hayward with She's With Her Other Love, a soul as the more traditional recorded for account of the Imperial brand through radio host Magnificent Montague.
When the Decca found two years later with It's Got to Be Mellow after a short stint with the Parckers of Parky Axton (Hole in the Wall) and a stay at Fat Fish ( Soul Cargo in 1966 ), Leon Haywood incorporated in his music the influence of Motown which reproduces the sound intelligent backbone. After a second hit for Decca in early 1968 ( Mellow Moonlight), he disappears from the charts and is dedicated to his job as a studio musician in Los Angeles to return to the front of the stage six years later thanks to 20th Century with a long string of hits including comfortable Keep It in the Family is first. While Sugar Lump and Believe Half of What You See (and Not of What You Hear) follow in 1974, next season it is even more favorable with the album Come and Get Yourself Some especially the very suggestive I Do Something Freaky Want'a to You moves into the Top 10 Top 20 Soul and Pop.
Leon Haywood then made a foray in Columbia, recorded in 1976 The Streets Will Love You to Death - Shared - since become one of the proponents of standard favorites the soul-blues tradition. Upon his arrival at MCA in 1977, the page is turned and he jumps on the train of disco with the catchy compositions like Super Sexy , Double My Pleasure and Party. Yet with his return to 20th Century in 1980 he earned his biggest bestseller when Do not Push It, Do not Force It missed a place only the head of the black classes.
changed once more stable, Leon Haywood joined Casablanca where he signed the album It's Me Again and the single I'm Out To Catch in 1983, but his style is clearly past fashion and concludes his list a few months later with Tenderomi.
Refusing to give up the job of the disc, Leon Haywood is now head of his own studio in Los Angeles and brand Evejim specializing in the production of artists from blues and soul-blues like Jimmy McCracklin, Little Joe Blue, Clay Hammond, Vernon Garrett and Ronnie Lovejoy.
Biography taken from the book Encyclopedia of Rhythm & Blues and Soul by Sebastian Danchin, Fayard (2002).
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