Leona Lewis has survived a terrifying earthquake in Japan. The singer was in Tokyo promoting her album Spirit yesterday, when the natural disaster struck. Six people were injured and power was cut off to 4,500 homes.

Leona, 23, was sleeping in her penthouse suite at the 5-star Grand Hyatt Hotel when the tremors began.

‘Leona was really shaken up but called home to tell her family she was OK,’ a source tells the Daily Mirror.

The earthquake measured 6.8 on the Richter scale.

Source: Now Magazine

Leona Lewis has made her success look effortless, but the UK singer knew she had one chance to nail it when she was asked to sing to a group of legendary US songwriters.

As Leona Lewis walked down the hallways of Oprah Winfrey’s television studio, her nerves started to fray.

‘‘All those pictures of famous actors and musicians and I was kinda freaking myself out about it,” Lewis recalls.

Sure, her debut single Bleeding Love had topped the charts back home in the UK and further afield in Australia.

But this was Lewis’s chance to break it big time in America, which previously hadn’t cared too much for winners of Britain’s talent quest The X Factor. They had enough American Idol contenders to contend with.

‘‘The thing for me was to remember it was an opportunity to share my music with people and share it on a very wide scale,” she says.

‘‘So I got totally lost in it and lost in my zone.”

Her performance on Oprah — and the television powerbroker’s ringing endorsement afterwards — was the catalyst for Lewis to create US chart history.

Bleeding Love was the first single by a British female to top the Billboard Hot 100 since Kim Wilde claimed the position in 1987 with You Keep Me Hangin’ On.

That achievement propelled Lewis’s debut album Spirit to the top spot last week and an international pop superstar was born.

Orchestrating this global success are two of the music industry’s most powerful men — Simon Cowell and Clive Davis. They formed a joint venture to launch Lewis into the same pop stratosphere as Whitney Houston and Alicia Keys, two careers Davis had been instrumental in guiding.

The first step was to introduce Lewis to the established hitmakers and a clutch of newcomers who have proven invaluable in giving her music a contemporary and a classic sound.

Read more…

LEONA LEWIS has signed up to sing at NELSON MANDELA’s star-studded 90th birthday concert in London’s Hyde Park this summer.

It will be the X Factor champ’s biggest gig and the icing on the cake after her successful globe-trotting.

Leona has been setting the States on fire with debut album Spirit and single Bleeding Love. And on Saturday the London-born beauty was in Australia — one of a host of countries where she has topped the charts — for the Oz MTV Music Awards.

She will be joined at Hyde Park by AMY WINEHOUSE — legal and marriage woes permitting — DUFFY, RAZORLIGHT, KEANE, SUGABABES, EMINEM and JAMELIA on June 27.

The 45,000 tickets, priced from £65, will be sold using a Glasto-style online registration system which opens for a week from tomorrow.

Source: The Sun

Singers Amy Winehouse and Leona Lewis have both made their debut on this year’s Sunday Times Young Music Millionaires list.

24-year-old Winehouse has enjoyed a string of sold-out tours and major album sales with her second album ‘Rehab’ to rank 10th in the top 100 richest people in Britain under thirty, with an estimated fortune of £10m.

2006 X Factor winner Lewis meanwhile already has a reported £6m fortune, leaving her in 14th spot.

This year’s list is topped by Dhani Harrison, the son of the late George Harrison, who shares his £160 million inheritance with his mother, Olivia.

Other stars in the top ten include violinist Vanessa-Mea with £32m Karen Elson and Jack White, with an estimated £25m at number six, and Katie Melua with an estimated £18m to her name.

Source: Sound Generator

Leona Lewis has released her album Spirit in the U.S. and debuted at the top spot on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums. Now on April 28th she will release the album in a deluxe edition for the Asian countries and will be available in the U.S. at select retailers such as Circuit City.

The record includes the standard tracklisting which includes her single “Bleeding Love” currently sitting atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart as well.

Standard tracks include “Footprints In The Sand” which is based on the poem “Footprints.” The song was also co-written by Simon Cowell. Lewis’ Spirit includes a cover song by Avril Lavigne “I Will Be” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” which was made popular by Roberta Flack. Celine Dion also covered the song for a powerful vocal rendition.

New on this edition include the song “Forgiveness” which was written by Lewis herself and co-written by Kara DioGuardi. DioGuardi is responsible for several hits by the Backstreet Boys, co-wrote Kelly Clarkson’s “Walk Away,” and offered her song “Taking Chances” to Celine Dion for her edgier comeback album of the same name. She’s also worked with Ashlee Simpson for several of her songs with John Shanks on her debut release Autobiography. The song is a soulful R&B tune that can make the listener think of Christina Aguilera in the vocal styling.

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We reported earlier that Leona Lewis has reportedly hired Mariah Carey’s personal trainer Patricia May to help her get in shape.

According to The Sun, some of Leona’s team thought she needed to get fit in order to be more successful over the pond. A number one album and single is clearly not enough for these people!

But we’re glad to report that Leona has denied these reports and has absolutely no intention of hiring the personal trainer in question.

Hurrah!

Here’s a statement we just received from her lovely people:

‘This morning a tabloid newspaper published a story claiming that Leona is working with Mariah Carey’s personal trainer Patricia Gay. There is no truth to this story. The story also claims that this was suggested by ‘her advisers’ and that Leona would visit Patricia’s base in the Caribbean for intensive sessions. This is entirely fabricated. Leona currently does work with a personal trainer who helps her to stay healthy and find time for exercise amidst her demanding international promotional schedule. The decision to work with a personal trainer is entirely Leona’s.’

We’re pleased the X Factor winner isn’t getting sucked into the size zero culture. We reckon she looks great just the way she is.

And that’s why we love her!

Source: Daily Goss

Leona Lewis has been told to shape up if she wants lasting success in the US.

The ‘Bleeding Love’ singer, who recently topped The Billboard album and singles charts, reportedly needs a “sexier” image so her team have hired Mariah Carey’s personal trainer.

A source told Britain’s The Sun newspaper: “Leona has done brilliantly in the US. But some of her team think she needs to be a bit sexier if she wants to have the longevity of female artists like Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson or Madonna. Her looks needs to be more polished.

“They think that having Leona work with Mariah’s trainer Patricia Gay would be a treat for her because she adores Mariah.”

Leona, 23, will reportedly fly to the Caribbean for “intensive sessions” with Patricia to help get her into shape.

Mariah recently revealed she regularly flies Patricia - who helped Mariah shed around 30lbs - from St. Barts to her New York apartment for their training.

The ‘Touch My Body’ star has insisted she can’t see any similarities between Leona’s music and her own and claims there will never be a “new” Mariah.

She said: “Honestly, there has been so many, ‘This is the new her,’ and I’m like, ‘OK, show me the new her. And I’m not particularly talking about this girl Leona, because I only heard her once and I didn’t really hear a true similarity, particularly in the style of music.”

Source: List.co.uk

Mariah Carey says Leona Lewis doesn’t sound like her.

The chart-topping singer insists she “didn’t really hear any similarity” between Leona’s music and her own, and claims there will never be a “new” Mariah.

She said: “Honestly, there has been so many, ‘This is the new her,’ and I’m like, ‘OK, show me the new her. Can she come and work for me and be my double?’ ”

“And I’m not particular talking about this girl Leona, because I only heard her once and I didn’t really hear a true similarity, particularly in the style of music.

“It is what it is and critics have compared me to so many people who are not really singers, and they’re certainly not writers.”

Mariah says if she spent her time worrying about her chart rivals it would depress her.

She added to the Observer Music Monthly magazine: “If I was to focus on the comparisons and really dwell on that, it would bring me down so I just try to pray that I lose the sprit of jealousy, it’s not a good one - envy is a really powerful thing.”

Source: Female First

It was obvious the very first time she sang on X-Factor that Leona Lewis was in a different league to any previous TV talent show contestant. In the space of the last month she has proved the point twice, first by topping the American singles chart with Bleeding Love and then performing the same feat in the US album chart with Spirit - the first British woman to do either in more than 20 years.

Of course, Leona’s achievement begs the question of why it’s been two decades since our last female American chart-topper. Well, there are a couple of reasons.

The success of British music in the States has been in decline for many years. Hip-hop, R&B, and power ballads long ago eclipsed rock music in popularity across the pond and, put simply, they do those genres a whole lot better than us.

Another factor is the perceived unwillingness of British artists to put in the gruelling promotional legwork necessary to crack the States.

Oasis, for example, couldn’t seem to get through a US tour without splitting up.

Leona breaks the mould in a number of ways. First of all, she is a graduate of the Sylvia Young Theatre School, the Italia Conti Academy, and the BRIT School. In short, she’ll have been under no illusions about what’s required of her.

Secondly, she is arguably the first British singer able to compete vocally with the great American pop divas like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, and Celine Dion. The lung-busting million-notes-a-bar style (melisma, to give it its correct name) may not be to everyone’s taste but it sure sells records in the States.

But perhaps the single biggest factor is the people she’s got fighting her corner. Simon Cowell has more influence in American music circles than any British mogul for 30 years. Mind you, he is positively insignificant compared to Clive Davis, chairman of the RCA Music Group and music industry legend, who has taken Leona under his wing. And having a fan in Oprah never hurt anyone either.

Leona always looked capable of global superstardom. Now she is well on the way to achieving it.

Source: MSN

For a 23-year-old, Leona Lewis is quite good at waiting for what she wants.

After winning “X-Factor,” the British equivalent of “American Idol,” she holed up in studios around the world for more than a year, plugging away at her debut album out of the spotlight. Instead of trying to conquer the world all at once, she started with England last year and slowly worked her way through Europe.

Even with the arrival of “Spirit” (J/SyCo; Grade: B-plus) in the United States last week on the heels of her No. 1 single “Bleeding Love,” Lewis is taking her time.

“My family is coming,” she says, when asked how she was celebrating her No. 1 hit - the first No. 1 hit for a British female solo artist since Kim Wilde’s version of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” in 1987. “We’ll celebrate when they get here.”

And now, all that waiting is about to pay off. Lewis, like her incredibly accomplished debut, is a rarity in the struggling music industry. She sounds like a sure thing.

Her vocals can stand up against powerhouses like Mariah Carey and Celine Dion, but she has a vulnerability that makes people feel they can relate to her. She can handle the big ballads that the over-35 crowd picks up on their weekly Target or Wal-Mart run as well as the hip-hop-tinged up-tempo numbers that the kids are downloading.

Lewis says she learned her patience after leaving her performance arts high school when she was 17. “I knew what it was like to be doing gigs and then going into the studio and demo-ing songs,” she says. “I wanted to make a strong album, one that really represented me, and to do that I knew I needed time.”
She co-wrote the Celine Dion-like pop anthem “Whatever It Takes” and the Carey-esque ballad “Here I Am,” while working to “put her spin” on songs from Akon (”Forgive Me”), Avril Lavigne (”I Will Be”) and OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder and singer-songwriter Jesse McCartney (”Bleeding Love”).

Lewis wants a career like Dion or Alanis Morissette, “strong women who handle themselves well.”

Will that happen? Lewis is ready to wait and see!

- Source: MercuryNews.com