While most kids are concerning themselves with Twilight or the latest games console at the age of 12, Leddra Chapman picked up an acoustic guitar for the first time, sat down and began to write her first song. Since that day the young singer-songwriter has never looked back. Realising she had a powerful knack of capturing her thought provoking emotions in her lyrics, Leddra continued to write when the mood took her until she had enough quality songs together to get herself into local venues to play them live.
With a quintessentially English voice which is both pure and unique, it wasn’t long before she was being asked to play venues all over the country. At the same time Leddra spent as much time as possible teaching herself piano and keyboards as well as learning to produce demo’s of her songs in a small home-studio her dad built in the family garage. Those early home demo’s became the songs that started to create more and more interest from talent scouts in the music industry and as soon as people started to hear about the buzz surrounding this Essex school-girl she was invited to play Britain’s premier new music showcase – Manchester’s In The City Music Conference. Leddra played a quite beautiful thirty minute set to a packed out crowd at the Warchild Acoustic Showcase and was subsequently chosen as a Best of ITC in Music Week magazine who described her as ‘filling a similar space to early Alanis Morissette and Joni Mitchell’.
Going from strength to strength in the last 12 months, Leddra is now attending the London College of music and has also had the summer of her life performing as part of the relationship she has with clothing company Quiksilver as one of their European brand ambassadors. The co-promotion has seen her supported wholeheartedly by the company and their new range Quiksilver Women, and involves modelling and promoting the range as well as performing at the events across Europe. Staying at the Quiksilver house in the South of France for 10 days and playing a headline show to 1000’s of surfers and fans of surfing during the Quiksilver Pro France surf championships was one of the highlights of Leddra’s hectic 2009.
Having worked on completing her debut album through the early part of 2009 with some of the best musical collaborators the UK music scene has to offer, Leddra released the album ‘Telling Tales’ in late November of last year. Featured on this collection of ‘pitch-perfect acoustic pop’ (The Independent, January 2010) is ‘Story’, a track championed by Sir Terry Wogan throughout his final months presenting the Radio 2 Breakfast Show. ‘Story’ was subsequently B-Listed on Radio 2 for 7 consecutive weeks. This period of time culminated in a televised live performance of ‘Story’ on ITV’s This Morning. Refusing to rest on her laurels, Leddra and her live band followed that media activity by heading out around the UK for 2 extremely successful nationwide tours as well as selling out renowned London venue The Lexington in aid of The Willow Foundation Charity.
With heartfelt and honest lyrics that come straight from her delicate soul, Leddra Chapman is one of the most gifted young songwriters and vocalists in Britain today. This summer promises to be just as busy as the last as Leddra embarks on shows throughout the UK.
