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Artist
Ava Leigh
12+ albums
reggaefemale vocalistschilloutsummer vibeava leigh
about
“It makes me go la-la-la….” The hook of Ava’s first single from her first ever album, “Turned-on Underground”, tells it like it is. “Everyone’s always shocked, and wonders -- how come a Chester girl sings reggae?” Ava announces mischievously. “I know I don’t look like a person who would sing reggae – until you hear it!” Indeed, why does the voice of a conscious reggae sister emerge from this camera-ready blonde babe? Basically, The Ava Story, which is only just beginning, is already a triumph of an old Jamaican proverb – Who feels it, knows it. Though she’s a devotee of a music made before she was born and a world away, mid-1970s Golden Age reggae, Ava’s own breezy, sexy, sensitive spirit makes a much-loved sound fresh, and very much her own. Helped by roots veterans like Sly and Robbie, and top UK sound men like Futurecut and Nick Manasseh, “Turned-on Underground” was recorded between Harry J’s famous studio in Kingston, Jamaica, Nick’s garden shed right by Glastonbury Tor and a basement studio in Brixton. Her vocal nuance and shimmering harmony show AVA appreciates all she’s learned from old school greats like Marcia Griffiths and Dennis Brown. One of their favourites when Ava used to sing along with her Mum, an avid Jamaican music fan, while they did the housework in Chester, was Matumbi’s lover’s rock classic, ‘After Tonight,’ sweetly re-invented here by Ava together with Finley Quaye. Ava experimented with all sorts of music, from rock to r’n’b. But reggae chose Ava,
