By Christy Cooney
BBC News
Singer-songwriter Linda Lewis, whose career spanned more than four decades, has died at the age of 72, her family has announced.
The British musician was known for a five-octave vocal range and provided backing vocals for the likes of David Bowie and Rod Stewart.
She also enjoyed solo success in the 1970s with songs including Rock-A-Doodle-Doo.
Paying tribute, fellow musician Midge Ure said she had sung “beautifully”.
Announcing the death on social media, her sibling Dee Lewis Clay said her “beloved beautiful sister” had passed away peacefully at home and described the death as “heartbreaking”.
Lewis was born Linda Ann Fredericks in West Ham and attended stage school, later gaining non-speaking roles in British film A Taste of Honey in 1961 and, three years later, as a screaming fan in the first Beatles film, A Hard Day’s Night.
A self-taught guitarist and keyboard player, she appeared at the first ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970 and had four top-40 hits over the next decade.
Rock-A-Doodle-Doo reached number 15 in the UK in 1973, while It’s In His Kiss – a disco cover of The Shoop Shoop Song, first recorded by Merry Clayton – reached number six in 1975.
Her work with Bowie included backing vocals on the Aladdin Sane album, while other artists she worked with included Cat Stevens, Joan Armatrading, and Jamiroquai.
Writing on Twitter, Ure said: “Really sad to hear this. I had a massive crush on Linda Lewis.
“Not A Little Girl Anymore [the title track from her 1975 album] was a great song and beautifully sung by her.”
Mike Scott, frontman of Scottish band The Waterboys, said he was “very sorry” to her of Lewis’s death and that she had been “fabulous”.
Earlier this year, Lewis appeared on the James Whale Unleashed show on TalkTV and performed an acoustic version of Rock-A-Doodle-Doo.
Following her death, Whale said he was “so sad to hear” the news and described the rendition as “brilliant”.
