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Leo Sayer has stories. Boy, does he have stories! Muhammad Ali? Stories. Keith Moon? Stories. Elvis Presley? Stories. I’ve never met anybody with so many stories. He’s in Australia, where he lives, when we speak by video link. The pint-sized pop star with the mop of curly hair is 77 and still bouncing like a Superball.
Back in the 70s, he was famous for his turbo-charged energy. On his first Top of the Pops appearance with his breakthrough hit, The Show Must Go On, he dressed as a pierrot. If you’re looking for the footage, you won’t find it. Paedophile presenter Jimmy Savile played such a prominent role that the video was disappeared. “He was creepy. He wouldn’t get off the fucking stage, so they can never show my first performance. I’m sure he fancied me.”
Half a century ago, Sayer was at his peak. In 1976 and 1977 he had two successive number one singles in the US with You Make Me Feel Like Dancing and When I Need You. You Make Me Feel Like Dancing, a falsetto cocktail of pop, disco and R&B, could be the theme tune to the 1970s. When I Need You is 110% schmaltz. There were plenty of other hits – Moonlighting, Tall Long Glasses, Thunder In My Heart, One Man Band, Orchard Road. Sayer was a lyrics man. Bob Dylan was his hero. While he was no Dylan, he knew how to write a song that told a story.
In the corner of the screen is the name Gerard Sayer. Leo was his “pop” name, inspired by the mane. He greets me with the cheeriness of a Play School presenter. “He-llooooo! Can you see me? Hello, Simon, how are you?” The cheeks are a bit more jowly, the hair greyer, but he’s instantly recognisable.
I ask if he thinks of himself as Leo or Gerard. “Good question. I spend so long being the custodian of Leo Sayer, I think I need an escape valve. My passport, driving licence, I’m Gerard. And I like that.”
Sayer grew up in Shoreham-by-Sea in Sussex, to a northern Irish mother who was a nurse and an engineer father with a handlebar moustache and social aspirations. In the 1960s, he moved to London to work as a graphic artist, designing album covers (including Bob Marley’s Catch a Fire), doing bits of copywriting and inventing a couple of typefaces. Sayer was a skilled harmonica player and he would perform alongside great folkies such as Donovan and Bert Jansch in pubs in Ladbroke Grove.
He was signed by the pop star turned manager Adam Faith, who made him, then almost broke him. “Adam was an incredible mentor, it must be said. I can’t forgive him for the things he did later, but in the early days he was incredible. He knew everybody, he could open doors. Guys like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, everybody looked up to him. ”
Sayer was in his early 20s, and already married to his first wife, Janice, when he was signed by Faith. “God, did Adam curse me for that: ‘All these birds in the world and you go and marry that one.’ Lovely girl. A librarian in Shoreham. She was gorgeous, but very straight. He thought if I was single, more girls would come to the show. I always wanted to be an artist and he wanted me to be a pop star.”
Sayer was naive in the extreme. It was commonplace for pop stars to be swindled by their managers, but few were swindled like Sayer. “I signed power of attorney over to Adam Faith at the beginning of my career.” Which meant Faith could pretty much do as he fancied with Sayer’s finances. “When he picked me up, he said: ‘Right, we’ve got to make this legal, so sign this otherwise we’re not going to get started.’ It was very gangster.”
Years later, Sayer realised he had been conned. There are reports that he had to flog his £2m house, but that’s not true. He never got to buy the house in the first place. “I said to Adam and my accountant: ‘There must be enough money to buy this house,’ and they say, ‘No you’ve spent it all. There is none.’” Again, that wasn’t true. “They’d taken it.” Well, you were young, I say, so it’s not surprising that you were naive. “No,” he says. “I wasn’t that young. I was old enough to know better, but I didn’t want to stop the moving train.”
Things came to a head when he got himself a lawyer, Oscar Beuselinck, father of another popular 1970s singer and actor, Paul Nicholas. “Oscar rang Adam and said: ‘I think you’ve been a very naughty boy. There’s a young chap called Leo Sayer who I’m talking to, and I think you’ve stolen a lot of money from him.’ I had signed a renewal of my contract with Chrysalis records. I signed off a piece of paper.” Again, he didn’t read it. “It said: ‘Chrysalis records paid £650,000 to Leo Sayer to renew the contract.’ But the money didn’t go to Leo Sayer – it went to his managers, and they never told me about it.” Sayer often talks about Leo in the third person.
“So that’s why I say Adam was a robber.”
They settled out of court for £650,000.
Photograph: David Dagley/Shutterstock
When Faith died in 2003, Sayer was one of his pallbearers. I assume they had made up. But they hadn’t – he was just asked to help carry the coffin, and he agreed. By then, Sayer had long fallen out of fashion. He hadn’t had a hit since 1983. “The last time I saw him he was with the agent Colin Berlin in a restaurant. They said I should go into a musical, and revitalise your career. I went: fuck that, I’m not a theatrical song and dance man. I turned the table over and stormed out, and all the food landed on them.” Had he ever done that before? “Good lord no! I just saw red and went bang. So this very quiet guy, measured guy, suddenly goes maaaaad.”
To be fair, Leo, I say, it’s not the only time I have seen you go mad before. “Well, Big Brother, yeah. But that was because a guy manhandled me. I came out of that with bruises. I said everything I could to get them off me.” Sayer lost it in 2007’s Celebrity Big Brother after having his underpants confiscated. He broke out of the house, was shoved by security, and fired a volley of “fuck offs” at them.
Again, he admits he was naive to go on Big Brother. So why did he? “There was a guy who said: ‘We can get you a new record deal.’ There’s always a carrot, isn’t there? ”
Why did they confiscate his underpants? “Oh God, where do you start? I hate digging up all this again. I’d arrived with 20 pairs, Calvin Kleins. They took them away and gave me three in return.” Why? “Because. They. Wanted. To. Set. Me. Up. They brought out a mangle and wanted me to wash my smalls in the front room, with the angle that you, you big jumped-up pop star, would never wash your own underpants.” Was he surprised by how much it got to him? “Yes, I was being mentally affected. It was claustrophobia. That’s probably why I went to war.”
Did Big Brother change you? “I’m an unchanged person. I’m very normal. I’m the same curious person I was in 1973. But it’s a fight, Simon. You have to fight your own temptations.” He laughs at a distant memory. “I was standing on a corner in LA, shouting at everybody because I didn’t get the pink limo. I wanted the pink one! I didn’t want the black one. And two hours later you’re slapping yourself: did I really say that?!’
You certainly succumbed to the vanities of fame then, I say. “For that brief moment!” he concedes. Did he have groupies? “I never thought I was handsome. I’ve got a crooked face and I always thought I was the odd man out out; too short and all that stuff. I never thought of myself as a sex symbol.” And the groupies? “Amazingly, as time went on, yes. I threw them all aside because I was with Janice.” He pauses, and admits he didn’t throw all of them aside. “There is the famous straying of Orchard Road, of course. The song I had about the affair I had with a young girl who happened to jump on a train when I was on tour, and the rest is history, I suppose.” The girl was 16, and Sayer was in his late 20s. “I moved Janice out of our house. I said: ‘I’ve found this girl and I think I’m getting serious.’ And she said: ‘Right, well, get me a flat and I’ll move.’ And I did. She moved to a flat in Churchfield Road, Acton, but Orchard Road sang a little bit better. I moved the girl in the same day.”
How long did their relationship last? “Oh, it was only a night! As soon as the girl was in the house, I was like: what the fuck have I done? Because it just wasn’t right. So I sent her home. I drove her to the station and then drove back to see Janice, and the song is me putting the coins in the phone box and trying to be forgiven.”
Hold on a sec, I say. I’ve heard this story before. Didn’t her father chase you with an axe? Ah, Sayer says. “That’s kind of mythological. Hahahaha!’ So it’s not true? “It’s not quite right, no. Hahaha. I embellished that story when I was trying to make the song more of a hit. Hahahaha!” Should we correct the record? “Oh, please do.”
Which reminds me, I say. There’s another story – you got a phone call from Elvis, just before he died, asking to meet up with you. Absolutely true, Sayer says. As with many of Sayer’s anecdotes, there’s a long runway. In short, he’d fallen off the stage in the US, and got massaged by a celebrated former American footballer called Michael who was now working for a famous person he wouldn’t name. “Then one day he handed me the phone, and the person at the other end said [Cue Elvis voice]: ‘This is Elvis Aaron Presley, and you make me feel like dancing.’”
“You know the photographer Terry O’Neill? He was a great friend of mine, and a brilliant mimic. I said: ‘Is this Terry?’ And he said: ‘No sir, this is Elvis Aaron Presley.’ And I’m going, ‘OK’. And he says: ‘Well, Michael tells me you’re a great guy and I’m going through a bit of a hole myself in my life, and things ain’t so good, and I’ve just got me and my girlfriend here, and I would like you to come to Graceland and hang out. Let’s see what we can do together because I love your songs, man. I think you could be a good force of energy for me.’”
Blimey, I say. ‘We chatted for about 25 minutes. He was very humble and very sweet. You could see he was a good Christian. And he was really enthusiastic about, ‘give me some of your energy’. I’m kinda famed for that energy. So the next day comes, and I had this foreboding feeling. Then, on the radio, I heard: ‘The singer Elvis Presley has been brought into Memphis Baptist hospital dead on arrival.’” Sayer says he has rarely told the full story because he doesn’t think people would believe him. “I told Janice, and she said: ‘Don’t tell anybody – they’ll think you are a crank. Or name dropping.’ So I started to think it didn’t happen. That I’d made it up.”
But, seven years later, in 1984, he received a call from the producer David Foster inviting him out for dinner. By now, Sayer didn’t have a record deal, and he convinced himself Foster was going to offer him a contract. “Sitting beside David at this dinner is a beautiful woman Ginger Alden, who was Elvis’s girlfriend at the time he died. And David says: ‘Look, the reason you’re here, Leo, is Ginger, who is terrified of flying, managed to get the courage to come with me to London because she said, “I’ve got to meet Leo Sayer.”’ She’d been holding back this story for all those years. And Ginger told me the last thing Elvis said before she found him in the morning dead. She said: ‘He was singing your song and saying he was going to meet Leo, and couldn’t wait!’” Sayer looks at me intensely, barely credulous about his own story. “So is that something to carry?”
Wow! I heard you were also great friends with Keith Moon, the legendary Who drummer, famous for driving Rolls Royces into swimming pools. Well, here’s another strange thing, Sayer says. “I was with him the last evening of his life. With Paul and Linda McCartney and some others.” Now I’m beginning to get the willies. What was he like that final night? “Completely changed. Really relaxed. I don’t think he was taking drugs at the time. I remember talking to Macca and saying: ‘Look at Keith – he’s just normal, isn’t he?’ And Paul said: ‘Yeah, it’s a beautiful thing to see.’ And Keith was running around to everybody saying: ‘I love you, I love you.’ He came up to me and said: ‘You’ve always been a great friend and support.’ And I was thinking, ‘Oh, Keith, be normal! Be yourself.’ But he was emotional, and I don’t know what happened that night. They say he managed to get some drugs, and the next day he was gone. Overdose!”
Why does he think Moon was like that on the last night? “I’ve always wondered that.” Do you think he knew something? “I don’t know. But it was very strange. Look at another friend I had, Ayrton Senna. And look at that last race he was in. And the way he acted the day before he was killed. He was so caring for all the other drivers. He was so emotional. Everyone said they saw a different person. I think people know when the game is up.”
Sayer’s spooking me now. So I change the subject. To Muhammad Ali. I once saw a brief mention of the time Ali asked Leo to go jogging with him. Surely that’s apocryphal? Nope, he says. Another story, another runway of a buildup. Fast forward a few years, and Sayer’s now living in LA. At the time, British Airways gave him first class tickets in exchange for commercials he did for them. This time around, he’d just turned up at Heathrow without booking, and there was a problem. “They say [cue posh voice]: ‘Mr Sayer I’m so sorry, a gentleman has booked up all of first class and we can’t put you in there. We can put you in coach, but down the back of the plane is not very nice.’” So, Sayer comes over all pink limo. “I said, look, tell him who I am. I thought I’d pull a bit of rank. And they tell his manager, ‘It’s Leo Sayer!’ The answer comes back: ‘Mr Sayer, you’re going to be sitting in first class with the gentleman.’ I went, OK! Score! So I get on the plane and there he is in bandages two seats over. My fucking hero! My God! So I sit down and he starts singing You Make Me Feel Like Dancing to me in this broken, croaky voice! He’s just been in an exhibition match where he got the pulp beaten out of him. We talked the entire trip. It was the best thing ever. Just glorious. Every now and then his trainer and manager would come into the cabin and he’d say: ‘I’m talking to Leo!’”
There’s more. At the end of the flight, Ali invited Sayer to stay with him and his wife in Santa Barbara. They sent a limo for him, and he spent two days running, jogging and chatting with Ali. Again, he says, he’s found it hard to talk about it. “I could never really tell anybody because they’d never believe me number one, and number two it was very private.”
Fast forward another few years, and Sayer is invited to perform for Ali at his 60th birthday party in London. Well, how could he say no? “Ali’s very much in the Parkinson’s now. He’s very restricted in his movement, and he doesn’t really say anything. So I do the show, and he just glues his eyes on me. The way he’d look at you; you couldn’t look away. Then his wife came out and said: ‘He wants to see you backstage.’ So I went into the dressing room, and he gave me the biggest hug, and he said, ‘I love you man!’ That’s one of the most emotional moments in my life.” His bottom lip is quivering. “I always get emotional when I think about it. He pauses. “It was one of those moments. He just liked me. There was something chemical.”
Ali, Ayrton, Moon, Elvis, What does he think they all saw in him? “I’m one of those guys who’s an eternal good luck charm. I’m very charming. I’m friendly with everybody.” As soon as he gets on a plane, he’s chatting away to his neighbour. Do people know who he is when he starts conversations? “Oh yeah, I’m very well known. The only frustration in it is that people don’t often link the songs with me. So maybe there’s some work still to be done.”
What a life! There’s so much more to write about, and so little space. It’s getting late down under, and Sayer says it’s well past his bedtime. These days, he’s living comfortably with his second wife, Donna (they’ve been together for 40 years), earning a nice crust from streaming, downloads and even the occasional record sale. He’s preparing for his grand tour of the UK, and still fizzing with energy and hope. When I ask if he’s always been an optimist, he starts singing Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. “I see positivity in everything. This optimism I have can be blinding. It’s always a bright and sunny day.”
For example, he has always believed that a big comeback is just around the corner. He says his voice is as good as ever, and reminds me of the time he went to America to work with producer Richard Perry. “He said: ‘Your voice is unique. You’re Smokey Robinson. You’ve got that thing that Otis Redding had, the way you sell a song.’ He was quite right really.” Does he compare himself with Robinson and Redding? “Well, I bumped into Smokey a bit ago in LA, and I love him to death, but, no, I wouldn’t make that comparison. I don’t think I’m completely like anybody else.” OK, does he think he’s up there with them quality wise? “If you say so! Somebody told me once to be humble, and I’m trying to be humble.”
I recently read that, as well as the new tour, he’s preparing to publish his memoir, headline Glastonbury and release a new album. Is that the blinding optimism talking, or is it a reality? “Yeah, yeah, yeah! There are people who are trying to engineer things like that for me. It could happen. It might happen. But it’s not confirmed, put it like that. All my fans keep shouting for it, and there are people lobbying for me. There are even people in the ’biz who keep talking about it.” He looks at his phone. “God, it’s 11.08pm, past my bedtime.”
Look forward to seeing you at Glasto, I say. “OK! I’ll be there. You can come on stage!”
