Leee John is drawing on his early years with Imagination as he works on new material.
The vocalist shot to fame in 1981 as frontman of the trio, who scored hits such as Body Talk and Music and Lights, becoming one of the defining British acts of the early eighties.
It was with the group that Leee scored his earliest success, but the sessions that led to the group’s formation were initially intended to be a solo project.
“When I wrote and recorded Body Talk, I said, ‘I don’t want to do this as a solo artist – I want to do it as a group,’ because I didn’t trust them as a company,” he says of R&B Records in RETROPOP’s February 2023 issue. “I thought, ‘If they screw this up as a group, then I still have my solo career. But if I do it as a solo artist, then they’ve screwed up my solo career!’.”
It was while working as a backing singer that Leee met guitarist and bass player Ashley Ingram, with whom he formed a songwriting partnership and previously worked in a short-lived band Fizzz, before recruiting Errol Kennedy to join the fledgling group. He explains: “I had just turned 21, but because I started in the industry as a child, I realised the illusions of what people see and what really happens behind the scenes are two different situations…”
The group’s debut was written and produced alongside Tony Swain, with whom Leee is set to reunite for a direction that will “take people back” to the early days of Imagination.
“Right now, it’s an important time for bringing people closer together through music,” he smiles. “A lot of people, especially in France and the US, want that kind of music and there’s a guy in Belgium I’ve been working with and every time he will do like an Imagination baseline. So I’m going to do some stuff with him.
“I don’t want to disappoint people and make them think I’m doing another Just an Illusion or Music and Lights, because I’ve got to move with the times. But I will give a little nod to it and perhaps I’ll reach into the bag and pick up a track that I’ve had for ages… because I have a lot of catalogue!”
In the meantime, Leee is eager to put out his new ‘40 Years’ box set, which features a vast selection of unreleased material – including early tracks Imagination demoed for the ‘Closer’ (1987) album.
“There’s three songs I wrote with The James Boys; one is called Two of a Kind and the other is Some People, and every time I hear I get tingles, because it takes me back to those chord structures and arrangements and harmonies that we did together,” he reveals.
“We also did one called Casualty, which is very Michael Jackson-esque, and these are the tracks that got us our second deal with BMG. We thought they were going to be on the next album, which became ‘Closer’, but they never were.”
‘Imagination Feat. Leee John: 40 Years’ is out January 20 on Demon and available to pre-order now.
Read the full interview in the February 2023 edition of RETROPOP, out now. Order yours or subscribe via our Online Store, use our Store Finder to locate your nearest stockist, or get Digital Copies delivered direct to your devices.
