It would have been Leon’s 80th birthday today. He was working on an album before his health deteriorated and “Rainbow Deux”, only available on double-vinyl, with Leon’s own watercolor art on the cover, came out in September of last year. Six of the songs, recorded in 2012 and 2013, were already issued on a Japanese-only…
As a songwriter and producer, Leon Ware has worked with Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Marvin Gaye, Jeffrey Osborne, the Temptations, the Average White Band, Nancy Wilson, the Righteous Brothers, Stanley Turrentine, James Ingram, Ike and Tina Turner, the Miracles, Bobby Womack, and the list goes on. His schoolmates in Detroit were Aretha Franklin, Lamont Dozier…
In 1981, Leon Ware had of course already made a name for himself as one of Motown’s hit songwriters for Michael Jackson (“I Wanna Be Where You Are”), Marvin Gaye (“I Want You”), or post-Motown for Quincy Jones (“If I Ever Lose This Heaven”). He also collaborated with dozens of others and started his own…