Flowers was and is still one of the most biggest garage tracks to have ever graced the UK garage scene.
In April 2000 'Flowers' made it to number two in the UK national charts and became one of the biggest anthems in clubland and radios stations all over. It was the 37th biggest selling single of that year! (300,000 copies) and made it onto numerous compilation albums and is still, even 12 years on, which proves this a hit not to be forgotten!
12 years on 'FLOWERS' is still one of the most requested garage tracks on radio and in clubland. The girls are still doing pa's and have been, since the track was released 12 years ago which undeniably shows it is STILL one of the most POPULAR,LOVED and requested old Skool garage p.a's of its time!
Leanne has been a singer/songwriter since 1996 when she was chosen in a college audition to sing in front of a theatre full of students and A & R personnel from Pete Waterman’s record company PWL. Studying Journalism at the time and unbeknown to Leanne, another student at the college had entered her into the audition, having heard her singing in the college toilets!!
As a result of her performance of the Drum and Bass track ‘Greater Love ft Elizabeth Troy’, Leanne was then asked to join a writing team where she spent three years writing and recording a catalogue of songs to present to record companies. The writing team consisted of Leanne, a music manager and producer named Mike Powell and artist and DJ Shine MC. The three put some serious hours in, getting together every working day to write songs and record demo’s and ideas and it was during this time that Leanne signed her first record deal with a group named Trinity Way, a signing which was filmed by MTV at the ‘In The City’ event held in Manchester!!!
Trinity Way soon began to make waves in the music scene and were offered a deal with a Reverb Records / Warner Brothers after performing five songs from their song library at a Manchester event. Trinity way later found that the current line up didn’t work and lead singer Leanne went solo. Leanne remained a solo artist for a several months and recorded several songs. The signature song being an R and B Ballad named Flowers, the song had many remixes created. Leanne later decided that an additional vocalist should come on board, It was from this that the group Sweet Female Attitude (Sweet F.A) was formed and Leanne would later be joined by Catherine Cassidy who added her vocals to the UK Garage hit ‘Flowers’.
Following release ‘Flowers’ sold in excess of two hundred thousand copies in the first week of sales alone bringing the group a UK and European club tour, an album deal with Cutfather and Joe, TV interviews, photo shoots, radio interviews, performances on Top of the Pops, MTV, T4, Radio One’s One Big Sunday amongst many other. They were also nominated for a Brit Award.
It was following this that Leanne became a mother and began to concentrate more on song writing. The song ‘Good Feeling ‘was written with ASAP music and used for Eurovision, earning both Leanne and Catherine a place at the prestigious Ivor Novello Awards as part of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.
Remaining the closest of friends, Leanne and Catherine in the years which followed began to pursue individual projects, Leanne would go onto train as a teacher and has worked for approximately ten years teaching vocalists in a college in Manchester, whilst also maintaining a busy gig schedule and a string of recording projects.
Leanne would write and perform the vocal ‘Breakdown’ for the Drum and Bass group Dawn Raid who released the track on 36 Hertz Records. Leanne also sung as a session vocalist such as singing vocals on the track ‘It’s a Shame’ by Jaime Jay and Bimbo Jones, alongside writing and recording other projects with Sweet Female Attitude and the Miami Superfly Boys.
In the years which followed, both Leanne and Catherine would meet and become close friends with the successful DJ, Producer and highly acclaimed musician Jon Fitz. The only natural result would follow, the trio began recording together and in addition to recording on a number of house music tracks, they formed a Chill Out / Trip Hop band called The Koo Zooz. This was a different project for the group who collectively wrote and produced the album without outside influences or constraints, signing seven of the tracks to various chill out albums and house music labels for release.
2013 has seen the emergence of the Future Garage scene which has seen an increase in gigs for Sweet Female Attitude who have performed their old school track ‘Flowers’ at a variety of clubs, events and arenas including the O2 Academy, Es Paradis Ibiza, S2S Festival alongside radio and charity performances for Rave 4 Life. Going from strength to strength, Leanne is now planning to record some new music, writing and performing on solo and collaborative projects starting with the release of ‘Closer 2 You’ with Fake Remedy, an exciting new Deep House project from Jon Fitz and Aron Ezra.
