Singer/songwriter/background vocalist David Lasley's prolific career spans more than three decades. He is perhaps best-known for the hundreds of songs he has written for the likes of Anita Baker ("You Bring Me Joy"), Maxine Nightingale ("Lead Me On"), Patti LaBelle ("Come What May," "I Don’t Go Shopping"), Aretha Franklin ("There’s a Star for Everyone"), Boz Scaggs ("Jojo"), Bonnie Raitt ("Got You On My Mind," "I Ain't Gonna Let You Break My Heart Again"), Tina Turner, Whitney Houston, Dusty Springfield, Crystal Gayle, Natalie Cole, Jermaine Jackson, Phoebe Snow, Herb Alpert, Rita Coolidge, Patti Austin, Dionne Warwick, Al Green, the Oak Ridge Boys and many more.
His work as a background vocalist is equally auspicious. Most familiar for his more than 26 years singing with pop/folk icon James Taylor, Lasley has also backed such artists as Bette Midler, Bonnie Raitt, Luther Vandross, Aretha Franklin, Jimmy Buffett, Joni Mitchell, Ringo Starr, Cher, Chaka Khan, Teddy Pendergrass, and countless others.
Matching his tremendous talent as a songwriter, vocal arranger and background vocalist is his stature as a solo performer. He was the third person – after Elton John and Donna Summer – signed to David Geffen's Geffen Records. Between 1982 and 1999, he issued four highly regarded solo albums in addition to two other albums with a group called Rosie and five single releases. The solo albums, DEMOS (Rondor, 1981), MISSIN' TWENTY GRAND (EMI America, 1982, produced by Lasley), RAINDANCE (EMI America, 1984, produced by Don Was), and SOLDIERS ON THE MOON (Agenda, 1990, produced by Jeffrey Weber), all have received substantial critical acclaim.
In 2000, he issued BACK TO BLUE-EYED SOUL (ZACODA), a retrospective of his work featuring rare recordings dating back to 1966. Music critic Dave Marsh described BACK TO BLUE-EYED SOUL as "the Basement Tapes of high-pitched heartbreak. The great falsetto singer David Lasley…put this together by rummaging through his 35-year career. Call it the best Smokey Robinson CD of the 21st century."
Also in 2000, Expansion Records, the highly regarded soul/smooth jazz label, released a new Lasley recording in the United Kingdom called EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE. In 2001, EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE was released in the U.S. on the Thursday Market Music label, garnering praise from New York's Next Magazine which said, "Lasley hasn't lost his knack for writing and performing timeless and soulful RandB ballads and pop tunes."
Lasley has also seen a resurgence of interest in his career in Japan during the last few years. Three of his solo works and two Rosie albums were re-issued by Japanese labels, including MISSIN' TWENTY GRAND with four bonus cuts from Raindance (Toshiba-Emi Ltd., distributed by Vivid Sound Corporation), DEMOS featuring most of the original songs plus 18 bonus cuts (Cool Sound), SOLDIERS ON THE MOON with five bonus cuts (Cool Sound), Rosie’s LAST DANCE (Cool Sound), and Rosie's BETTER LATE THAN NEVER (BMG Japan). In 2005, Cool Sound issued DEMOS VOL. 2 - TAKE A LOOK, featuring Lasley's early recordings of songs from his critically acclaimed MISSIN' TWENTY GRAND and RAINDANCE albums as well as unreleased works.
Boasting a rich, versatile voice and an astounding four-octave vocal range, Lasley sings mainly in his distinctive higher register. He was named with Smokey Robinson as one of the music industry's five top falsetto singers by Esquire magazine. His voice has been compared on more than one occasion to Laura Nyro’s, and his vocal style has also been likened to Dusty Springfield's. A review of MISSIN' TWENTY GRAND by respected New York Times critic Stephen Holden characterized his voice as "a passionate, penetrating falsetto which he shades with an unusually expressive authority." Chicago Magazine's Lloyd Sachs' review of MISSIN' TWENTY GRAND enthused, "A better white-soul album hasn't come out in years; a better white falsetto you have not heard in a longer time than that. Don't miss it."
