80´s west coast music…
Younger sister of uber-vocalist and super celebrity ‘Mama’ Cass Elliott. Wife of numero uno all-star rock drummer Russ Kunkel. Session vocalist extraordinaire (she provided ALL the backing vocals for James Taylor’s huge JT album and remains the only female singer to ever sing back-up for Art Garfunkel). Songwriter and master interpreter. Leah Kunkel is all these things and more!
Schooled in the Greenwich Village folk scene where she hung with Fred Neil and John Sebastian, her life was changed by the arrival of The Beatles (wasn’t everybody’s?) and the international success of her elder sister’s band The Mamas & The Papas. Leah visited Cass in Los Angeles and soon found herself among the new generation of Hollywood pop songwriters. She soon
signed to Trousdale Music (home of P F Sloan and Steve Barri amongs others) and married old flame Russ Kunkel in 1968. She continued writing and demoing into the ’70s as well as cultivating a career as an in-demand session vocalist, contributing to records by Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Art Gunfunkel, Dan Hill, Carly Simon and big sister Cass.
In 1979 she released her first self-titled solo set, produced by (and featuring) husband Russ and featuring Jackson Browne on back-up vocals. It contains songs by The Bee Gees, John Phillips and Stephen Bishop alongside her own compositions and boasts a sleeve note by Art Ganfunkel. Its 1980 follow-up, I Run With Trouble, features songs by Jimmy Webb, Chip Douglas and Judy Henske as well as a guest appearance by Graham Nash and a sleeve from the lens of renowned.
Discography
Leah Kunkel/I Run With Trouble
Rev-Ola Records 2006
Tracks: Step Right Up, Under The Jamaican Moon, Souvenir Of The Circus, If I Could Build My Whole World Around You, Down The Backstairs Of My Life, Losing In Love, Step Out, Don´t Leave These Goodbyes, I´ve Got To Get A Message To You, Fool At Heart, Let´s Begin, The Only Man On Earth, Temptation, Hard Feelings, Never Gonna Lose My Dream Of Love Again, Someone On Your Mind, Dreaming As One, Heart Of Stone, Fast Asleep & I Run With Trouble.
Musicians on the Leah Kunkel/I Run With Trouble album: Leah Kunkel, Steve Lukather, John Jarvis, Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel, Jim Horn, Penny Nichols, Matthew McCauley, Joe Farrell, Stephen Bishop, Dan Dugmore, Lenny Castro, Craig Doerge, William D. Smith, Rosemary Butler, Andrew Gold, Jackson Browne, James Newton Howard, Doug Livingston, Renee Armand, Danny Kortchmar, Mike Porcaro, Jeff Porcaro, Graham Nash, Abraham Laboriel, Steve Forman, John Guerin, Tom Scott, Bernard Fleischer, Andrew Steele, Paul Fauerso, Ian Freebairn-Smith, James Lee Stanley, Pamela Stanley, Mitch Holder, David Hungate, James Self, Bobby Shew, Ernest Carlson, David Lasley, David Duke, Harlan Collins & Ronald Leonard.
I Run With Trouble
Columbia Records 1980
Tracks: Let´s Begin, The Only Man On Earth, Temptation, Hard Feelings, Never Gonna Lose My Dream Of Love Again, Someone On Your Mind, Dreaming As One, Heart Of Stone, Fast Asleep & I Run With Trouble.
Musicians on the I Run With Trouble album: Leah Kunkel, Steve Lukather, Mike Porcaro, Jeff Porcaro, Lenny Castro, Graham Nash, Stephen Bishop, Abraham Laboriel, Steve Forman, John Guerin, Tom Scott, Bernard Fleischer, Matthew McCauley, Andrew Steele, Paul Fauerso, Ian Freebairn-Smith, Penny Nichols, James Lee Stanley, Pamela Stanley, John Jarvis, Mitch Holder, David Hungate, James Self, Bobby Shew, Ernest Carlson, William Smith, David Lasley, David Duke, Harlan Collins & Ronald Leonard.
Leah Kunkel
Columbia Records 1979
Tracks: Step Right Up, Under The Jamaican Moon, Souvenir Of The Circus, If I Could Build My Whole World Around You, Down The Backstairs Of My Life, Losing In Love, Step Out, Don´t Leave These Goodbyes, I´ve Got To Get A Message To You & Fool At Heart.
Musicians on the Leah Kunkel album: Leah Kunkel, Steve Lukather, John Jarvis, Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel, Jim Horn, Penny Nichols, Matthew McCauley, Joe Farrell, Stephen Bishop, Dan Dugmore, Lenny Castro, Craig Doerge, William Smith, Rosemary Butler, Andrew Gold, Jackson Browne, James Newton Howard, Doug Livingston, Renee Armand & Danny Kortchmar.