Bubbling Under: Lea Roberts- "Laughter In The Rain"

The version that should have been a hit.

Welcome to Bubbling Under. Each edition I cover an artist or track that charted outside of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. This week: Lea Roberts

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Back in July, I proposed today’s artist as a possible post idea in a poll I ran. The results ended up being something of a three-way tie.

Today’s artist caught my attention when I heard her version of Neil Sedaka’s “Laughter In The Rain”. In the comments, I read a story regarding Neil Sedaka hearing it on the radio. Legend has it that Sedaka panicked and contacted his then-label boss, Elton John of Rocket Records (Yes, that Elton John), who he convinced to contact parent label MCA to move the release of his own version up.

Now, I don’t know if this story is true. I mean, this was the height of Elton John’s career. There’s very little information about Roberts online. I’m pretty sure neither Sir Elton nor Neil Sedaka are going to come right out and say they sabotaged Roberts’ version of the song from charting any higher.

All we know is there were two competing versions of the same song. One climbed to #1 and the other was a modest R&B hit that also made it to #109 on the Bubbling Under chart.

Personally, I prefer Roberts’ version.

Leatha Roberta Hicks was born on April 15, 1946, in Dayton, Ohio. Her debut single, the powerful soul ballad “Prove It” was released in 1969. “Prove It” was a modest R&B hit at #39. Honestly, it’s a shame that it’s not regarded as a soul classic.

Roberts released more singles over the next four years but failed to land another R&B hit during this time. It’s really too bad because there’s some real gold in her discography starting with her second single “Love On My Mind”

There was another soulful ballad with her third single “Fifty Fifty”.

She also dabbled in proto-disco with “Can’t Get Enough Of You”

Eventually, she released a debut album, 1973’s Excuse Me, I Want To Talk To You. The album spawned a minor R&B hit (#94) with the ballad “(If You Don’t Want My Love) Give It Back”.

The more I keep hearing her ballads I think Roberts could have crossed over onto the pop charts. Or at least been a bigger deal on the R&B charts than she was. I’m not sure where United Artists went wrong but she should have been huge.

Neil Sedaka’s career as a performing artist had hit a brick wall by the time Roberts was just starting out. He was still a successful concert draw in the UK and Australia. This resulted in some hit singles in the latter country, notably 1969’s “Star Crossed Lovers”

Eventually, he moved to the UK, met four musicians who would later become Bubbling Under favourites 10cc, and recorded the album Solitaire. He had a minor UK hit (#43) with “Beautiful You”. It would be the start of a string of hits he had in that country from 1973-1974.

He also wrote this and had a hit with it in the UK before anyone else did:

His career was still dead Stateside. It took a chance encounter with Elton John at a party to turn things around. John, then one of the biggest stars in the world, learned Sedaka wasn’t signed to a North American Record label at the time. He offered to sign him to Rocket for distribution over there. Sedaka accepted and the rest is history.

A compilation album called Sedaka’s Back, which consisted of material from his recent albums was released. Initial sales were slow. So, did a desperate 1960’s pop star contact his record label when he heard someone else released the same single he was hoping to have a comeback with? Who knows. We do know though that his version made it to #1.

Following “Laughter In The Rain”, Sedaka had a string of North American hits including a collaboration with Elton John called “Bad Blood” to follow it up.

Considering how massive Elton John as at the time, it’s likely Sedaka still would have had hits based on the connection regardless.

This wouldn’t be the last time the rock legend helped the career of an older artist he’d listened to growing up. Cliff Richard later surfaced on Rocket in North America where he landed his first Top Ten hit with “Devil Woman”.

Lea Roberts did finally have a much-deserved Hot 100 entry during 1975 when her cover of Free’s “All Right Now” from her second album Lady Lea peaked at #92.

Roberts wasn’t on United Artists much longer. She released one more single on the label, “Loving You Gets Better With Time” and then didn’t resurface again until 1982 when she released a third album.

Her 1982 album, My Silent Place, is the only one of the three on music streaming services. The version on Spotify sounds suspiciously like a vinyl rip but it’s good to hear more material by her. The album is fairly varied. There’s jazzy ballads, uptempo funk and some pop material. There doesn’t appear to have been a single released from this album. There’s a couple of tracks that had a few thousand streams but they didn’t do Roberts justice. I preferred the Shirley Bassey-esque title track. Unfortunately, Roberts has vanished into obscurity since this and nothing is known about her currently.

As for Sedaka, he stopped having hits in the early 1980’s but remains active in his musical career and is still performing. He’s active on YouTube and posts concert videos regularly. Here’s a recent one. Personally, Sedaka isn’t my cup of tea as a performer outside his string of 1970’s hits, but good on him for still doing it at 85.

Wednesday: The Bee Gees hit a rough patch.