Leah Kunkel

"She just had that sort of musical personality where she didn't need to be the lead voice."

Leah Kunkel, a singer/songwriter who made her bones in the close-knit world of California folk/soft rock, has passed away. Though she recorded two albums under her own name as well as contributing her voice and her songs to a number of recordings by other artists, Leah is probably not well known to the public at large.

Leah Kunkel grew up in the shadow of her more well known sister, Cass Elliot. Both became part of the California folk/sunshine rock community in and around L.A. Cass rocketed to fame when she became part of the Mamas and The Papas, then launched a solo career that sought to demonstrate her talent and versatility to an industry that had already determined her niche. Partly because of this as well as a desire not to be compared with her older sister, Leah held off recording as a solo artist.

She visited Cass in Los Angeles, and was soon under contract as a songwriter with Trousdale Publishing. She wrote material that appeared on her sister's solo albums, including "What Was I Dreaming Of" (Dream a Little Dream), "Who's To Blame" (Bubblegum, Lemonade...and Something For Mama), "When It Doesn't Work Out" (Cass Elliot), and "The Road Is No Place For a Lady" (The Road Is No Place For a Lady).

In 1968 Leah married old flame Russ Kunkel, a much in demand session drummer who worked with many of the artists that Leah ended up singing with. Besides her songwriting she began recording alongside some major talent, providing harmonies and vocal support.

"I've studiously avoided becoming a singer on Cass or Russell's coattails," she told the Ogdensburg Journal in April of 1980. "I've walked away from people who wanted to sign me because of Cass or Russell. I knew a record company would have to believe in me as an artist. It's hard to be sure of. And after a while you get oversensitive to the issue." (Leah Kunkel Breaks in Without Coattails, Mary Campbell, Ogdensburg Journal, April 27, 1980)

She sang counter melody vocal on "From Silver Lake," a track on Jackson Browne's self-titled debut album. She wrote the track "Walking Song" as well as contributing keyboard and backing vocals to Arlo Guthrie's 1976 album Amigo. That same year saw her singing harmonies on records by Stephen Bishop (Careless), Carly Simon (Another Passenger), and James Taylor (JT).

On Another Passenger she sang backup vocals, along with Linda Ronstadt on the tracks "Half a Chance" and "In Times When My Head," while on JT she sang backup on Taylor's hit version of "Handy Man."

Leah's most important gig was singing with Art Garfunkel, where she became a collaborative vocalist as much as a backup singer. Touring with Garfunkel behind his Watermark album, Kunkel learned a lot from him about performing as he took on a mentor role to her. Leah has said that she basically did 'the Paul Simon part' on the tour, and it is true that she filled in for the songwriter on the Simon & Garfunkel songs, but her role on Garfunkel's solo material was a bit different. She does offer vocal support and harmonic lift in the same way Simon might have had he performed on these songs, but there's a more relaxed quality to Garfunkel's work with her. It also changes the dynamic that Leah is female, singing with a different range, vocal characteristic, and emotional charge.

Kunkel continued to work with Garfunkel into the eighties, and he was sufficiently impressed with her talent to suggest to Columbia Records that she should be signed as a solo artist. Her first record, Leah Kunkel, arrived in 1979.

Leah's voice has some qualities in common with her more famous sister, but she displays a comfort with the sounds of the mid-seventies that make her songs readily adaptable to its arrangements. Leah Kunkel is perfectly at home in the quiet storm Fender Rhodes-drenched decade, having much in common with early records by contemporaries like Melissa Manchester, Garfunkel, Karla Bonoff, and Stephen Bishop.

Having taken time to develop her own voice, Kunkel sounds assured and self-possessed, but of course one can hear some of her influences in these performances: the soaring Laura Nyro vocals of "Fool At Heart" or the steely Linda Ronstadt resolve of "Backstairs of My Life."

The album is gorgeously produced by Russ Kunkel and the ever-present Val Garay, who also engineered it. Besides the JT rhythm section of Kunkel-Sklar-Kortchmar, the record also features the talents of Steve Lukather, Jim Horn, Stephen Bishop, Joe Farrell (solo on "Jamaican Moon"), and Craige Doerge.

The record failed to chart, and Leah moved on to her second release, I Run With Trouble. This album featured some of the same musicians as her debut, with additional contributions from Jeff and Mike Porcaro, John Jarvis, Tom Scott, John Guerin, and background vocals on two tracks by Graham Nash ("Let's Begin," "Never Gonna Lose My Dream of Love Again").

Though she covers songs by a variety of songwriters from the time period, her own writing has grown considerably since her early days as a contract songwriter at Trouserdale. "The Only Man on Earth" resonates deeply with its sweet melody and Leah's overdubbed background vocals.

Both of these albums are full of well-written songs, thoughtful arrangements, and excellent performances by a singer who seems to have been seriously underrated. I Run With Trouble also failed to make a dent in the charts or in the public's awareness of Leah Kunkel, a voice they had been hearing if they listened to AOR or mellow California rock. It was her final release under her own name, though she continued to work with Art Garfunkel, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Stephen Bishop, and Jimmy Webb into the eighties.

In 1984, Kunkel formed the band The Coyote Sisters with Marty Gwinn Townsend and Renee Armand. The group was pop rock filtered through typical eighties sound cards: booming drums, banks of synths, and compressed guitar. Their first single, "Straight From the Heart (Into Your Life)" reached #66 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was widely played on Adult Contemporary radio.

In the mid-eighties Kunkel chose to step back from her music career, attending law school and becoming a lawyer, a vocation she continued to follow for the remainder of her life. Jim Olsen, the founder and owner of Singature Sounds, a record label, recording studio, and performance space for whom Leah provided legal counsel, said that “"She was really a wonderful singer and a good songwriter…She just had that sort of musical personality where she didn't need to be the lead voice."

Leah never completely quit performing, however, limiting her appearances to the occasional fling, which made them all the more wonderful an event.

Songwriter Stephen Bishop wrote on Instagram: “Leah helped to give me my big break by giving a tape of my songs to Art Garfunkel. She always championed my music, and believed in me when I needed it most. We co-wrote “Under the Jamaican Moon,” together and I’ll always cherish that collaboration. We should have written more songs together. Her talents as a solo artist—her songwriting and her beautiful voice—were remarkable, and yet I feel she was so underrated.”

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