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When Leah Sadler was in pre-school and her teacher asked about her goals, she said she wanted to be a famous singer.
Little did her parents know less than a decade later their teenage daughter would be on the road to becoming a professional singer. The 14-year-old from Lethbridge just got back from recording in Nashville and has plans for a CD release and tour next summer.
“It goes way back to when I was about three,” Leah says. “I was singing nursery rhymes around the house. Mom and them would tell me I had a good voice. But I was the shyest kid. The moment someone came in I shut my mouth.”
Then at age 10, they were driving along and Leah asked her mother if she could start singing lessons. Mom Corinne gave her the ultimatum. She was willing to get her into singing lessons, but Leah would have to sing in front of people in a recital.
The family was still living in Las Vegas, where Dad Stan worked as a pharmacist, when Leah found performer and vocal teacher Jilla Roberts, who would later become her manager.
After a year of vocal lessons, Roberts thought it was time to record Leah and from there she has moved on to Nashville, recording her first five songs for CD at age 11 and 12, with people who have worked with Wynonna Judd, Donna Summer and Rick Springfield.
The family moved back to Lethbridge three years ago, but it hasn’t stopped Leah’s career ambitions. “This is a dream of mine since I was little. It’s something I’ve reached for so long I’m not willing to give it up, not now. Life is too short,” Leah says.
More recently, she has begun writing her own music, having co-written eight songs this past summer. Corinne says her daughter doesn’t get her talent from her. Asked if she sings, she says, “Not a note.” But Leah’s Dad can play the piano and her grandmothers can both sing. Corinne says she could recognize her daughter could sing at a young age, but she didn’t push it. “I knew she was talented. I didn’t know how talented,” Corinne says.
Leah has played piano since she was a small child and took up guitar three years ago. She uses a notebook to scribble down lyrics that come to her and a tiny recorder to remember the melodies that float into her head before they’re forgotten.
“It’s quite a bit of a complicated process. I just start off by getting words onto paper,” she says. “It’s like a story. You start from this line and build the story from there.”
This past summer was one of the most exciting so far as Corinne and four kids went to Las Vegas, before heading to Hollywood for a photo shoot for Leah, then Tennessee to do some song writing. “I have no clue where this is going to take me. I hope it will be somewhere where I’ll never forget,” Leah says. Corinne says in the past people were pushed toward a career that would give them security, but she has encouraged her four children to follow their dreams, find out what they like and run with it.
Leah’s choices have not come without sacrifice. It has meant missing out on things with her friends at times. This Halloween when they all headed out, she had to stay home because it was close to recording time and she couldn’t risk getting a cold and missing it.
Because dedication to her fledgling career is so great, heading to a regular classroom is impossible. She has been doing distance learning through Lethbridge School District 51 since Grade 8. It has meant when she does do school work it can be a rigorous schedule of working from home, getting up at 5 a.m. and sometimes studying into the evening. Her school work hasn’t dropped off, with Leah receiving the Principal’s Special Award last year for her academic and other achievements.
Corinne says Sheryl Hawkins, director of curriculum with Lethbridge School District 51, and Ian Lowe, a counsellor at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute, have helped immensely.
Every three to four months they’ll head down to record another three or four songs. She expects to have some songs ready for the radio by the end of the month and a CD by next summer, which will feature the drawings of her younger sister, Kenna.
Although Nashville might be intimidating to some, Leah says, “The people are amazing. They’re down-to-earth and really friendly to talk to. All the musicians, I click with them. It’s really nice.”
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At 14, Leah Sadler looking to be the next Nashville star
Much luv.....Paula