“I look at my role as being a friend of Canberra Hospital, I can bring some pleasure and happiness sometimes to people who are really in difficult times in their lives.”
With backing music from a Bluetooth speaker, Sayer croons his way around the cancer wards, making a human connection with everyone he comes across.
Canberra Region Cancer Centre Operations Manager Caroline McIntyre says Sayer’s visits are typically kept a surprise for patients and staff.
“He’s always come in so discreetly,” she says.
“Normally it’s just very quiet, he comes up in the back lift and says hello to literally everybody.
“Some of them are doing it tough, and to have a little bit of joy and light – it really gives them a lift.
“What makes me happy is to see people getting chemo on their feet dancing.”
Jamming with Jimi Hendrix, Countdown and the Troubadour
Originally a graphic designer by trade, English-born Leo Sayer rose to pop prominence in London in the late 1960s, as a singer-songwriter – and was soon adopted by Australia as an honorary son after his first tour here in 1974.
He went on to become an Australian citizen in 2009.
Sayer was a regular on ABC TV’s Countdown during the 70s and 80s, performing chart-toppers like “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing”, “When I Need You”, “More Than I Could Say” and “Orchard Road”.
He blushingly admits they were wild days – when he didn’t always live up to his “good-guy” public persona.
“It was mad, I mean, Top of the Pops in England, Countdown over here,” he says.
“You were mobbed by the fans, I remember being dragged out of a limousine the first tour that I came here, and then speaking to crazy people like Molly Meldrum on TV and trying to sort of like take it all in.”
It seems hard to believe – the petite, well-spoken singer, with a mane of curly hair that inspired changing his name from Gerard to Leo – beating off mobs of screaming fangirls.
Sayer circulated in superstar company, becoming close friends with former Beatles George Harrison and Paul McCartney, collaborating with Roger Daltrey of The Who, and even sharing a sly cigarette or two with John Lennon and Yoko Ono who had a flat above his design studio.
“I met Jimi Hendrix right at the start of his career. I actually jammed with him, playing the harmonica, and him playing the guitar,” he says.
Recalling his 1975 opening night at the famous Troubadour Club in Los Angeles, he looked up to see an intimidating line-up of fans in the front row.
“It was David Bowie, Elton John, and ‘The Fonz’ [Henry Winkler].”
Alongside them: John Cleese, Mick Jagger, Bernie Taupin, and comedian Marty Feldman.
“We never thought it would last, we were adapting to things around us, writing songs about things that are around us,” he says.
“And we thought they were only for our generation — so the amazing thing is my music’s become like a fine wine, where you lay it down and years later, it becomes a collector’s item.
“We’re in an age where the music that I make, young kids are actually latching onto it now, and they’re finding that that generation and that style of music we made is as current now as anything.”
Sayer’s health battles, still spreading hope at 76
Leo Sayer says his hospital charity work caps off a career dedicated to providing joy through music.
“It’s a nice piece of synchronicity really, because I was born in the grounds of a hospital in Shoreham by Sea in Sussex, near Brighton in England,” Mr Sayer said.
“I suppose I’ve always felt comfortable in hospitals and being around hospitals.
“Growing up, my dad was a hospital engineer, Mum was a nurse, my sister was a matron.”
Sayer has health struggles of his own, including three stents in his heart, which help him have a genuine connection to the hospital patients he entertains.
“[My music] is providing something that isn’t taking away from any of the treatment that’s going on. It’s providing something that’s just putting a smile on peoples’ faces.
“Music is communication and that’s what this is all about, we’re communicating, we’re making people feel better.
“We’re not healing people with music, but we are making them feel better about their healing.
“To sell out Canberra Hospital will do me fine.”
Ex-Model On Addiction And Homeless Life: ‘I’m In A Lot Of Pain’
Fitness model who got homeless after becoming an addict Loni Willison is blaming her ex-husband, “Baywatch” actor Jeremy Jackson, for her mental health deterioration.
In an interview that X17 Online published on Friday, the 39-year-old Willison—who has been spotted looking through dumpsters in California throughout the years—was asked where her life went wrong.
“My former spouse. Getting hitched. I got divorced, at least,” she answered.”He arranged for this to happen to me.”
After less than two years of marriage, the couple suffered a painful breakup in 2014.
During an apparent drunken altercation, Jackson allegedly attempted to choke Willison. The Post reached out to Jackson for an answer.
Willison formerly modeled for magazines like Flavour, Iron Man, and Glam Fit. She disappeared from the public view for over four years, until 2018.
Instead of her beautifully bronzed physique and gorgeous blonde hair, Willison had become disheveled, had short hair, and had lost her top teeth when she resurfaced.
During the interview on Friday, Willison said that her stomach hurts “really bad” and that she is “in a lot of pain.”
She said that she “can’t live inside anywhere” and that she is no longer allowed to be near power because she was “electrocuted” every day for about a year.
I believe that in addition to sensing electricity, I also detect other substances such as wire, various metals, fuses, batteries, and specific compounds. Therefore, I believe that my body even filters that kind of stuff,” she said.
I wouldn’t know for sure; I’d need to use a sonogram machine or a large X-ray machine to find out. It’s fairly intense.
When asked whether she had asked the city of Los Angeles for help, Willison replied, “There’s nothing that anybody can offer me.” There is nothing we can do to help.
She claimed to have received offers of help but never made a request for it.
She acknowledged that she’s “not necessarily” satisfied with her life’s course, saying, “There are good parts and there are bad parts, but whatever.”
The interviewer also noticed that she had serious injuries on her fingers. When he suggested that she have them checked out, Willison comforted him, saying, “I’ll be fine.”
In a 2018 interview, Willison discussed her energy issues with the Daily Mail. She said at the time that she was “getting tortured in my home, my apartment” due to her crystal meth addiction.
The 42-year-old Jackson has been open about his own battles with alcohol, drug, and steroid addiction.
In order to serve time in prison for allegedly stabbing a woman in Los Angeles in 2015, Jackson accepted into a plea deal in 2017.
He was also kicked off “Celebrity Big Brother” in 2015 after it was alleged that he had stolen model Chloe Goodman’s robe.
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