Charlotte Leslie

Real name: Rosetta Aiello a.k.a. Catherine Alfa, Rose Borg b. Gabès, Tunisia c.1944 Rosetta was one of ten children and lived in Lens, northern France, with her Italian parents. She left school at 13 to work in a textile workshop. When she was 20, her father encouraged her to enter a local contest organised by AZ records. She won the contest with a song called 'Le ciel d'Italie' written by her father. Lucien Morisse, director of AZ records released her first record under the name of Catherine Alfa. He introduced her to Jimmy Walter and Boris Vian who wrote the lyrics of her debut song. The record gained airplay on radio station Europe 1. This success lead to a second EP for AZ before Rosetta signed with Polydor. Guy Mardel, successful singer and friend suggested she changes her stage name to Charlotte Leslie (Leslie is the name of the vibrato effect on hammond organs). Her first EP on Polydor of which included 'Les filles, c'est fait pour faire l'amour' ('Girls are made to make love') a daring fuzzed-up cover of The Capitols 'We got a thing that's in the groove', marked a radical change of style. While the track is great, it was a strange choice which proved a little too controversial for many radio stations. A further two EPs were released followed by support tours with Claude François and Adamo and a headlining tour of Eastern Europe. By the end of the sixties, Rosetta had retired from music, returning briefly in the early 1980s under the name of Rose Borg. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.