Leslie made his first recording at the age of 16, with a Banbury-based folk rock band and then went on to forge a successful career around the folk clubs with his brother John - cutting their first album, The Ship of Time in 1976. During this period he was also the fiddle player for The Hookey Band and a member of the morris dancers at Adderbury. It was around this time that he first came to the attention of Fairport's Dave Pegg.
From 1981-1983 Chris Leslie studied violin making, under the watchful eye of maker Patrick Jowett, at the Newark School of Violin Making in Nottinghamshire, England. He currently plays the second fiddle he made at Newark on stage.
Session work
Since then he has worked with Steve Ashley, Whippersnapper, the Albion Band, All About Eve, Simon Mayor and Ian Anderson (of Jethro Tull). In 1981 he contributed to a cassette tape of peace songs by Steve Ashley released by CND entitled Demo Tapes. Also on the tape were sessions by members of Fairport Convention, Dave Pegg, Simon Nicol and Bruce Rowland. In 1983 he contributed to More Demo Tapes, another Steve Ashley cassette album for CND. He also accompanied Steve Ashley on his song "Down By the Old Embankment" on the album All Through the Year (1991). This was a compilation of original tracks by various artists. He also appeared on People on the Highway (Bert Jansch tribute album, 2000). There were other appearances on Steve Ashley albums (see discography). In 2003, Chris played violin on several tracks from Mostly Autumn's album Passengers. In late 2007 he recorded violin and mandolin parts on Dan Crisp's debut album Far From Here.
With Fairport and solo albums
In 1997 he joined Fairport Convention as singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He has recorded five solo albums - The Flow, The Gift, Dancing Days, Origins, Turquoise Tales and Fiddle Back. At first sight Dancing Days appears to be a Fairport Convention album, as it features Simon Nicol, Dave Pegg, Ashley Hutchings and Ric Sanders. However, each of these artists appears only in a sequence of duos with Leslie. He has also recorded collaborations with Ashley Hutchings including Grandson of Morris On .
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