Leona Lewis' festive album, Christmas, with Love, was inspired by the soulful records she used to listen to as a child.
The 28-year-old singer says she wanted to have a heavy old school influence on the songs.
Speaking to BANG Showbiz, she said: ''The inspiration for this is very much Motown. When I was first going to record the Christmas album, immediately that's what came to my mind because those are the kinds of Christmas records that I listened to. We wanted to go Motown, and we did . . . we went there. It was really fun.''
While the album may be festive, Leona admits that she recorded the record in the summer: "It was so weird because I recorded it in Brighton and I thought, 'OK, Brighton, it's summer but you don't really get a summer in Brighton.
''It's usually really grim, but it was the sunniest summer Brighton has ever seen! It was a bit bizarre recording at that point.''
