Leon was born in Hamilton on the 10th of December 1969.He is the eldest son of Thomas Wharetotara Wharekura and Judith Anne Harihari Berryman.

When Leon was a child, it was evident to his mum and dad that he had a gift for music. For many hours, Leon would sit in front of the stereogram and listen to the music of artists like the Jackson 5, The Osmonds and the Motown Be Bop groups of the 70's.

Because of his parent's church affiliations, Leon was encouraged to sing at a young age in church choirs and participate in stage productions within church and school.It was around the age of 7 that his mother decided to find him a piano teacher.

Piano lessons didn't come easy to Leon. He was not a disciplined student. Quite often, Leon would turn his practice time into creative time by trying to play the songs he heard on the stereogram. This pop RnB style seemed more appealing to him than the classical Mozart style of learning piano. He often got into trouble because he'd play by ear and not by music. By the time Leon got to high school, his abilities to hear and play melodies and harmonies would set him in good stead.

In January of 1983, Leon started Highschool. It was at Church College of New Zealand that his desire to become a singer in his life were cemented. For the next four years, Leon studied piano, saxophone, stage production, voice and was heavily involved in most music programmes around the campus. Under the tutorship of great teachers and in the company of other hungry students, Leon's aspirations grew and at the end of the 1986 and with the help of a friend, he stepped into an opportunity that would be the beginning of an extraordinary start to a singing carerr.

In June of 1987, Leon was asked to audition for the Billy T James show band. This was at a time when Billy's career was riding a successful wave with his own TV show and sold out performances around New Zealand and Australia. He was successful in the audition, moved to Auckland and for the next 3 years, Leon was exposed to the rough, often unstable yet most exciting period of his life.

"That certainly was a wild time. I was a new kid on the block who'd been given a huge break to learn from a Master as well as some other giants in the industry like Tuhi Timoti. I was undisciplined and very naïve. I didn't really think about the future nor did I have a plan other than to keep singing. I just knew I enjoyed being on the road, on the stage and flying around the country staying in luxury hotels. What teenager wouldn't at 17?"

After 3 years as a full time singer with Billy as a back up vocalist and singing lead vocals in a band with close friend Taisha, Leon decided to take his experiences to the bright lights of Australia. He quickly discovered that Sydney was a big place and began singing at the Hampton Court Hotel in Kings Cross. It was from here that Leon started getting bookings which kept him employed for the next 3 years.

In 1993, Leon's father passed away. Leon never went back to Sydney after the funeral and it wasn't long before he got himself back into work in Auckland with two live bands. One was called Special Edition, a five piece RnB covers band and a contemporary music band called Good Company. Both bands provided the platform for Leon to continue learning his craft and earning an income.

1994 came quickly. Leon decided to relocate to Wellington and establish himself on the live music circuit. During this time, he worked with a band called Hatmandoo. The band played clubs and pubs and the occasional Corporate gig. It was during this time a famous Uncle of Leons would enter his life more profoundly and offer his nephew a role in his new musical "Poi E". From this point on, not only did Leon have the next big Mentor in his life, this opportunity was to introduce Leon to his extended family he had in South Taranaki from where his Grandmother came from.

Maui Dalvanius Prime was to become a major influence on Leon's life. Many hours days and months were spent on 'lessons in life' as Leon puts it. Leon went on to travel with Uncle Dal along with his new found cousins, Aunts and Uncles performing the hit musical Poi E. The show had a sellout North Island tour and also went to Hawaii. After the show had ended, Leon returned to singing full time in Wellington and sang with a new line up of singers who were known as the Chicago singers.

"A new club had opened up on the Queens Wharf.The concept was to deliver 4-5 different floorshows a night 4 nights a week. We had costumes, dance routines and spent hours practicing and the chicago club was the hottest venue in town at the time. Some of my singer friends were Lisa Tomlins, Shalleen Hern, Tim Breen Grant Sullivan and Andrea Cook. We built a bit of a name for ourselves and people were soon labelling us the singers of Wellington. This led onto other corporate work like performing at the Hurricanes Test matches and the Saints basketball games."

In July of 1996, Leon was offered a 9 month contract to sing for the Hard Rock Café circuit in China fronting a band with fellow friend/singer Lisa Tomlins. Leon toured extensively throughout the major citied of China from Beijing in the north to Hong Kong in the South. At completion of the tour, Leon returned home to form his own band this time and returned to China for a second time. Although the contract was only for 6 months, Leon would not return home until April 1999.

"It was an interesting time in China. I can remember two major things happened during that period.Deng Xiao Ping, the great Chinese leader died and I remember the whole country in mourning for almost two weeks. The second thing was Hong Kong was given back to mainland China. I learnt how to speak chinese and even sang in Mandarin and Cantonese. Most of my time was spent in Guangzhou but my friend Hiran Benton and I would get some great opportunities to work and travel. Taxi drivers would always try and rip us off until they heard us speak chinese. We were used to locals taking advantage of naïve tourists and had heard many stories. China had different prices for foreigners for almost everything so we learnt to speak not just out of necessity but to just communicate and build relationships. During that time I also became a Restaurant and Bar Manager for an Ex Pat hangout. And I became an English teacher too! I loved it. But music was our thing and we got to meet so many other Ex Pats from British Diplomats to International Embassy Ambassadors to CEOs of huge companies and through these introductions came lots of gigs. We were young kiwis and hungry for adventure."

Early January of 1999, an old friend (David Downes) called Leon to offer him a role in a musical Dance Opera. The role was to commence in March and a tour of New Zealand in April and May was booked. The show was called "Jerusalem" by New Zealand Choreographer Michael Parmenter. Leon returned to New Zealand a week before rehearsals started for some catch up time with family and friends. The tour was a success and unfortunately because of it's big budget, the tour wasn't sustainable. Nevertheless Leon enjoyed the experience and made some new friends within the dancing and singing worlds.

In 1999, Leon returned to live in Perth Australia where he sang for a covers band. He soon became restless and found it wasn't a stimulating scene.
"I just never settled musically in Perth. Inasmuch as I loved being around my family (where his siblings now reside) I found the work boring and unstimulating. There was one music scene in Perth and it was all Aussie- Rock. The DJs had taken over all the club scene in Northbridge and hotels were pumping out Aussie Rock bands where as on the East Side, Gold Coast, Melbourne and Sydney, you could sing everything and that's what I wanted to do.

As a singer, I want to be able to flex all different styles of singing. Jazz, pop, RnB, ballads, you name it. Perth's music scene didn't care if you were a good singer, they just cared that you made some kind of noice...and loud too."

Leon soon found himself packing his bags and headed for the Gold Coast. He landed work in the first week through knowing other Ex Pat kiwi musos living there. It wasn't long before he was working up to 5 nights a week.

October 2001, Leon decided to it was time to come home. For the last 5 years Leon has worked hard to reestablish a career for himself yet again in his old stomping ground of Auckland. He continues to work as an entertainer/singer and has worked throughout the pacific and Australia extensively over the last three years. As usual, Leon is singing everything from Jazz to pop to rock to reggae. In 2004, Leon released a single called E KII MAI KOE AE on the Kahu Records label. The same year, he also wrote a song that was selected for the Pacific Song Contest in Tahiti. Leon continues to be a regular performer at Auckland's Sky City Casino and is one part of a vocal trio with his old friends Taisha and Urshula called Verse3.
Leon has also held a residency performing jazz at Scalinis Restaurant for the last three years.

In October of 2005, Leon returned to China to film a documentary that captured the lives of a blind school in Tianjin.
"We studied how blind children study music as a medium to develop their social, interpersonal and academic skills. By far, one of my most humbling experiences. We shared our cultures and out languages and we even taught the boys a Haka!"

The documentary 'So Far yet so Close' produced by Sophie Zhang has been selected to screen at the 2006 NZ Film and Documentary Festival as well as the 2006 Maori Film Festival to be held in Wairoa. Maori Television have also purchased the broadcasting rights to screen the documentary in the near future.

Leon's long awaited debut album is now out in stores.