Posts Tagged ‘Leon Russell’

GEORGE HARRISON and FRIENDS – ” The Concert For Bangladesh ” Released on December 20th, 1971

Posted: December 22, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

See the source image

It started with a plea from one friend to another. George Harrison had been close to the legendary Indian classical musician Ravi Shankar since the mid-’60s, when the Beatle first sought an expert to teach him to play the multi-stringed Indian sitar. Ravi Shankar, older than Harrison by some 22 years and the acknowledged world master of the instrument, was from Bangladesh (previously known as East Pakistan) in the South Asian region of Bengal. At the time, in 1971, Harrison’s website states, “The country was ravaged by floods, famine and civil war, which left 10 million people mostly women and children fleeing their homes.” Feeling distraught and wanting to help, Shankar met with Harrison and asked if he might be able to draw attention to the crisis, and possibly use his fame to do something to raise some funds for aid. “Yes,” Harrison told him, “I think I’ll be able to do something.”

In April of 1971, Harrison went to work recruiting friends for a one-time-only concert; by June he had already received commitments from several of the biggest names on rock. He also arranged for a film and recording to be made of the event, the proceeds of which would go toward the cause. The concert date was set for August 1st, 1971, two shows .The shows were held at 2:30 and 8:00 pm(afternoon and evening) to take place at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Not only would The Concert for Bangladesh be Harrison’s first major live appearance since the Beatles quit touring five years earlier, it would go down as one of the greatest evenings of classic rock in history. The event was the first-ever benefit of such a magnitude, and featured a supergroup of performers that included Harrison, fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Leon Russell and the band Badfinger. In addition, Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan – both of whom had ancestral roots in Bangladesh – performed an opening set of Indian classical music. The concerts were attended by a total of 40,000 people, and the initial gate receipts raised close to $250,000 for Bangladesh relief, which was administered by UNICEF. After collecting the musicians easily, Harrison found it extremely difficult to get the recording industry to release the rights for performers to share the stage, and millions of dollars raised from the album and film were tied up in IRS tax escrow accounts for years, but the Concert for Bangladesh is recognised as a highly successful and influential humanitarian aid project.

Shankar’s original hope was to raise $25,000 through a benefit concert of his own, With Harrison’s commitment, and the record and film outlets available to him through the Beatles’ Apple Corps organisation, the idea soon grew to become a star-studded musical event, mixing Western rock with Indian classical music.

According to Chris O’Dell, a music-business administrator and former Apple employee, Harrison got off the phone with Shankar once the concept had been finalised, and started enthusing with his wife, Pattie Boyd, and herself about possible performers. Ringo Starr, Lennon, Eric Clapton, Leon Russell, Jim Keltner, Voormann, Billy Preston and Badfinger were all mentioned during this initial brainstorming. The Concert For Bangladesh happened because of my relationship with Ravi … I said, “If you want me to be involved, I think I’d better be really involved,” so I started recruiting all these people.  O’Dell set about contacting local musicians from the Harrisons’ rented house in Nichols Canyon, as Harrison took the long-distance calls, hoping more than anything to secure Bob Dylan’s participation

Almost all of Harrison’s first-choice names signed on immediately, while a day spent boating with Memphis musician Don Nix resulted in the latter agreeing to organise a group of backing singers. The Sunday, was the only day that Madison Square Garden was available at such short notice. By the first week of July Harrison was in a Los Angeles studio recording his purpose-written song, “Bangla Desh”, with co-producer Phil Spector. The song’s opening verse documents Shankar’s plea to Harrison for assistance, and the lyrics “My friend came to me with sadness in his eyes / Told me that he wanted help before his country dies” 

Harrison then met with Apple signed band Badfinger in London to explain that he would have to abandon work on “Straight Up” , before flying to New York on 13 July to see Lennon. During the middle of July also, once back in Los Angeles, Harrison produced Shankar’s Bangladesh benefit record, an EP titled Joi Bangla. As with Harrison’s “Bangla Desh”, all profits from this recording would go to the newly established George Harrison–Ravi Shankar Special Emergency Relief Fund, to be distributed by UNICEF.

Also around the middle of July, the upcoming concert by “George Harrison and Friends” was announced via a small ad buried in the back pages of the New York Times”, Tickets sold out in no time, leading to the announcement of a second show. Towards the end of the month, when all parties were due to meet in New York for rehearsals, Harrison had the commitment of a backing band comprising: Preston, on keyboards; the four members of Badfinger, on acoustic rhythm guitars and tambourine; Voormann and Keltner, on bass and drums, respectively; and saxophonist Jim Horn’s so-called “Hollywood Horns”, which included Chuck Findley, Jackie Kelso and Lou McCreary. Of the established stars, Leon Russell had committed also, but on the proviso that he be supported by members of his tour band. Eric Clapton insisted that he too would be there, even if O’Dell and other insiders, knowing of the guitarist’s incapacity due to his severe heroin addiction, were surprised that Harrison had considered him for the occasion. Among Harrison’s former bandmates, John Lennon initially agreed to take part in the concert without his wife and musical partner Yoko Ono, as Harrison had apparently stipulated. Lennon then allegedly had an argument with Ono as a result of this agreement and left New York in a rage two days before the concerts The line up was staggering: First, there was Ringo Starr. As if half of the Beatles wasn’t enough of an enticement to fans,

As well as the songs he would go on to perform Harrison’s list included his own compositions “All Things Must Pass” with Leon Russell, apparently “Art of Dying” and the just-recorded B-side “Deep Blue” Eric Clapton’s song “Let It Rain” appeared also, while the suggestions for Dylan’s set were “If Not for You”, “Watching the River Flow” (his recent, Leon Russell-produced single) and “Blowin’ in the Wind”. Only Harrison, Voormann, the six-piece horn section, and Badfinger’s Pete Ham, Joey Molland, Tom Evans and Mike Gibbins were at Nola Studios on that first day of rehearsals, and subsequent rehearsals were similarly carried out in “dribs and drabs”, as Harrison put it.

Only the final run-through, on the night before the concert, resembled a complete band rehearsal. On Tuesday, 27th July, Harrison and Shankar, accompanied by a pipe-smoking Allen Klein, held a press conference to promote the two shows notoriously performance-shy, Harrison said “Just thinking about it makes me shake. The “Bangla Desh” charity single was issued in America with a UK release following two days later. Ringo Starr arrived on the Thursday, and by Friday, 30th July, Russell was in town, interrupting his US tour. Leon Russell’s band members Claudia Linnear and Don Preston were added to Don Nix’s choir of backing singers. Billy Preston would switch to lead guitar for Russell’s solo spot during the shows, just as bassist Carl Radle would replace Voormann temporarily. At this point, Clapton’s participation was gravely in doubt, and Harrison had drafted in Jesse Ed Davis as a probable replacement. The ex-Taj Mahal guitarist received last-minute coaching from Voormann, who was more than familiar with Harrison’s songs, as well as those by Billy Preston and Starr.

The final rehearsal, the first for some of the participants, was combined with the concert soundcheck, at Madison Square Garden, late on 31 July. Both Dylan and Clapton finally appeared at the soundcheck that night.Even then, Clapton was in the early stages of heroin withdrawal – only a cameraman supplying him with some methadone would result in the English guitarist taking the stage the following day, after his young girlfriend had been unsuccessful in purchasing uncut heroin for him on the street. To Harrison’s frustration, Dylan was having severe doubts about performing in such a big-event atmosphere and still would not commit to playing. “Look, it’s not my scene, either,” Harrison countered. “At least you’ve played on your own in front of a crowd before. I’ve never done that.”  Stephen Stills having proceeded to sell out Madison Square Garden two days before the concert on 30th July, in support of his album, “Stephen Stills 2”, allowed Harrison to use his stage, sound, lighting system and production manager but was upset when Harrison “neglected to invite him to perform, mention his name, or say thank you”. Stills then spent the show drunk in Ringo Starr’s dressing room, “barking at everyone”.

The shows began with sets by Shankar and his musicians, followed by Harrison and his entourage, performing material both from his emerging solo career. Harrison began the concert with “Wah-Wah”, followed by his Beatles hit song’ “Something” and the gospel-rocker “Awaiting on You All”. Harrison then handed the spotlight over to Preston, who performed his only sizeable hit  “That’s the Way God Planned It”, followed by Ringo Starr, whose song “It Don’t Come Easy” had recently established the drummer as a solo artist. Next up was Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness”, with guest vocals on the third verse by Russell, who covered the song on his concurrent album, Leon Russell and the Shelter People. After pausing to introduce the band, Harrison followed this with one of the best-received moments in both the shows – a charging version of the White Album track “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, featuring him and Clapton “duelling” on lead guitar during the long instrumental playout.

Both the band introduction and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” are among the few selections from the afternoon show that were included on the album and in the film. Another one was Leon Russell’s medley of the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and the Coasters’ “Young Blood”, which was also a highlight of Russell’s live shows at the time. With Don Preston crossing the stage to play lead guitar with Harrison, there were now temporarily four electric guitarists in the line-up. Don Preston, Harrison and Claudia Linnear supplied supporting vocals behind Russell. In an effective change of pace, Harrison picked up his acoustic guitar, now alone on the stage save for Pete Ham on a second acoustic, and Don Nix’s gospel choir, off to stage-left. The ensuing “Here Comes the Sun” – the first live performance of the song, as for Harrison’s other Beatle compositions played that day was also warmly received. At this point, Harrison switched back to his white Fender Stratocaster electric guitar he looked down at the setlist taped to the body of the guitar and saw the word “Bob” followed by a question mark. “And I looked around,” Harrison recalled of Bob Dylan’s entrance, “and he was so nervous – he had his guitar on and his shades. It was only at that moment that I knew for sure he was going to do it.” Among the audience, there was “total astonishment” at this new arrival. As Harrison had envisaged, Dylan’s mini-set was the crowning glory of the Concert for Bangladesh for many observers. Backed by just Harrison, Russell (now playing Voormann’s Fender Precision bass) and Starr on tambourine, Dylan played five of his decade-defining songs from the 1960s.

The moment that put the Concert for Bangladesh over the top as one for the ages was when Bob Dylan walked out onstage. Like Harrison, he had not performed in public much recently, since a 1966 motorcycle accident that caused him to reassess his life and career. Dylan, who was reportedly nervous about playing to such a large audience, arrived onstage for the first show accompanied by Harrison, Russell (on bass) and Starr (playing tambourine) and performed five of his greatest compositions: “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” “Blowin’ in the Wind,” “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” “Love Minus Zero/No Limit” and “Just Like a Woman,” before Harrison and the band closed out the show. The evening show followed a similar trajectory, with both Harrison and Dylan making a handful of changes to their set lists: Dylan, notably, added “Mr. Tambourine Man” in place of “Love Minus Zero.”

Harrison and the band then returned to perform a final segment, consisting of his recent international number one hit, “My Sweet Lord”, followed by the song of the moment – “Bangla Desh”.

The Concert for Bangladesh recording, featuring highlights from the two shows, was released on December 20th, 1971, also winning the Grammy for Album of the Year. The film, Following the Bangladesh concerts, some controversy ensued over the allocation of the funds but an estimated $12 million ultimately found its way to aid in the relief efforts over the next decade and a half. And in the world of rock music, the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh is viewed as a landmark event, the first true large-scale benefit concert of its type; it would serve as the model for Live Aid and is seen as the prototype for many other such charitable events even today.

As of August 2020, neither the album nor DVD was in print. Perhaps for its 50th anniversary in 2021we get an updated version along with a full set of the songs performed each night.

 

BRUCE HORNSBY – ” Non-Secure Connection “

Posted: August 17, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , ,
0

Image may contain: text

Bruce Hornsby has released his latest studio album, “Non-Secure Connection”, out today via Zappo Production/Thirty Tigers. The 10-track album from the acclaimed pianist and singer acts as Hornsby’s second full-length studio effort in as many years following 2019’s Absolute Zero.

“Non-Secure Connection” features guest appearances from artists including James Mercer (The Shins), Justin Vernon and Wayne Pooley (Bon Iver), Jamila Woods, Vernon Reid, and even a posthumous cameo from the late Leon Russell on the song “Anything Can Happen“, which was shared earlier this week.

Bruce Hornsby shared the new song which will appear on the veteran musician and songwriter’s forthcoming studio album, Non-Secure Connection, due out this Friday (August 14th). Entitled, “Anything Can Happen”, the optimistic, sitar-filled song is that of a duet with the late Leon Russell, who died in November 2016.

“Anything Can Happen” follows “My Resolve” and “Bright Star Cast” as the third single from the forthcoming studio album. Amazingly, Russell recorded his vocal contributions for the song almost 30 years ago, with Hornsby finally getting around to completing the recording featuring his old friend.

As Hornsby explains,

I was able to get Leon Russell a record deal with Virgin in 1990, and we made a record called ‘Anything Can Happen.’ I always felt that the title song wasn’t produced as well as it could have been (I’ll take the blame), and always wanted to re-cut it. Leon asked me to ‘write me a Barry White track,’ which is how the song started. His vocal from the original demo ghosts mine for a lot of the song, and then he emerges at the end to join me in harmony. My time with Leon was extremely memorable and deserves its own article; too much amazing and funny, classic stuff.

Other previously-released singles included on Non-Secure Connection include “Bright Star Cast” and “My Resolve”.

“The new album’s chromaticism and dissonance quotient is exactly twice as high (three songs featuring that language compared to one and a half on the last record),” Hornsby mentioned with Non-Secure Connection‘s announcement back in June. “I feel like my music has never been a part of any trend that defined any era of music during my 34 years of doing this. I may be wrong, but that’s how it feels to me.”

Hornsby recently shared a trio of 2019 performances for fans to download or stream for free as the live events industry remains on indefinite hiatus. Hornsby has since been forced to postpone the final remaining dates of his 2020 spring tour.

LEON RUSSELL – ” The Albums “

Posted: May 5, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

See the source image

In 1972-73, Leon Russell released two albums about as far apart on the musical spectrum as they could be. “Carney” was an ambitious concept album with flashes of psychedelia. ‘Hank Wilson‘s Back!”, brought him back to his rockabilly/country roots. One is seriously ambitious. The other is just serious fun.

The dramatic shift between the two reflected Leon Russell’s multi-genre reach and aspirations as well as the changing musical times. But what drove both was his need to try on different personas, to figure out how to deal with the sudden glare of the spotlight fame brought him in the early 1970s. In a musical sense, Leon Russell was asking, “Who am I really?” And the answer to that question was anything but simple, In the Early Days Leon Russell had, he admitted freely, “huge stage fright.”

Sure, back in his early Tulsa days he started working in bars and clubs when he was severely underage… like fourteen. But when he graduated from high school, his band the Starlighters hit the road for two months to back Jerry Lee Lewis, one of rock and roll’s most aggressive onstage performers. That was the first time, but far from the last, that Russell would play straw boss for a scenery-chewing front man.

When the seventeen-year-old moved to L.A., his multi-instrumental talents—this child prodigy studied classical piano, could play tenor sax or xylophone, and took guitar lessons from the one and only James Burton made him a go-to session guy. He thrived in the studio. Everyone knows he did literally thousands of sessions for a phone book’s worth of artists. But he always kept his own level-headed perspective. “I was a jobber, like an air-conditioning installer,” he told one interviewer. “You need air-conditioning? Call this guy. People called me to do what I did.”

When Russell migrated to the house band for TV’s Shindig in 1964, he transferred his skills, once again helping to organize musical backing for a weekly cavalcade of pop stars. Revealingly, in 1967 he built his first home studio. Not long after, he started Shelter Records, his own label, with partner Denny Cordell. Over time, Shelter would release records by the likes Freddie King, J.J. Cale, the Gap Band, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

It’s as if Russell was building his own musical ecosystem where he could do what he loved most—write, record, and produce. Russell was a control freak in the studio and onstage. He was intuitively finicky about details others didn’t know they’d missed. It made him an excellent producer and bandleader. Shelter Records was barely open when Delaney Bramlett, an ex-Shindogs colleague, tapped Russell for the floating cast of characters that toured as Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. Then he got a panicky call from Joe Cocker, whose ‘Joe Cocker!. album he’d co-produced.

Joe Cocker had parted ways with his Grease Band, partly because he didn’t want to tour. Whoops! His management informed him they’d set up three months on the road. Suddenly Cocker needed a new touring band… in a week. Russell pulled together pals from the Friends and added a horn section and background vocalists to create Mad Dogs & Englishmen. The number of folks onstage could hit fifteen or so, but Russell was always in control… and usually out of the spotlight.

See the source image

Leon Russell

His debut album, came out while he was ramrodding Cocker’s travelling circus. The album’s personnel bristled with A-listers: Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Steve Winwood, Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and so on. It had his take on “Delta Lady” which Cocker had a top 100 hit with. And “A Song for You” which became an instant classic; eventually somewhere between one and two hundred other artists would cover it.

When Cocker’s tour was done, the documentary Mad Dogs and Englishmen focused its spotlight on Russell and made him a star almost despite himself. Then he had to tour to support his own album for the first time. Along the way, he appeared at the Fillmore with admirer Elton John, who’d later play a crucial role in his last “comeback,” and made the rounds of TV shows to promote sales. Watch those appearances now, and you can see he’s trying out a public persona to deal with a sudden fame that kept growing after mega-events like the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh.

His sense of reserve wasn’t new or an afterthought. Leon Russell was a stage name; Claude Russell Bridges never legally changed his handle, because it offered him some mental insulation.

As he put it, “It’s handy. I can be a different person for a while.”

See the source image

‘Carney’

With ‘Carney’, his third album, Leon Russell, Joe Cocker’s Master of Space and Time and victim of acute stage fright, pulled the curtain back on his unexpected stardom.

It was 1972, the apex of the age of concept albums, too many of which were flatulent self-indulgence—which may be a big reason that ‘Carney’ these days is virtually forgotten, except for its hit “Tight Rope” Another is that the album is challenging. Until ‘Carney’, Russell’s primary musical calling card was his usually sunny roots-rock directness. Here his songs gather ingredients of classic rock to veer determinedly into a layered complexity and dark vision that can flummox those expectations.

Take “Acid Annapolis To most critics, this experimental psychedelic flight of wordless swoops and chittering sonics verged on seeming trite even at the time. But you can also hear it as an abstract comment on this concept album’s central themes: the gaps between perception and reality, between public and private faces—fundamental human traits that both unite and divide us.

That’s foundational for the album’s big hit—the biggest Russell ever had—“Tight Rope.” Its Fellini-esque picture rides rhythms alluding to a circus oompah beat. Russell’s nasal drawl and hiccup-like falsetto stabs mimic the fragile balance he’s maintaining as a performer. The B section’s musical jauntiness underpins some pretty sarcastic lines: “Like a rubberneck giraffe / You look into my past / But baby you’re just too blind to see.”

That last word, separated from the others, is almost a yelp. The next cut, “Out in the Woods” explores being lost and alone in a tumult of others’ expectations. “My love she is not waiting” is a deftly poignant line that underlines how completely cut off from human contact the singer feels. He begs her to come get him even though “your sweet understanding can’t fix this broken heart.”

In similar fashion, “Me and Baby Jane” looks back at his Okie childhood and the lost girlfriend who “offered me balance for a while” now has “vacant eyes and a needle in her vein,” as old friends “stand beside me too late to try and find excuses in the face of being blind.” But dark as it is, can you doubt, listening to it, that Russell fan Elton John drew inspiration from this song? Or that Mark Knopfler at least glanced off the honky-tonk-meets-gospel “Roller Derby The Queen here, after all, is another performance artist, like the Carney: she’s daunting as hell on the floor, but once she’s home “alone in love / she murmurs like a sweet mourning dove.”

Bird cheeps, rain, road sounds—the opening of “Manhattan Island Serenade” seems counter-intuitive. But that’s exactly how alone he is, in his imaginary landscape at the center of this country’s most populous city, where this song’s gospel feel adds complex tension to lines like, “With every step I’ll see your face / Like a mirror looking back at me.”
That conceit is the core of “Magic Mirror” the album’s final track dealing with the central theme of projection. What you see up on that tightrope is some version of what you’d like to be. It may have nothing at all to do with what’s actually going on. That’s OK: after all, it’s a show.

But then Russell retrains the lens on himself to ask, “Do I see myself in anyone I meet?… If only we could try to see ourselves as others would.” ‘Carney’ peaked at number two on the Billboard charts. It was Russell’s last hit record for decades.

See the source image

‘Hank Wilson’s Back!’

When Russell headed to Owen Bradley’s studio in February 1973, he wasn’t exactly what Nashville’s music establishment was looking for in their continuing quest to woo mainstream America to listen to their takes on country music. He looked like a hippie, but that Okie drawl proved his pedigree; he wasn’t just another one of those longhairs who’d created country-rock despite the Grand Ol’ Opry crowd’s sneering, dismissals, and resistance. Nor was he one of the emerging Outlaws they’d marginalized, who’d very soon draw crossover listeners with their fusions of rock and country.

Russell wanted to pay homage to their tradition’s classics, fit into it, maybe above all redefine himself as he nestled within it as a fictitious persona. Say hi to Hank Wilson—the name itself a homage to country-star Hanks like Williams, Snow, and Thompson. Tellingly, his album cover portrait is taken from behind.

Choosing Bradley Barn to make the album is a big clue to his motives. So is this veteran session man’s tapping an A-list of Nashville session stalwarts for his sidemen.

But what Russell wanted, maybe above all, was a fresh start with a new persona that cut virtually all ties with his last decade. If ‘Carney’ was ambitious and probing, this disc seems like remarkably un-radical fun. Yet there are also sly, subtle touches of creative reinterpretation throughout. Recasting Lester Flatt’s “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” the disc’s opener, as classic rockabilly before putting the bluegrass hammer down announces Russell’s unconventional embrace of Nashville’s roots.

Hank Thompson’s “A Six Pack to Go” reiterates that move, when the bluesy acoustic intro that also punctuates the song yields to good old honky-tonkin’ in a modified Thompson vein.

This concept shapes the album’s best stuff: unconventional Leon wearing a Stetson instead of a top hat or greasepaint.
His aside, “Ah, Billy Byrd,” on “I’ll Sail My Ship Alone” is just one of his overt grins at playing this new role. Another is the party atmosphere made explicit at the end of Lead Belly’s “Good Night Irene” which he infuses with an infectious passion that peaks on his interpolated autobiographical lines about Tulsa and Nashville.

The album’s last cut is revealing: “In the Jailhouse Now” these days famous thanks to the Coen Brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? gets a tasty back-porch acoustic treatment that midway, mirroring the opening track, upshifts to modified rockabilly. You could argue that particular song underlines Russell’s aims with this album: to redefine his relationship with the prison fame can be. And there’s truth to that. But what’s palpable on almost every track, even Bradley-style string-laden stuff like Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and “Am I That Easy to Forget”
is how much fun he’s having as he throws himself wholeheartedly in his personal tour through the country classics of his youth.

No doubt that’s why he recorded more Hank Wilson albums even though fewer and fewer listeners cared. He’d made a pile, achieved more than he’d dreamed of, and could now cut back on touring and delve into… well, whatever he felt like. He’d come down from the tightrope and had no regrets. Decades later, during his Elton John-instigated comeback, he told an interviewer, “I was surprised by the success I had. I was not surprised when it went away.

JOE COCKER – ” Mad Dogs and Englismen ” Movie Released 22nd January 1971

Posted: January 22, 2017 in MUSIC
Tags: , ,
0

Joe Cocker Goes Out To The Movies

Recorded during Joe Cocker’s two-night stand at the Fillmore East in 1970, ‘Mad Dogs & Englishmen’ is the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll road show. Band leader Leon Russell assembled a killer group to back the 25-year-old singer. It’s heavy on covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and the Rolling Stones, but Cocker pretty much makes them his own.

When Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen concert movie premiered on 22nd January, 1971, cinema audiences were able to experience Joe Cocker at the peak of his powers.

The live album from the famed tour of the same name had been released in August 1970, reaching No. 2 in America and No. 16 in the UK. The subsequent film brought Cocker’s unique performance to the silver screen for the second time in a year. He had starred with his Grease Band in the film of the Woodstock Festival of summer 1969, which came out in 1970 and showed his celebrated electrifying  interpretation of Lennon-McCartney’s  ‘With A Little Help From My Friends.’

Mad Dogs

But while that was one song among an all-star event, Mad Dogs, The movie directed by Pierre Adidge, was a two-hour showcase for Joe Cocker as a frontman, and a chance to watch master musician and band leader Leon Russell in full flow as Joe’s musical director for the 48-city tour. There are also prominent roles for other members of the band that we already knew, or came to, in their other work. Saxophone maestro Bobby Keys, especially admired for his long relationship with the Rolling Stones, is featured along with another of their collaborators, Jim Price.

Cocker’s keyboard man Chris Stainton is on board, as are prolific sidemen such as Jim Keltner and Derek and The Dominoes  members Jim Gordon and Carl Radle. The tour, and the film, also did much to announce the vocal talents of Rita Coolidge, who featured on Russell and Bonnie Bramlett’s lovely tune ‘Superstar.’

Vincent Canby’s review of the film in the New York Times in March 1971 described it as a record of the tour featuring Cocker, the young extraordinarily talented, British blues singer, and the largely American entourage (band, choir, friends, wives, children, groupies and a single dog named Canina) that accompanied him. The entire group numbered almost 40 people, most of whom were on stage during most of the performances, making for what seems to have been extremely cheerful and friendly chaos.”

LEON RUSSELL – ” Live At The Fillmore East ” 20th November 1970

Posted: November 20, 2016 in MUSIC
Tags: , , ,
2

Image result for leon russell live at the fillmore east 1970

This week will forever be considered one of the darkest and strangest in recent memory. The election of Donald Trump, Then we lost arguably the greatest songwriter in modern music with the passing of Leonard Cohen, and a certain troubadour who was a source of spiritual comfort for many entered the place where “there is no Space & Time.” Claude Russell Bridges, whom the world lovingly knew as Leon Russell, was a “Rainbow Minister & Ringleader” for the Hippie Generation, a “superstar” that shone very brightly.

This is a great live set,  Elton John opened for Leon Russell at these shows. This concert was recorded before the Elton John’s one at the Fillmore East. Elton John was a great fan of Leon Russell and logically invited him to open his shows.  At these Fillmore East concerts, Leon Russell headlined over an up and coming Elton John and the band McKendree Spring. This set finds him performing much of the material from his first solo album, but with a feel that would reflect where he was heading on his second album, Leon Russell And The Shelter People. It was a bigger, more adventurous sound, which would feature many of the same musicians that jelled so well on the Cocker tour. The material on this tour was equally diverse, featuring rock & roll, country, blues, soul and gospel, woven together by Russell’s distinctive Oklahoma twang and his creative arrangements.

The set begins rather starkly, with Russell performing solo at the piano, opening with Bob Dylan’s “Girl From The North Country,” followed by his own “Song For You.” The set is paced in a way that is reminiscent of an old-fashioned revue, with additional musicians and chorus singers joining in as the set progresses. Anchored by David Hood and Roger Hawkins from the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, talented soloists, and two of the greatest female singers of the time (Lennear and McDonald), the set continually gains momentum with each song, establishing the feel of a rollicking road show.

As the set continues, Russell performs some of the true gems from his debut album, including “Hummingbird,” “Dixie Lullabye” and the high energy, “I Put A Spell On You.” The entourage also plays an outstanding version of “Shoot Out On The Plantation” that surfaces out of a short tease of “Blues Power,” the song Eric Clapton covered so well on his first solo album.

Russell also performs “Pisces Apple Lady” before bringing it all to a frenetic close with the double whammy of “Prince Of Peace” and “Give Peace A Chance” (a Russell original, not the John Lennon song). These last two numbers clearly display the incredible power of this talented group of musicians and singers, bringing the feel of an old time Southern gospel revue to the stage of the Fillmore East.

When comparing this concert to the one recorded, 3 years later, for Leon Live (One Of My Favourite Ever Live album set and a wonderful package). Similarities and differences are striking. Similiraties since it’s the gospel-that-rocks that all Leon’s admirers love to hear, but differences since the set was more sober and tighter that the quite indulgent later ones. I doubt any Dr John – Elton John or any-John-you-want won’t be enthusiasts in listening to such a great performance. Nothing better to listen to when you’re down and out. It makes you imagine life’s worth the living. Measure the miracle. Note that this set was never released officially but that the sound is very good probally taken from the soundboard..

LEON RUSSELL
Fillmore East, New York, NY; November 20-21st, 1970 [late show?] The Band for Leon was Roger Hawkins Drums, Dave Hood Bass Guitar. John Gallie Organ and ketboards Don Preston and Joey Cooper Guitars, Claudia Lennaer & Kathi McDonald on backing vocals. 

LEON RUSSELL – ” Stranger In A Strange Land “

Posted: November 17, 2016 in MUSIC
Tags: , ,
0

The 10 Best Leon Russell Songs

Right after Leon Russell graduated from Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1959, the young musician had to make a decision. Should the 17-year-old kid go to Tulsa University, as he had planned, or should he accept an offer to go on the road as Jerry Lee Lewis’s guitarist? Attend ROTC drills on the quad or play for screaming girls in high school auditoriums? , He hit the road.

Leon Russell, The Journeyman who died Sunday at age 74, kept making similar decisions all his life. He continually put himself in unlikely situations to test and extend himself as a musician. He was willing to play Texas honky-tonk with Willie Nelson, British pop-rock with Elton John, folk-rock with Bob Dylan, bluegrass with the New Grass Revival and gospel-soul with Aretha Franklin. He responded to every situation by mastering the new territory and then adding something that was indelibly his own: a bluesy, churchy shuffle that became known as the “Tulsa Sound.”

After a few months with Jerry Lee Lewis, Russell moved to Southern California, where he teamed up with Elvis Presley’s virtuoso guitarist James Burton and became a top L.A. session musician, playing on such landmark albums The Byrds Mr. Tambourine Man, The Beach Boys Pet Sounds, Flying Burrito Brothers  Burrito Deluxe and the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed.

This was mostly session work that went uncredited on record sleeves in those days. Russell returned to live playing when he joined Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, where he made good friends with then band members George Harrison and Eric Clapton. But the first time the wider public got to know him was in 1970 when he became the last-minute music director and band member for Joe Cocker’s second American tour. Leon Russell had contributed production, arranging and songwriting (“Delta Lady”) to the 1969 album Joe Cocker! and when the singer’s British band fell apart just days before the tour was supposed to begin, he called Russell .

The now famous tour was called Mad Dogs & Englishmen. Joe Cocker and organist Chris Stainton were the Brits, while Russell and his assemblage of Okies and Californians were the crazed canines in the massive, 22-person troupe. With his long brown hair spilling out of a top hat and over his shoulders and a pointy Van Dyke beard filling his sternum, Russell played conductor and kept shows balanced on the narrow fence between spontaneity and chaos. He was bolstered by the rhythm section of fellow Okies: drummer Jim Keltner and bassist Carl Radle. The feature film and two-LP album, both titled Mad Dogs & Englishmen, documented the tour as a heady mix of rock ‘n’ roll hedonism and showmanship.

A year later Russell was a key participant in the Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden: playing piano behind his friend George Harrison, bass behind Bob Dylan and singing lead on a couple of songs himself, most notably the medley including “Youngblood”.

When he was doing session work in L.A. in the ‘60s, he brought out many of his teenage friends, such as Keltner, Radle, guitarist J.J. Cale, future Bread leader David Gates, organist Dick Sims, drummer Jamie Oldaker, drummer Chuck Blackwell, guitarist Jesse Ed Davis and the great, underrated singer Roger Tillison. For a while, they all hung out at Russell’s home/studio on Skyhill Road in the Hollywood Hills, writing songs and playing sessions.

They developed a slinky sound that Cale jokingly said was a result of trying to play the blues and getting it wrong. Leon Russell himself described it as playing country shuffles against a Jerry Lee Lewis boogie. A relaxed swing inhabited the music, perhaps a ghost echo of Bob Wills’ nights at Tulsa’s Cain Ballroom, lending a liquid lyricism to the hillbilly and blues influences these 1950s teenagers had swallowed. Every song boasted a deep groove, but these musicians were more likely to ease into it than to push into it.

British producer Denny Cordell met Russell during the Joe Cocker! sessions and partnered with Russell to co-found Shelter Records in 1969. But by 1972, Russell had tired of California and was itching to get back home. He now had some money on the basis of a No. 2 album (Carney), a No. 11 single (“Tight Rope”) and the royalties from other people’s versions of his songs such as “Delta Lady,” “Superstar,” “A Song for You,” “This Masquerade,” “Hummingbird” and “Roller Derby.” Shelter Records, based in both L.A. and Tulsa, remained a small label, but it made a huge impact on popular music by releasing the landmark debut albums by J.J. Cale, Tom Petty, Willis Alan Ramsey, Dwight Twilley and Phoebe Snow. Cale’s record, 1974’s Naturally, provided the template for the subsequent careers of Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler.

With that cash he bought seven acres on the bank of the Grand Lake of the Cherokees outside Tulsa and build a sprawling home/studio/guesthouse compound. Shelter Records hired legendary documentarian Les Blank to make a film about the tribal family that Russell gathered around himself and the music that they made. The resulting impressionistic movie, A Poem Is a Naked Person, captured the bizarre bohemia of those days. Underground comic artist Jim Franklin paints a giant octopus on the bottom of a swimming pool; Russell delivers over-the-top rock ‘n’ roll sermons from the piano, and country legends such as Willie Nelson, Eric Anderson and George Jones drop by.

“Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms” 
Leon Russell’s country phase found him adopting the guise of Hank Wilson , a sturdy country crooner that served as a front for four albums of mostly traditional tunes. This track, a sentimental standard extracted from the first album in that somewhat strange series, put him on the charts and gave him credibility as a legitimate country crooner. But Russell was so unhappy with the film that he kept it from theatrical distribution until 2015. Perhaps he had tired of the psychedelic circus he was leading. He dropped the rock ‘n’ roll gypsy persona and made a credible album of honky-tonk standards called Hank Wilson’s Back, featuring Russell in a rhinestone cowboy suit. He resurrected that hillbilly persona for four albums in all, the last being 2001’s Rhythm & Bluegrass, his second collaboration with the New Grass Revival.

Russell should be remembered not only for the records that bore his name but also for those he ushered into being—whether they were those Shelter debuts or the guilty-pleasure bubblegum-rock of Gary Lewis & the Playboys, the obscure Dylan single “Watching the River Flow” or the astonishing North Texas songwriting of Willis Alan Ramsey. And Russell should get the credit for spreading the gospel of the Tulsa Sound, whose influence rippled out in concentric circles beyond that small Oklahoma city.

LEON RUSSELL – ” In Memoriam (1942-2016) “

Posted: November 13, 2016 in MUSIC
Tags: , ,
0

No photo description available.

News came through earlier today of the passing of Leon Russell, 74.One of my most favourite musicians he was an extraordinary talent as either composer, musician, arranger, producer, and artist, “The Master of Space” . With each piece of talent, his music touched a new audience: as a multi-instrumentalist who contributed to innumerable session recordings; as a pop arranger for Gary Lewis and the Playboys and others; as leader of Joe Cocker’s raucous band; as composer of songs that will last forever, like “Superstar,” “This Masquerade” and “A Song for You”; as an influential solo artist, who followed his muse and inspired so many others. Rest in peace, Leon. “But we’re alone now and we’re singing this song to you…”

Leon Russell, accepting his induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, thanked Elton John for rescuing him from “a ditch beside the highway of life.”  Thanks to the success of The Union, the collaborative album between Elton John and his early idol,

After making an impression around the scene in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Leon Russell first gained wide prominence as an in-demand session pianist for the famed Los Angeles “Wrecking Crew,” playing for Phil Spector, Frank Sinatra and everybody in between.  A close ally of producer Snuff Garrett, Russell arranged such pop classics as Gary Lewis and the Playboys’ “This Diamond Ring” and co-wrote the group’s hits “Everybody Loves a Clown” and “She’s Just My Style,” to which he contributed some smoking guitar!  After all of this success, he concentrated on his songwriting and a budding solo recording career. Russell has always been difficult to categorize.  He has embraced rock, soul, gospel, country, blues and even psychedelia during his career, but the melodic pop sensibility honed from his early days is very much in evidence on solo compositions like “This Masquerade,” “A Song for You,” “Superstar” and “Delta Lady.”

Those are just four of the songs penned by Russell and made famous by others ranging from the Carpenters to Joe Cocker, for whom Leon Russell served as bandleader on the infamous Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour in 1970.  The famed record of that tour is as much a showcase for Russell as lead singer Joe Cocker.  It was Bette Midler’s take that inspired Richard Carpenter to pen his Grammy-nominated arrangement.  The Carpenters’ “Superstar,” highlighted by Karen Carpenter’s beautifully aching, intense vocal, The brother-and-sister duo continued drawing from Russell’s songbook to tremendous effect.

Those used to the smooth vocals of Donny Hathaway or Karen Carpenter might need some time to adjust to Russell’s raw, croaking drawl on “A Song for You,” but the emotional, tender nature of the vocal wins out in the end.  Russell had his biggest hit as a solo singer with “Tight Rope,” from his 1972 Shelter Records album Carney, also his highest-charting LP.  “Tight Rope” makes the influence he had on Elton John crystal clear: the honky-tonk piano pounding, the soulful R&B-flecked vocal, the potent chorus.  “I copied Leon Russell and that was it,” Elton admitted in 1971.  Just listen to “Honky Cat” back to back with some vintage Russell, and you’ll know what I mean; you might also notice the similarities between “Your Song” and “A Song for You.”


Those who worked with Russell, including Denny Cordell, Marc Benno, Phil Spector and the star-studded array that played on 1970’s Leon Russell, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Klaus Voormann, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman, Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Joe Cocker and Merry Clayton!  Leon Russell’s always gotten by with a little help from his friends.Leon Russell has always been famous for his work with other artists, whether as session man, arranger or songwriter.  He counted among his pals the late George Harrison, who invited him to participate in the landmark benefit The Concert for Bangla Desh at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 1971.  One track, an epic, nearly ten-minute medley of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and the Leiber/Stoller/Pomus “Young Blood” on which an electrifying Russell takes the lead.

Leon Russell Left us on this day (November 13th) in 2016: singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, bandleader & session player LEON RUSSELL (died in his sleep, age 74); he first achieved widespread recognition as a member of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, but is perhaps most closely associated with Joe Cocker – he co-produced Joe’s hit self-titled 1969 album & penned two of its songs (including the UK #10 “Delta Lady”), then served as bandleader on Joe’s landmark, 1970 ‘Mad Dogs & Englishmen’ tour of the US, which lives on in legend via the Gold-selling double-album (& later, DVD) of the same name; over the years Leon also worked with the likes of The Byrds (playing on “Mr. Tambourine Man”), Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Glenn Campbell, Freddie King & many others; as a solo artist, he scored the 1972 US #11 “Tight Rope” & 1975 US #14 “Lady Blue”; his “This Masquerade” was successfully recorded by both George Benson (1976 US #10, earning a 1977 Grammy Award for ‘Record of the Year’) & The Carpenters; in 1979, Leon & Willie Nelson scored a US Country #1 hit with their duet of “Heartbreak Hotel”; after a lengthy absence, he returned to the public eye with 2010 album ‘The Union’, in collaboration with Elton John; Leon was inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame in 2011…

LEON RUSSELL and the SHELTER PEOPLE – ” Live In Stockholm ” 1971

Posted: November 13, 2016 in MUSIC
Tags: ,
0

Leon Russell

Leon Russell and the Shelter People during their whirlwind European tour of 1971. This stopover was in Stockholm and recorded by the venerable Sveriges Radio on November 26th of that year.

Even before his milestone solo career and the Mad Dogs & Englishmen phase, Leon Russell was a very much in demand musician, whose work was heard on hundreds of sessions throughout the 1960s. This was a new phase; the singer-songwriter with his own vision, putting together one of the tightest bands of the late 60s and releasing hit record after hit record and going from an anonymous keyboard player to household name.

And 1971 was proving no different – a lot of familiar tunes in this concert; songs which became a staple in the diet of just about every Rock station in the country, if not the world, at the time.

This concert comes before his mega multi-country tour of 1972 and is most likely a warmup. This one features the band which also played on his Leon Russell And The Shelter People release of earlier that year featuring Carl Radle on bass, Don Preston on guitar.

There was a lot going on in Russell’s career in 1971. Working with Bob Dylan and producing Watching The River Flow, which also featured Russell on piano – sitting in on Badfinger’s Straight Up album, participating in the Concert For Bangladesh.

Much of what he recorded in concert wound up being issued officially via his label Shelter, but this one has escaped. Possibly because other concerts from around this period were issued, this additional one would have been overkill. Still, it’s a great concert with one of America’s greatest musicians during a particularly busy and fruitful time.

JOE COCKER – ” Dies at 70 Years Old – 22nd December 2014 “

Posted: December 22, 2014 in MUSIC
Tags: , , , ,
0

Joe-Cocker-608x609

Joe Cocker, the English blues-rock singer with the intense howl and the distinctive stage presence, died of lung disease today while at home in Colorado. Cocker was 70.

Joe Cocker was born in the British city of Sheffield — also the home of another famous Cocker, Pulp frontman Jarvis. (They’re not related, but Jarvis’ father Mac used to lie and say that he was Joe’s brother when he was an Australian radio DJ.) Born John Robert Cocker, Joe got his start as a 16-year-old leader of a band called the Cavaliers. He’d spend his teens and early twenties performing under various names (he was Vance Arnold for a while) and leading various groups: Vance Arnold And The Avengers, Joe Cocker’s Big Blues, the Grease Band. Despite a short-lived Decca Records deal in 1964, Cocker wouldn’t break through until 1968, when his Grease Band covered the Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends” as a wild, sincere, throaty blues-rocker.

Cocker’s version of “With A Little Help From My Friends” would be his signature song for his entire career. He famously performed it at Woodstock and got a highlight spot in the Woodstock documentary, and years later, it would serve as the theme song for “The Wonder Years”. In the years that followed, Cocker would score more hits with more covers: Leon Russell’s “Delta Lady,” Julie London’s “Cry Me A River,” the Box-Tops’ “The Letter.”

His version of Billy Preston and Dennis Wilson’s “You Are So Beautiful” was a massive international hit in 1974, but he didn’t score his greatest chart success until he topped American charts in 1982, when his Jennifer Warnes duet “Up Where We Belong” served as the main theme for the movie An Officer And A Gentleman.

Joe Cocker remained a goofily genial pop-culture presence throughout his life, never taking himself too seriously. He performed on Saturday Night Live while John Belushi stood right next to him, imitating his spasmodic stage presence. He recorded an early-’80s reggae-pop album at Compass Point studios with Sly & Robbie backing him up. He performed at Woodstock ’94. He kept steadily performing until very recently, and Fire It Up, his final album, came out in 2012.