Joe Cocker - The Letter - Live | Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"

 THE LETTER - The Box Tops cover by Mad Dogs and Englishmen! 

What a line up!

Top Hat Crew's "Live Music Archives"

Remembering the great Leon Russell (April 2, 1942 – November 13, 2016) | Don’s Tunes - Facebook

what a brilliant photo 📸 Courtesy of the Estate of Leon Russell

Don's Tunes

"I did an album with Aretha Franklin at Columbia when she was sort of “settling in” as a recording artist. I remember she recorded “Am I Blue” and the string section tapped their music stands with their bows at the end of the session when we recorded that song. I’d never seen those guys react to anything, so that was pretty impressive.

I played a Johnny Mathis session or two, and that was great. Also played one with Sam Cooke and Bobby Womack, who wrote “Sweet Caroline” — I played on that record and Don Costa produced it. Don always used to call me, a lot of those writers, especially in New York, would call me when they had classical piano they wanted to play, but they didn’t want to write it. They’d call me and I would fake it. Those classical piano parts are too difficult to write.

Melodies are easy for me. I have this one friend — he’s a jazz player — and I was trying to get him to write some songs. He said, “Aww, I can’t write any songs.” I said, “the thing you don’t understand is you write 125 songs a night, but you don’t ever record them, you don’t ever listen to them, you don’t even know what you played.” He was playing jazz melodies. The trick is chronicling them and realizing what’s a good melody and what’s bullshit. That’s what I don’t like about jazz, generally — you’ve got to listen to all of the bullshit along with the melodies. I started writing with him and we probably wrote 70 great songs. The first song I wrote with him was incredible. He’s another guy who finds melodies so easy that he throws them away, doesn’t really pay attention to them. It’s astonishing. It’s like automatic writing for people who melodies come easy for.

I wrote a poem one time called “Mad Dogs and Englishmen.” Glyn Johns said, “We’re doing this record and they want to use ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ as a song. Can you write a melody for it?” So I said “OK,” and I went in and wrote three melodies for it and told him to take the one he wanted. The one that’s on the record is the one he liked the best. Melodies for me require no thought whatsoever. Lyrics, on the other hand, they’re hard for me. Always been hard. It got so hard I started researching and reading books like, How to Write Songs."

Interview by By Michael Devers / Photo Courtesy of Leon Russell

Account of working with Leon from JJ Cale . . . . 

J.J. Cale & Leon Russell Perform Same Old Blues In Session At The Paradise Studios - Los Angeles, 1979

In a 21 song set, they are having the time of their lives, and we are left to watch in wonder. Joining Cale and Russell are his wife, Christine Lakeland, along with Marty Green, Nick Rather, Jimmy Karstein, Bill Boatman and Ambrose Campbell.

Cale didn’t record his first album, Naturally, until he was thirty-two. “Eric helped me out a lot. Leon did, too. I guess the reason I made it was that people helped me out when they didn’t have to,” Cale said, not taking a lick of credit for his success. “Nobody would go for the record. We shopped it around to several labels until Leon and his friends at Shelter Records put it out. They were surprised it went anywhere.”

Many of Cale’s records were recorded at his Crazy Mama studio in Nashville and drew heavily from Delta Blues and Appalachian mountain music for its inspiration. “The South has strong roots,” he said. “The musicians on most of my albums are from the South. I’m basically a frustrated banjo picker.”

Copyright © – Classic Pictures Entertainment

Don's Tunes 

 

Where and when I first came across our Leon! Great song and great delivery here from the Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour (penned from a pome by Russell) and Delta Lady a song about his love affair with breathtaking star, Rita Coolidge!

and yup you got it . . . . .  not entirely sure whether I bought this first or the titular 'Joe Cocker' but 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' the year after was a blinder that was never off the turntable when it came out. I was influenced by a local bass player who turned me on to Joe's 'With a Little Help . . . . . ' [thanks Bill!] but the covers of Dave Mason's 'Feelin' Alright' and finding him cover a John Sebastian (of The Lovin' Spoonful) The Box tops 'The Letter' et al meant he was godlike to me then 

We loved Joe with his Sheffield builder hod carrying stance and his wild air guitar gesticulations and his awesome gravel full soulful voice and I think I must have bought the first three albums but not sure where they are now . . . . . .didn't really check in again with him until '9 1/2 Weeks' came out and Randy Newman's 'You Can Leave Your Hat On' broke big time with its naughtiness which every red blooded heterosexual male will always associate with Kim Basinger . . . . . ahem, cough cough!

On this day in music history: April 23, 1969 - “With A Little Help From My Friends”, the debut album by Joe Cocker is released. Produced by Denny Cordell, it is recorded at Olympic and Trident Studios in London circa early 1968. The first album by the Sheffield, UK born rock vocalist features musical support from musicians such as Jimmy Page, Steve Winwood, Albert Lee, Henry McCullough, as well as L.A. studio veterans like Carol Kaye, Paul Humphrey and vocalists Merry Clayton, Madeline Bell and Brenda & Patrice Holloway. It spins off two singles including a cover of the Dave Mason penned “Feelin’ Alright” (#69 Pop) and the title track (#68 Pop). The latter’s striking rearrangement provides Cocker with his commercial breakthrough. The single release of “With A Little Help From My Friends” is inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2001. The song is also used as the theme song for the long running series “The Wonder Years”. The album is remastered and reissued on CD in 1999, with two additional bonus tracks added. It is remastered again and reissued as a hybrid SACD disc in 2015. “With A Little Help From My Friends” peaks at number thirty five on the Billboard Top 200, and is certified Gold In the US by the RIAA.

thanks to the most excellent Jeff Harris' blog 'Behind The Grooves