J.J. Cale - Crazy Mama / Fate of a Fool

 So might sign off the day with this from the maestro Monsr J.J.Cale and a favourite from the first album here with Leon Russell and band

J.J. Cale (with Leon Russell and band) - Crazy Mama / Fate of a Fool (UHD remaster)

Leon Russell - Roll Over Beethoven - ABC television show Shindig! November 18, 1964 (22 yr old !)

Wow someone posted this on Flackennabok . . . . . . .  

22 yr old Leon Russell Roll Over Beethoven ABC television show Shindig! November 18, 1964

“You seem to be under the misapprehension that I know what I’m doing?” Leon Russell | Don's Tunes

 

Leon Russell worked with Joe Cocker and, most famously, led the English singer's band on the classic 1970 tour “Mad Dogs and Englishmen.” The list of bands and timeless songs he worked on is almost endless. He played on the Beach Boys classic “Pet Sounds” and with a variety of musicians including Frank Sinatra and the Monkees. He toured with the Rolling Stones. He was also part of George Harrison's "Songs for Bangladesh."

Russell also had a long solo career. He released his first album in 1970, the self-titled “Leon Russell.” The album featured one of his best-known songs, “A Song for You,” which has been covered by Andy Williams and Elton John.

"You’re under the misapprehension that I know what I’m doing and I really don’t," he told The Blues magazine in 2014. "I don’t know what motivates me – it’s a way of life, I’m always recording, I’m always on the road. There are so many things still to do in the future. There is never a shortage of things to keep me busy."

Photo by Jim McCrary/of the legendary Redferns

Don's Tunes

Leon and Elton . . . . . a heartwrenching anecdote here. . . . . Legends both : Elton on Leon, Leon on Elton

Leon Russell and Elton John, Los Angeles 1970 Don Nix 

“It was the most magical of times because here was my idol accepting me. Actually, he could eat me for breakfast [playing piano]. I came from England and being a huge fan of someone like him and to have him accept me and kind of take me under his wing and be really fantastic to me the whole time. It meant the whole world to me that someone could show me that generosity that you admired so much. It helped validate me by saying, ‘Well if he thinks I’m alright then I must be alright because he’s my hero.’” 

Elton John, talking to Elvis Costello about meeting Leon Russell, who had come to see his first Los Angeles performance at the Troubadour in 1970, and who’d then invited Elton to come to his home.

“Elton came and found me in the ditch on the side of the highway of life and took me up to the high stages and treated me like a king.” 

Leon Russell, speaking of Elton John contacting him after Leon having been out of the limelight for decades, suffering from health, alcohol, drug and financial problems.

 

Saturday Mewsics | J.J. Cale & Leon Russell - Roll On

 J.J. Cale & Leon Russell (what are you ON Leon?)  . . . . ROLL ON

As you are driving down the highway watching this show (sic? say what Leon?) Compered compared for yuh! Proposed, composed prepared, compelled, compared, shared propelled , composed! ? what the heck?!  . . . . . . 

 stop smoking that stuff Leon!

I found this on a favourite tumblr page and they note

First tumblr post of sphinxnomore in 2011

sphinxnomore

More from Leon Russell and Edgar Winter | ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow'

So I will bid you all a very Good-night with this (from the posting at The Voodoo Wagon of the guys Winter and Russell which is well worth a reinvestigation if you didn’t avail yourself) . . . . I was a minor fan of Russell and while I appreciate him, I knew very little of Johnny Winter’s brother . . . . . . . . this is a true one off collaboration and worthy of all our inquiry!

Edgar Winter Band (Feat. Leon Russell) - Somewhere Over The Rainbow 

For Silent Way and Brother Jobe and all the guys contributing to Floppy Boot Stomp and the Voodoo Wagon . . . . .

Edgar and Leon find the Key To Highway . . .

Leon Russell & Edgar Winter Band Live 1986 - Voodoo Wagon

link to the original post at The Wagon here . . .

Thanks JOBE

Edgar Winter Featuring Leon Russell - Key to the Highway | from Voodoo Wagon

 Oh you wondered about Leon Russell and The Edgar Winter Band from the Voodoo Wagon we posted yesterday? . . . . . here they are in '88

Edgar Winter Featuring Leon Russell recorded May 4th 1988 at the Main St. Cafe, Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Well try this for size!

Blues Standard ‘Key To The Highway' but Robert Johnson never sounded like THIS!

Get at it right here you lucky people . . . .

Leon Russell and The Edgar Winter Band - Live In California 1986 | from Brother Jobe over at the WAGON!

This just in from Brother Jobe at Voodoo Wagon . . . . . . 

 

Leon Russell and The Edgar Winter Band - Live In California 1986

Jobe he say: "Hi folks, who needs Sotheby's when we have the finest pickers in the world scanning the globe to bring to you the highly sought after collectibles that you know you can't live without. After last year's auction we have decided to make available (again, this year) items you truly desire. Remember all proceeds go to The Adult Floppy Wagon where we can continue to bring you the highest quality bootlegs that you are always on the look-out for. Here's the new list .                                                                    

1. Half a pack of Zig-Zag Wheatstraw rolling papers used by David Crosby (Starting bid 4.00$)

2. An unused ca-ca bag dropped by Van Morrison while walking his dogs one day (Starting bid 7.00$)

3. A slightly used tire pressure gauge used by Jim Morrison when, in his teens, he was working in a gas station trying to make a few dollars for summer vacation (Starting bid 25.00$)

4. A slightly soiled tu-tu used by Ritchie Stotts (Plasmatics) (Starting bid 25 cents)

5. Jimi Hendrix's pillow case from September 18th 1970 (Starting bid 37.50$)

6. An Ice-T spent shell casing (6.35$)

7. Splinters from a wooden plank used for the stage at Altamont (Starting bid 14.97$)

8. A Bob Dylan poem from his eighth grade journalism class with grammatical errors (Starting bid 3.00$)

9. An autographed napkin used by Elvis at the Bob's Big Boy in Arkansas (circa 1955) the autograph is by Nell Ringston the waitress that waited on the entourage that day (Starting bid 93.00$)

10. The ass microphone used by Yoko Ono for the recording of the song "Why" (Starting bid 11.34$)

11. Neil Diamond's hair color box used before an apperance on the Tonight Show (Starting bid 2.25$)

12. Half a bottle of Pepto-Bismol belonging to Kurt Cobain (Starting bid 75.80$)

13. Stevie Nicks owned copy of "Alvin's Harmonica" by Alvin and The Chipmunks (Starting bid 6.97$)

Well folks that's just the trip of the iceberg of goodies you are going to find when you buy our Auction Catalog . We've had to up the price of the catalog this year due to inflation. So this year's price is 12500.00$  See scans"

 Get on The Wagon you lucky people!

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!

This from Ray Padgett at FLAGGING DOWN THE DOUBLE Es |

Leon Russell Brings the Vibes

1974-02-04, Missouri Arena, St. Louis, MO

RAY PADGETT FEB 4

The list of music stars who attended Dylan and The Band’s comeback tour is long. Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Cher, Miles Davis, Carlos Santana, Joan Baez, and on and on. But only one musician actually sat in. Not in New York or Los Angeles, but in St. Louis. And that musician was…

… I don’t know why I’m building to a big reveal, it’s literally in the headline …

Leon Russell!

Russell and his band had recorded with Bob a few years earlier for the Greatest Hits II sessions. I spoke with one of those players, drummer Jim Keltner, about it. He told me:

My memories of that session, they're like a dream really. I was sitting at the drums and Leon was playing and we all joined in. I looked over and I saw Bob standing facing the wall. I could see his lips moving. He was writing on a tablet, I think. I thought, "Wow, he's writing the lyrics as we're playing." He might have been adjusting some of the lyrics, rearranging some things to fit the groove. That blew my mind.

“Sit in” is maybe a strong word for what Leon Russell did at the late show in St. Louis. “Wandered onstage with a beer” would be more precise. Even though his musical contributions were limited to singing along on the chorus of “Like a Rolling Stone” when Bob pulled him to the mic, he seems to have brought a jolt of energy to the proceedings—and this just one show after I was writing about how Bob and The Band seemed exhausted. 

Listen to the crowd explosion when Russell wanders onstage near the end of “Rainy Day Women.” Dylan shouts “Leon Russell!” but it’s almost drowned out by the audience, who clearly needs no introduction. Then listen to the “It Ain’t Me Babe” that follows. With Leon just chilling onstage, Bob brings more bite to the song than it’s had in ages, slicing through even the murky recording.

Read on here . . . . .

QUIZ ANSWER!

 No-one?!

As I feared! (Who ARE you talking to? You KNOW there’s nobody there!)

The answer was of course . . . . . . . . . . 

Russell Bridges (Leon Russell) at Will Rogers High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma

on his way . . . 

the master arrives

the honorary Mad Dog and Joe Cocker’s band mate with George and Dylan at Bangladesh!

LEON RUSSELL

the legend!

LEON RUSSELL :: Mad Dogs and Englishmen + HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Leon Russell was born as Claude Russell Bridges in Lawton, Oklahoma on this day in 1942.

She Came In Through The Bathroom Window

The Letter

Feelin' Alright!

Induction into The Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame

Come On In My Kitchen (Concert For Bangladesh outtakes)

Jumping Jack Flash

AQUARIUM DRUNKARD - J.J.CALE & LEON RUSSELL : : '5' 1979

JJ Cale & Leon Russell :: Paradise Studios, Los Angeles 1979

It’s Tulsa time. Recorded live in June of 1979 at Leon Russell’s Paradise Studios in Los Angeles, this 21 track session burns slow and low. The occasion? None other than the release of Cale’s fifth record, and first LP in three years, the aptly titled, 5.

Amazing set recorded live in Leon Russell's Paradise Studios in Los Angeles.

SET LIST:

1.T-Bone Shuffle 2.Nowhere To Run 3.Cocaine 4.Ten Easy Lessons 5.Sensitive Kind 6.Hands Off Her 7.Lou-Easy-Ann 8.Going Down 9.Corine Corina 10.Roll On 11.No Sweat 12.Crazy Mama 13.Fate Of A Fool 14.BoilinΓÇÖ Pot 15.After Midnight 16.T-Bone Shuffle 17.T-Bone Backwards 18.Same Ole Blues 19.Don't Cry Sister 20.Set Your Soul Free (Tell Me Who You Are) 21.24 Hours A Day

Bob Dylan - Concert For Bangladesh Outtake - Love Minus Zero (No Limit)

 and whilst I was there I found this from Bob (with George Harrison and band with Leon Russell on bass!) playing the Madison Square Gardens as guest on George's Concert For Bangladesh!

What a beautiful performance and presumably from the earlier rehearsal . . . . . . . . . . . . 

Bob Dylan

CONCERT FOR BANGLADESH 

International Times posted a video this morning on Facebook that threw me for a second. A track from 'The Concert For Bangladesh' that I hadn't seen!!? How could this be . . . . . well it is industry practice to re-issue albums with additional bonus tracks never heard before so we buy the whole shebang all over again and in 2005 there was a remaster of the concert album and whilst it was never shown in the original film it was definitely worth a look . . . . Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Leon Russell (on bass), Ringo on tambourine one of the finest love songs ever written 'Love Minus Zero No Limit'. It looks like a song from the evening set but also has something of a rehearsal about it although it is well documented that there pretty much weren't any. George wasn't even sure before the afternoon set that Bob would turn up at all!

Sorry its not as good as the Facebook version

The concert for Bangladesh means a great deal to me and always did. From it's inception and we found out what George wanted to do, we were right behind it. The album was a bonus and we bought the box set when it was released but it was watching the film in the cinema that affected us so much and it stands as a document what was to be the first charitable rock concert incorporating the power of music to try to get a message across and also to raise funds to help the less fortunate than ourselves. My father worked the last part of his working life working for Oxfam having moved us from the North to come and work for them and the Concert for Bangladesh was my brother and my way of saying we can do something too.

There has been much criticism of Bob Geldof and Bono of late for their apparent contributing to the problem and being 'non dom registered' to avoid paying tax and this divisive media trolling is less than helpful and probably does more to put people off contributing to charities than anything else IMHO. Call me when you have generated over £150 million for the starving in Africa and no, we don't always get it right but it is better than sitting on our fat derrieres and doing nothing. Attacking those that have more money than us doesn't justify our doing nothing!

George wrote 'Taxman' for a reason . . . . . . . 

On this day in music history: August 1, 1971 - “The Concert For Bangladesh”, takes place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Organized by George Harrison, the benefit concert will feature Harrison along with Ravi Shankar, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Billy Preston and Ringo Starr. It is the first benefit concert of its kind, raising relief money for the people of Bangladesh (now East Pakistan) who have suffered the devastating effects of a cyclone and human rights abuses from the Pakistan Army during a war fought in the region. The two performances (an afternoon and an evening show) are filmed and recorded for later release as a theatrically released film and a three LP box set. Both raise millions for the people of Bangladesh, and “The Concert For Bangladesh” album sells over two million copies in the US alone, winning a Grammy Award for Album Of The Year in 1973. Sales of both the DVD and CD releases of the concert continue to generate relief money for the people of Bangladesh today, with the total now estimated at over $20 million. The success of this humanitarian effort provides the template for later benefits such as Live Aid and the USA For Africa Trust.