Leon Russell has died at the age of 74.
Aside from having a piano and vocal style totally unlike anyone else's, he wrote This Masquerade (more famously performed by George Benson) and Delta Lady (better known by Joe Cocker).
Here are some YouTube links to some of Leon Russell's music.
R.I.P.
And, Leonard Cohen, too.
ReplyDeleteLots of people who made a positive impact in our lives, passing on.
Yes, definitely Leonard Cohen. Too many great people have passed on recently.
ReplyDeleteThe trademark Top Hat and Beard, one of the first to incorporate Boogie-Woogie/Ragtime style of piano into Rock and Roll. Tight rope was my favorite.
ReplyDeleteHe had a black wife, Mary whom he met touring with Sly and the Family Stone (remember those days a ticket would feature all sorts of different styles and genres and no one cared?). She was in part of the back up singers "Little Sister", they even recorded an Album together.
Later Rumors went around that Soul/Jazz Singer Brenda Russell was his wife or daughter by Mary - neither is true.
RIP Leon
Erik
Tom, I apologize for going off topic. I have every Leon Russell (vinyl) record, and mourn the passing of our greats. We are nothing but fucking consumerist robots if we give up culture and history for the latest gadget pitched to us by the machine.
ReplyDeleteBut I just watched the latest clip from Richard Wolff on Trump's proposed economic policies, which will affect us here in Port Angeles. He clearly states what I made reference to a few days ago, here: US corporations that abandoned America for cheap labor, and now Trump is proposing to, exactly, what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N10-Fm1SOBE
Erik: I never knew much about Leon Russell. His first album (with Delta Lady and A Song For You) was totally uncategorizable, completely unlike any other style at the time. And I've liked all his other songs over the years and decades. Until I read some articles about him the day he died, I didn't know he had played backup with so many other performers during his early days. I didn't know his wife was black.
ReplyDeleteThe one trivia thing I'd read about him a long time: I don't know if you remember the Book of Lists, from the mid-1970s. One of their lists was famous people who were hoodlums in high school. The only 2 names I remember from that list were Hunter Thompson and Leon Russell.
Anonymous: A trade war with China, just what we all need. Coastal/port cities will catch the worst of this; and they're mostly the areas that didn't vote for Trump. Just a coincidence I'm sure. But slumping housing prices -- like Wolff was saying -- will affect everybody. We'll have to hope that the congressional reps whose districts would be in jeopardy by this trade war will put up a fight.
More the point, though, is that the "Chinese" businesses that Trump thinks he is going to impose sanctions, tariffs, taxes, etc are actually American corporations. The moneyed elite of America that he is part of.
ReplyDeleteYes, Trump (and others) try to make it sound like "the Chinese" are "taking our jobs away", but that is only true to the extent that American corporations MOVED their operations FROM America, TO China, to take advantage of cheap labor, fewer regulations, etc.
So, how much support from the House and Congress, all recipients of the corporate dole, does Trump think he will actually get?
I remember that from Wolff's interview. My guess is, Trump is counting on millions of low information voters to not see through his smoke and mirrors and sleight-of-hand gimmicks about "Chinese" companies "stealing" American jobs.
ReplyDeleteCongressmen on the other hand might not go along with Trump's rhetoric, since their own finances come from these corporations, like you said. I'm hoping there'll be a lot of conflicts between Trump, some congressional representatives and other business interests -- so that they'll spend a lot of their energy fighting each other instead of uniting into a huge monolith and steamrolling the entire population.
And now, Mose Allison. Damn, WTF is happening here? R.I.P.
ReplyDeleteLoved them all. Especially Leon for his unique artistry doing music I loved best. Own all the albums & cherish them. Felt the same as I had when Jerry Garcia was so sick. If only I could have helped in their recovery! Leonard too!
ReplyDeleteCirze: Same here. I wasn't much of a Grateful Dead fan, but it was still shocking when he died. If it's true that tragedies happen in threes -- Leonard Cohen, Leon Russell and Mose Allison -- maybe we're out of the woods for a while. One can hope.
ReplyDelete