POLL AWAY THE STONE: The Best of Leon Russell

Out In The Woods for me, but Shoot Out on the Plantation is a close second.

Digging into Side Two more today. "Back to the Island" is solid. This guy has some of the best use of backing vocals of any 70s rock dude. Great texture in these mixes.

love the production on Lady Blue and Out in the Woods among others, but Tight Rope seems the pick

listening to stranger in strange land and thinking about how much the black crowes took from leon which reminds me of seeing the black crowes and them having a giant poster of leon behind them. not sure if they toured with this or it was only because they were in tulsa, leon's home town.

Les Blank made A Poem Is A Naked Person during 1972-74, while living at the Russell/Shelter records recording studio compound on Grand Lake Of The Cherokees in NE Oklahoma

I just saw this obscure movie doc on Russell. It has me wanting to check out his catalogue

Huh, never would have thought to make the Black Crowes comparison but that makes sense when you point it out!

his dylan covers are great, esp hard rain

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Was his album with Elton John the other year any good?

i heard good things about it but never heard it. would buy for a dollar.

love leon.

I've got a copy of his first LP (blue cover) that I probably only played once before filing. I'm listening to "Delta Lady" off the computer, though, and like it--will investigate.

that record, and carney, and the 'shelter people' record are all great. you gotta be ready for him, but if you are ready for him, leon is the man.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Thanks for voting, somebody!

Godley & Creme: Consequences

Listening to this again. Still great. I think I might just love records that sound this, so warm, so live. And the songs have good hooks. Dunno why this dude doesn't get more hipster kisses.

all i really know about this dude is that he has famous friends and my mother-and-law made me try to chase down a song called "slipping into christmas" that has apparently only been released on 7" but got quite a bit of play on detroit radio back in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD-E4-p_fpI

mother-in-law, i mean

Huh, that Christmas song ain't bad, I like him more when he stays uptempo or gets weirder but it's a nice one, I can see why it would stick in somebody's memory after all those years.

Dunno why this dude doesn't get more hipster kisses.

I think Scott reported seeing Thurston Moore & J. Mascis buying Leon vinyl once.

tip!

Poll was open for two weeks and only got two votes? where were the hipster kisses.

Only Thurston and J. voted.

From now on, I will consider all poll votes to be little hipster kisses....makes me feel better.

I just discovered Leon Russell and the Shelter People earlier this year and it's great! Sounds like a recording of a party that only ridiculously good musicians were invited to.

Been digging into Shelter People finally. It's a great joy just as a listening experience, definitely worth breaking out headphones for. Really lush, live sound. Probably could survive having less than five (!) Dylan covers, but I sort of love the dedication there, the refusal to be in any way appropriate or well-rounded. Some of them are pretty great anyway - actually, "It Takes A Lot To Laugh..." is the only one that just sort of flops around awkwardly. Really fun record.

FWIW, three of those Dylan tunes were session outtakes added as bonus tracks back in the 90s.

I was looking at the Doug Sahm bio from a few years ago this afternoon, and there's this great story about about how around Thanksgiving '72 Austin artist Jim Franklin was up in Tulsa painting a mural in Leon's swimming pool when he casually mentions to his host that The Grateful Dead were doing a show that night down in Austin. Leon hasn't seen them live, so I guess he and Franklin flew down that day, catch the show, and then Franklin arranges for the next day a big Thanksgiving dinner & jam at his club, The Armadillo World Headquarters, which ends up being a four hour jam w/Leon on piano, Doug Sahm on vocals and guitar, Jerry Garcia on steel & Phil Lesh on bass in addition to some local hands and an audience of 1500.

http://www.philzone.com/phil_pix/phil-sahm-turkeyday72.jpg

Hahah, oops, well that makes more sense about the Dylan tracks! That'll teach me to trust Spotify when I own the damn vinyl (in storage, but still).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfK2CpH3BHI

Also posted on Wrecking Crew thread:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCTw3nRG4lw

^^^ awesome

"Phillip, have you ever heard of the word FUCK YOU!?"

Got a feeling I'm about to embark on a Leon Russell binge. Back at Christmas-ish my father-in-law gave me some records, one of which was Leon & Mary Russell's The Wedding Album. Pulled it out finally a few nights ago and I've been listening on headphones each night since. It's just so … something. The production is both warm and weird, and everything fits in its right place. It's all DI'd guitars and synths. Roger Linn is all over it, producing, engineering, programming. Bobby Womack produces one tune. It's very cool. His voice could be mixed a hair lower.

Listening to "Island In The Sun." Yeah, this is nice. Agreed about the voice, it's sorta cutting loose of the blanket. But there is something weird about it. This lonnnng vocal and piano section halfway through, stretches out just enough to become quite odd and unfamiliar along the way.

Now checking *this* out, very promising from the cover art...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Look_Inside_the_Asylum_Choir.jpeg

Ahhh, it's all right! Was expecting something a little more oil-projected, but it's basically similar to his big records of a couple years later, maybe with a few extra flourishes in the arrangements. But I don't mind that at all.

Les Blank's 70s Leon doc finally premieres at SxSW:

http://schedule.sxsw.com/2015/events/event_FS17793

https://www.criterion.com/films/28755-a-poem-is-a-naked-person

RIP
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-leonrussell-idUSKBN1380JM

Ah, damn. That's a bummer.

Was just reading about him in Rita Coolidge's Delta Lady, named after the song Leon wrote about her, which book I recommend.

Loved Leon so much. RIP old man <3

"Stranger In A Strange Land" hitting hard today.

RIP

posted about it on another thread sometime but the les blank movie is so great.
playing hank wilson's back now. RIP leon.