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DEEP DIVES & tiny curations Podcast Episodes Available Today:
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01 - A Song For You
02 - Tight Rope
03 - If It Wasn't for Bad - Elton John and Leon Russell
04 - Cant Seem To Get A Line On You - The Rolling Stones
The Master of Time and Space, Leon Russell from Tulsa, Oklahoma passed away 5 years ago today at the age of 74.
Leon played the piano, among other things. In the 60's, he was a part of the legendary set of studio musicians, known as the Wrecking Crew. Performing with a who's who, including The Concert for Bangladesh with George Harrison and also along with others in the likes of Bob Dylan, Badfinger, and many more.
Other musicians started finding his music and recording them and making hits with his songs. Like Delta Lady, from Joe Cocker. The song I only really started to dig when watching him recorded live in the 70's, in the documentary "A Poem is a Naked Person". The documentary was only released in 2015 at South by. For 40 years, the film went unreleased. It features Leon live and onstage in his heyday. And that's where I really got to see the man shine as a live performer. The rest of them film is Leon bouncing around Oklahoma, his recording studio, The Church Studio in Tulsa recording country and western album "Hank Wilson's Back Vol 1" under the moniker of Hank Wilson. He would end up releasing 4 volumes over his career under the alias.
The documentary also showed Leon building a house and hiring a young artist, Jim Franklin, to paint his pool with his own psychedelic art, before it is filled with water. Jim Franklin would become known for his posters, around the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin and featuring Armadillos. Now there stands a full life sized bronze statue of Leon Russell in his signature top hat, and with his beard and longhair, it is located outside The Church Studio, commissioned by non-other than Jim Franklin.
His most well-known song would most likely be "A Song for You" off of his first album on his own Shelter Records, a record company that he started, the album was release in 1970. Many artists have recorded it over the years. Willie did a version in 1973 with just him and Trigger. The song closed out the "Shotgun Willie" album, the first to feature his guitar Trigger. But one of my favorite versions is from Ray Charles. He recorded it in 1993, but the live version he did that same year for Willie's 60th Birthday Party is my favorite. There is another version out that for another Willie special, featuring him along with both Ray Charles and Leon Russell. But now let's hear the man do it how he does it on his piano, here is "A Song For You" with the lines "I love you in a place where there's no space or time", but these are the words on his own gravestone, his own lyrics from the song: "And When My Life is Over, Remember When We Were Together, we were alone and I was singing this song for you":
The last song on the "Shotgun Willie" album, the first album to feature Trigger. Trigger would again appear on Willie's next album "Red Headed Stranger" and then again for all the rest of his albums from that point on.
I was lucky enough to see Leon many times.
