Leon Russell

LEON RUSSELL
 
 
Leon Russell  (born Claude Russell Bridges; April 2, 1942) is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

Shortly after Blind Faith broke up, Eric Clapton began playing as a sideman with a completely different group, Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, a rock/soul collaboration of Delaney Bramlett and his wife Bonnie Bramlett with a whole parade of musicians:  Besides ClaptonWikipedia lists Duane AllmanGregg AllmanGeorge HarrisonLeon RussellBobby WhitlockDave MasonRita Coolidge, and King Curtis 

 

(May 2014)

 

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Besides Glen Campbell, several members of the Wrecking Crew went on to great prominence in the music world, among them Mac Rebennack (better known as Dr. John) and Leon Russell.  

 

(February 2015)

 

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I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) too was blessed with some amazing effects; as described in Wikipedia:  “At the time, the Electric Prunes comprised singer James Lowe, lead guitarist Ken Williams, rhythm guitarist James ‘Weasel’ Spagnola, bassist Mark Tulin, and drummer Preston Ritter.  The oscillating, reversed guitar which opens the song originated from the rehearsals at [Leon] Russell’s house, where Williams recorded with a 1958 Gibson Les Paul guitar with a Bigsby vibrato unit.  According to Lowe, ‘We were recording on a four-track, and just flipping the tape over and re-recording when we got to the end.  Dave [Hassinger] cued up a tape and didn’t hit “record”, and the playback in the studio was way up:  ear-shattering vibrating jet guitar.  Ken had been shaking his Bigsby wiggle stick with some fuzztone and tremolo at the end of the tape.  Forward it was cool.  Backward it was amazing.  I ran into the control room and said, “What was that?”  They didn’t have the monitors on so they hadn’t heard it.  I made Dave cut it off and save it for later.’” 

 

(July 2015)

 

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I have also noticed a lot of deaths, particularly it seems in the past year; Leon Russell passed away the day after I set up a modest web page on him, as just one example. Clearly these musicians mean a lot to people, and not just the most famous among them. As I write this, Leonard Cohen’s death was more than two weeks ago, yet his photograph still shows up on the “In the News” block on the Wikipedia main page. Cohen’s death notice is in the middle of the list, while Donald Trump’s election the following day is at the bottom.
 
(Year 7 Review)
Last edited: April 3, 2021