A Song For You

a trip through the music of a legend

LK1933

Aug 25, 2022

A friend specifically requested today’s artist, and I was more than happy to oblige.

Leon Russell (born Claude Bridges) was a Tulsa-based pianist, bassist, guitarist, and singer-songwriter who began a career in music as a member of the Wrecking Crew of West Coast session musicians. He made connections throughout the music industry, playing on records by many big names in the mid to late 1960’s including the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, the Byrds, and George Harrison.

After working with Delaney and Bonnie for several years, then a tour and album with Joe Cocker, he released his first self-titled album in 1970 on Shelter Records (a label he co-founded) that featured his own songwriting front and center. The album reached #60 on the charts and proved Russell’s bona fides as a songwriter to be reckoned with.

Russell continued performing with a variety of notable acts, including members of the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Eric Clapton, B.B. King, and Bob Dylan. Whenever you heard a piano line that teetered between gospel and honky-tonk, there was a good chance it was Leon behind the keys.

He incorporated influences from throughout the Watts territory, taking the creaky polyrhythms of New Orleans and marrying them to the Western Swing of his native Oklahoma, then combining it with the country-rock of the Flying Burrito Brothers, the sinuous funk of the Gap Band, or the show-tune bombast of Barbra Streisand.

Leon veered off into straight ahead country under the pseudonym of “Hank Wilson”, releasing four albums of classic bluegrass and country standards with a murderer’s row of sidemen. Curly Chalker, Charlie McCoy, Pete Drake, and Pig Robbins all make appearances. Having started as a session player himself, Leon always gave room to the best musicians available to make themselves heard.

Russell toured and recorded throughout his career, only slowing down in the 2010’s when health problems cropped up. The Master of Space and Time left this mortal coil in 2016 after a series of heart issues. Tributes poured in from throughout the music industry, praising him both as a uniquely talented performer and a truly gifted composer.

With that said, let’s get into the songs. I have confined myself to songs both composed by and recorded by Russell under his own name. There are several songs that are best known by other artists’ covers (chief among them “Superstar”) and others that are transcendent covers of others’ compositions (such as “Beware of Darkness” or “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall”). I wanted to highlight both sides of Russell’s artistry in this list. The standard caveats apply: this is the list I feel right now, and I will probably change it if I keep looking at it. If you don’t like it, make your own.

10. Crystal Closet Queen

From Leon’s second album Leon Russell and the Shelter People comes “Crystal Closet Queen”. A boisterous example of honky-tonk piano layered on top of quintessentially rootsy rock ’n’ roll, with Leon’s soulful strangle wafting atop the whole construction. The lyrics are secondary to the vibe, as the star of the show is the Little Richard-esque boogie woogie.

9. Stranger In A Strange Land

When you listen to this song (also from Leon’s second album), you hear exactly where Joe Cocker’s sound comes from. The same gospel-inflected slow soul bubbles over, with washes of electronic burbles in select points. The backup vocalists in the choruses are used identically to those found in contemporaneous Stones songs, and it should come as no surprise that he was hanging around with the band in that same time frame. Leon Russell is the glue that holds early 1970’s transatlantic rock together.

8. Shoot Out On The Plantation

A classic song about a jealous boyfriend, inspired by a true story (if the liner notes to Leon’s first album are to be believed). References to his Oklahoma roots and the above-mentioned Rolling Stones are wound around a roots-funk backing track that resembles the intersection of the Meters and Little Feat. Considering Russell’s Los Angeles locale, it’s no surprise that one of his last tours was a double feature with Little Feat.

7. Hummingbird

Piano, organ, tabla, and acoustic guitar come together to meld into a lovely love song. A languid tempo sets a false sense of pace until the final stanzas, where the gospel backing singers and saxophone arrive to send the song into crescendo worthy of a tent revival. Of note is the drumbeat, which is infinitely sampleable.

Like many of Leon Russell’s songs, “Hummingbird” has been covered by numerous artists. B.B. King frequently played the song, including in conjunction with John Mayer, as heard below:

6. Out In The Woods

In the vein of Professor Longhair or Dr. John comes this swamp-funk song that simmers on a combination of tambourine and organ washes. When Leon incorporates the slipnote piano style of Nashville session legends into the interlocked drumbeat and bassline of his New Orleans rhythm section, the resulting gumbo is simply divine. Another excellent sample source for those so inclined.

5. Delta Lady

The titular '“Delta Lady” is Rita Coolidge, Russell’s partner in both music and romance for a period in the late sixties. Her career was as far reaching as Leon’s, as she sang and co-wrote with most of the luminaries of the LA and British scenes. The jauntiness of the song is a contrast to the seriousness and somberness of many of his love songs. By the way, most people take the term “delta lady” to be a double-entendre. I have to agree.

4. Tight Rope

Leon Russell’s most well-known song that he performed instead of composed. “Tight Rope” was the lead single off of his third album Carney (a reference to the carnival and circus lifestyle, as signified by the greasepaint he wears on the cover). The off-kilter drums and the stop-start piano line serve as a ragtime counterpoint to the psychedelic organ and guitar. This isn’t Scott Joplin, but it is uniquely Leon Russell.

3. Mona Lisa Please

Refusing to be confined by one genre, Leon stretches out into big-band jazz, with some assistance from the Gap Band. I don’t know how many of you are musicians, but I can barely play piano coherently; to combine his intricate musicianship with Leon’s uniquely timed and accented singing is entirely impossible for me to attempt. He has three separate melody lines going at any given time, one in each hand and one from his throat. Sometimes they align, others they are wildly divergent. It’s a testament to his overwhelming skill that he never feels like he’s showing off, but instead serves the song.

2. This Masquerade

The b-side to “Tight Rope”, “This Masquerade” was a hit for other artists, including Helen Reddy, the Carpenters, and of course our friend George Benson who I wrote about a few weeks back in my treatise on smooth jazz. The opening has more in common with the “beautiful music” of Ferrante & Teicher or Henry Mancini than his fellow LA rockers, in part because of the layered string section. Some have accused Russell of specifically writing songs that could be adapted for more profitable markets by more accessible artists. The official stance of this newsletter is that “selling out” is a myth, because we are all cogs in the wheel of a capitalistic system.

1. A Song For You

Leon Russell is most widely known as a composer, largely on the strength of this song. It’s been covered by more than 200 artists, and for good reason. Even though it was released in 1970, it sounds timeless; it could have been a jazz standard in the forties or a modern R&B track with no real changes. There are few perfect songs, but this might be one of them. Each version sounds alive and resonant, and it all started with Leon’s.

Here’s Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, and Leon himself performing the song in 2003:

Here’s Donny Hathaway in 1971:

Here’s Karen and Richard Carpenter:

And here’s Michael Buble and Chris Botti:

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