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Rocker Leon Russell dies in Nashville

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Leon Russell, who performed, sang and produced some of Rock ‘N’ Roll ‘s top records, has died. He was 74. An email from Leon Russell Records to The Associated Press says Russell died Sunday in Nashville. The email cites Russell’s wife as the source of the information. Russell had heart bypass surgery in July and was recovering from that at the time of his death. He had been planning on resuming touring in January, the email said.

Besides his music, Russell was known for his striking appearance: wispy white hair halfway down his back and that covered much of his face. Russell played keyboard for the Los Angeles studio team known as the Wrecking Crew, helping producer Phil Spector develop his game-changing wall of sound approach in the 1960s.

He wrote Joe Cocker’s “Delta Lady” and in 1969 put together Cocker’s “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” tour, which spawned a documentary film and a hit double album. As a musician, primarily a pianist, he played on The Beach Boys ‘ “California Girls” and landmark “Pet Sounds” album, Jan and Dean’s “Surf City,” the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby,” and the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man.” He also played guitar and bass.

Russell produced and played on recording sessions for Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Ike and Tina Turner, the Rolling Stones and many others. He arranged the Turners’ “River Deep, Mountain High.” He recorded hit songs himself like “Tight Rope” and “Lady Blue” and participated in “The Concert for Bangla Desh.” John Lennon , Ringo Starr and George Harrison played on his first album, “Leon Russell.”

His concerts often ended with a rousing version of “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” In 1973, Billboard Magazine listed Russell as the top concert attraction in the world. About this time, he was the headline act on billings that included Elton John and at other times Willie Nelson.

In a 1992 interview with The Associated Press, Russell said music doesn’t really change much. “It’s cyclical, like fashion. You keep your old clothes and they’ll be in style again sooner or later. “There are new things, like rap. But that’s a rebirth of poetry. It’s brought poetry to the public consciousness.”

In 2011, Russell was chosen for induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He also was honored with an Award for Music Excellence from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He and Elton John released “The Union,” a critically received duo album in 2010.

“He was a mentor, inspiration and so kind to me,” Elton John said in a Facebook post Sunday. “Thank God we caught up with each other and made ‘The Union’. He got his reputation back and felt fulfilled. I loved him and always will.”

Russell, born in Lawton, Oklahoma, began as a nightclub piano player in Oklahoma at the age of 14, also backing touring artists when they came to town. Jerry Lee Lewis was so impressed with Russell that he hired Russell and his band for two years of tours.

He relocated to Los Angeles in 1959, where he became known as a top musician, and later to Nashville. In the early 2000s he began his own record label, Leon Russell Records.

Rest in peace.

Mose Allison R.I.P.

Mose Allison, who has died at the age of 89, was a huge presence in the worlds of jazz and blues with his much-loved boogie-woogie piano and vocal style. But his influence stretched far beyond those genres, and was felt in the rock and pop arena by artists including The Who, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, The Clash and even the Monkees. His death yesterday (15), of natural causes, at home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, was confirmed by his wife Audre, to whom he had been married for 67 years.

Allison was born on 11 November, 1927 in Tippo, Mississippi, and picked cotton in his youth, taking up piano lessons in first grade at school. His southern upbringing had a profound effect on his emerging style, informed by the jazz and blues of the Mississippi Delta.

As he recalled in an interview with the Sacramento Bee in 2003: “There was always a piano in the house. My dad was a stride player, playing ragtime-type stuff. My mother sent me to a good piano teacher in the Mississippi Delta, and I took lessons for a few years. But as soon as I realised I could pick out things by ear, I quit taking lessons.”

He told Max Jones in Melody Maker in 1966: “Muddy Waters, who I’ve seen several times, affected me greatly — the early Muddy Waters sound of ‘Louisiana Blues.’ And the first Sonny Boy [Williamson], I saw in Memphis. He made a real impression. But it’s a school. These are famous names, but at home I heard other artists doing much the same thing.”

After a year at the University of Mississippi, he joined the army in 1946 and played in the military band. He returned to the college, widely known as ‘Ole Miss,’ for a time before forming a trio and going on the road. In 1956, Allison’s relocation to New York proved key to his career development, as he began to perform with such jazz notables as Stan Getz and Gerry Mulligan. In 1957, aged 29 and newly signed to Prestige, he released his first album, Back Country Suite.

Allison’s reputation was embellished greatly during the British rhythm and blues boom of the early and mid-1960s. Parchman Farm,’ from his second album Local Color, was recorded by Georgie Fame in 1964 and then by John Mayall and his band for the famed 1966 “Beano Album,” Bluesbreakers With Eric Clapton. It also attracted covers by artists as varied as Johnny Rivers, Bobbie Gentry, Blue Cheer and Johnny Winter.

Allison was also an early and enduring favourite of Pete Townshend. In his Who I Amautobiography, he wrote that as a young man, “I was also drawn to the jazzier side of R&B, especially at first. I had grown up with Ella, Frank, the Duke and the Count, so I liked Ray Charles, Jimmy Smith and Mose Allison.”

Townshend also wrote that The Who’s anthem ‘My Generation’ was very much inspired by Allison’s ‘Young Man Blues,’ which itself became part of their live set and entered Who folklore when it was included on their seminal 1970 album Live At Leeds. In 1973, blues devotee Raitt included Mose’s ‘Everybody’s Cryin’ Mercy’ on her Takin’ My Time album; in 1990, alternative rock figureheads the Pixies named the song ‘Allison’ in his honour on their Bossanova album.

Allison recorded for such august labels as Atlantic and Elektra, and continued to work into this century. In 2010, with 30-plus albums to his name, he released The Way Of The World, produced by Joe Henry, who wrote in the sleeve note: “It took me nearly a full year to persuade the man into my basement studio, since he’s long ago sworn off formal recording.

“But Mose is a gentleman and a soft touch — and I, like a dog with an old shoe, had an idea I wouldn’t let go of. I became fairly obsessed with the notion that Mose, at 82, might yet have something more to tell us.” His final release was 2015’s American Legend Live In California, on IBis Recordings.

In 2005, good-humoured to a fault, Allison told the San Francisco Chronicle: “I used to tell a joke. Mose the singer and Mose the songwriter got together and said if we could just get rid of this piano player we can make some serious money.

“The fact is that I try to play jazz piano, and I keep at it, but nobody knows what my classification is. They ask me if I’m a blues person or a jazz person, but I don’t consider myself anything. That’s up to other people. I’ve never seen me, you know?”

Rest in peace.