I post a weekly diary of historical notes, arts & science items, foreign news (often receiving little notice in the US) and whimsical pieces from the outside world that I often feature in "Cheers & Jeers".
OK, you've been warned - here is this week's tomfoolery material that I posted.
CHEERS to Bill and Michael in PWM, our Wyoming-based friend Irish Patti and ...... well, each of you at Cheers & Jeers. Have a fabulous weekend .... and week ahead.
ART NOTES — an exhibition entitled Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV is at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California through May 1st.
HAIL and FAREWELL to the veteran CBS news correspondent Eric Engberg— who publicly disputed Bill O'Reilly's claim of reporting from a dangerous war zone during the Falklands War in 1982 — who has died at the age of 74 ….. to the English pianist Anthony ‘Thunderclap’ Newman— who took a song written by The Who’s Pete Townshend (“Something in the Air”) to #1 in Britain in 1969, which Townshend was never able to achieve in The Who or as a solo artist — who has died at the age of 73 …. to the Iraqi-born and Lebanese-educated architect Zaha Hadid— the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize (a lifetime achievement award in the field of architecture) — who has died at the age of 65 ….. to the Argentine-born tenor saxophonist Leandro ‘Gato’ Barbieri— known as the “Wild Bull of the Pampas” for his wailing sound, and appeared on the jazz opera “Escalator Over the Hill” as well as winning a Grammy for composing the music to the film “Last Tango in Paris” — who has died at the age of 83 …. and to the veteran German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher— one of the architects of German reunification, who never liked Margaret Thatcher (due to her dislike of European unity) and who was unusually cooperative with the press — who has died at the age of 89.
THURSDAY's CHILD is named Alan the Cat— an English kitteh with life-threatening breathing problems, who has been saved by vets using a stent to open his windpipe.
IT IS INTERESTING (as Rachel Maddow once noted) that two of the US states with the highest rates of children vaccinated against disease are West Virginia and Mississippi— which have long allowed only medical exceptions to opt out.
HISTORY NOTES — archaeological digs in cities often hunt for clues to the city’s colonial/Native American past. But now, the city of Boston will launch a probe into a more recent patch of history: a former home of civil rights leader Malcolm X.
FRIDAY's CHILD is named Cupcake the Cat— an English kitteh who fell asleep in a box … and then was mailed in a DVD shipment 250+ plus miles, yet was found eight days later in good shape (although dehydrated).
ALTHOUGH THE LIST of a possible Trump administration’s cabinet (made by a white supremacist group) may have been a lark— it did list Tesla founder Elon Musk as Transportation Secretary. And I can’t help wonder if they were simply enthralled with his work …….. or could the fact that Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa lead them to believe their philosophy is in his DNA?
BRAIN TEASER - try this Quiz of the Week's News from the BBC.
A SPECIAL SALUTE goes out to my fellow Top Comments compatriot Adam ‘Ace Miller’ — one reason why I detest politicians who speak of unemployment so callously; insisting upon the “hammock” theory. As for the late great Ace …. hopefully he has found the peace that seemed to elude him here on Earth.
SEPARATED at BIRTH — two photos from decades ago: former Gong (as well as Hawkwind) keyboard player Tim Blake and Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.
Gong & Hakwind’s Tim Blake … and a young Steve Jobs...... and finally, for a song of the week ...........................… someone who has seemingly been around forever — and in the middle of the rock music world’s top echelon for about ten years from the late 60’s—late 70’s — yet needed an assist from an even bigger star to regain his footing just a few years ago is Leon Russell— the self-proclaimed Master of Space and Time. He wrote several hit songs that often others made famous - yet is a first-rate bandleader and sings (gravelly) songs combining rock, country, blues and Gospel in a way few others can. Besides, this weekend (Saturday, April 2nd, 2016) is his 74th birthday — he deserves this!
Born as Claude Russell Bridges, the Lawton, Oklahoma native graduated from Will Rogers High School in Tulsa in 1959: one year after Anita Bryant, a few years before future Paul Butterfield guitarist Elvin Bishop and a classmate of David Gates — who went on to co-found the band Bread in the late 60’s. In fact, Gates and Russell even cut a 1962 record together, billed as Dave and Lee — which did not chart, and they went their separate ways.
Before that, Leon Russell lied about his age (at only fourteen) in order to play keyboards in nightclubs, and eventually toured with Jerry Lee Lewis. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 60’s and soon found work as a session musician as part of the famous Wrecking Crew clique of studio musicians (as well as performing on the TV show Shindig! for their house band). Among the star performers whose recordings he was a session musician on: Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Ventures and Bobby Darin. On Glen Campbell’s 1967 Gentle on my Mind album, he is credited under (part) of his given name: Russell Bridges.
This led to his touring with Delaney & Bonnie, which brought about the next phase of his career. I have written before about the pickle that Joe Cocker found himself in back in the spring of 1970: having fired his band, then having management tell him he had better go on tour …. if he knew what was good for him.
The solution? Leon Russell put together a band to back Joe Cocker (on very short notice) that resulted in the landmark Mad Dogs & Englishmen concert tour and documentary film. Two songs written by Leon Russell stand out from this recording featuring singer Rita Coolidge — one was sang by Cocker entitled “Delta Lady” (which became Rita Coolidge’s nickname) — the other was a song (with lyrics by Bonnie Bramlett) which I have written about before at this link that morphed (in several iterations) into the song Superstar— a hit for Karen Carpenter.
The following year, Leon Russell was also a music director for George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh in New York. In the meantime, Leon Russell had released his first solo album — with guest appearances by three stones and two Beatles — that featured songs of his that became famous for others, such as “Hummingbird”, the aforementioned “Delta Lady” and perhaps his most famous song that he himself had a hit with (yet also saw numerous other singers cover).
A Song for You— a plea for forgiveness and understanding from an estranged lover — features his own raspy voice. Then consider the others who have performed it: Donnie Hathaway, Andy Williams, Ray Charles, Beyoncé, the Carpenters, Cher, Petula Clark, Neil Diamond, Aretha Franklin, Peggy Lee, Whitney Houston, Carmen McRae, Willie Nelson, Donna Summer, Amy Winehouse, Herbie Hancock/Christina Aguilera, Simply Red, Dusty Springfield, Céline Dion …… to use my standard line: if there is a pattern there, I fail to discern it.
Leon Russell had a another hit album in 1972 with Carney— and it contains his highest-ever charted song, Tight Rope (which reached #11 on the charts). Then reaching into his country music roots, he released Hank Wilson’s Back! in 1973 — an ode to Hank Williams and the other country acts that visited his native Tulsa.
1975’s Will O' the Wisp that had a popular song in “Bluebird” and a song “Lady Blue” that reached #14 in the charts — his last Top Twenty single. He did have a popular duet album with Willie Nelson in 1979, but the music industry (and he) went their separate ways, and he was absent for most of the 1980’s.
He did have a comeback album in 1992 entitled Anything Can Happen (produced by Bruce Hornsby) and he founded a new record company that released not only his own recordings but other performers he felt should be heard. Yet he remained under-radar (playing small gigs) until this decade — when he was befriended by someone who thought that Leon should be back in the limelight.
Elton John had long been an admirer, and he arranged for a duet album entitled The Union in 2010 — which reached #3 in the album charts. Leon Russell’s most recent recording is Life Journey from 2014 — which features blues, jazz and pop in a combination he had not dabbled in for years.
Beyond his own performing, he has also mentored other musicians. Having helped found Shelter Records in 1969, he helped either launch (or foster) the recording careers of such diverse acts as Tom Petty, the Gap Band, Dwight Twilley, Phoebe Snow and bluesman Freddie King.
Recently, he joined the new power couple of rock & roll (Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks) for their tribute concert to Joe Cocker last September that reunited many performers from the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour — with Leon Russell smack in the middle of it — that may have a documentary release this year.
More immediately, Leon Russell has a year-long US tour schedule that brings him to the Gulf Coast this weekend and elsewhere later on.
Yet his place in history is already set, with inductions into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2011 (introduced by Elton John, of course), into the Songwriters Hall of Fame that same year and also into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame five years earlier in 2006.
As far as being a songwriter: with her recording of “Bluebird”, Helen Reddy has said, "I love Leon Russell's writing and I love this song. It was an integral part of my repertoire for nearly 30 years, and I never tired of singing it."
And with regards to his other major role:
“He was the greatest bandleader of the late-'60s and early-'70s,” Elton John said recently. “At [George Harrison’s] Concert for Bangladesh, on [Cocker’s] Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, he was the man. He walks into a room of musicians [today], sits down at the piano …. and he still is the bandleader; he still is the man.”
Leon Russell, circa 1970 … With his new BFF Elton JohnIf you turned over his 45 single (with “Tight Rope” as the “A” side) from 1972 — and not many radio stations did — you would have heard a song that was to be made famous by other performers (who did listen to it). This Masquerade was recorded by performers as diverse as the Carpenters, Shirley Bassey, Robert Goulet, Willie Nelson, Helen Reddy, Widespread Panic and Kenny Rogers.
But it was the 1976 version by George Benson — the first song in music history to occupy the number one spot on the jazz, pop, and R&B charts — that made the song famous. And it made George Benson — heretofore a first-rate guitarist, yet virtually unknown outside the jazz world — a pop superstar.
At this link is George Benson’s hit .. but below is a relatively recent solo recording by Leon Russell of a couple in love ……. but now just going-though-the-motions.
Happy 74th birthday, Leon.
Are we really happy with this lonely game we play? Looking for words to say Searching (but not finding) understanding, anyway We're lost in a masquerade
Both afraid to say we're just too far away From being close together from the start We tried to talk it over, but the words got in the way We're lost inside this lonely game we play
Thoughts of leaving disappear each time I see your eyes No matter how hard I try To understand the reasons why we carry on this way We're lost in a masquerade
x YouTube Video