Hear that Tulsa Sound Friends and Neighbors? Today's installment of Tulsa Rules focuses on that musical great Leon Russell. He is a Tulsa legend and truly a gift to the whole world.
Music has always played an important part in human carnival. This circus was viewed once again in 1970 for all to see in all of the pleasure palaces of America. Music is an integral part of the communication between people that bonds all mankind. This bond is an epoxy that works primarily because of a shared experience. From the church hymn to the blazing tracks on the radio, nary a soul is devoid of the cultural adhesive that is rhythm and melody. It is this connection that allows strangers to share common ground and be as brothers in the presence of a communal understanding.
Through music all men are alike, each playing their own part in the show. Some players are merely there to experience the spectacle, to listen to the music. Others are the music makers; those who perform with voice or instrument in order to produce sounds to evoke emotion. Still others find their role in organizing and finding the pieces of the puzzle. To these latter fellows, nothing is more exuberating than to gather together a mixture of elements and seeing how wondrous the concoction will become. Their art is in blending these pieces to make the pleasure makers. The greatest of these players are renaissance men, having aspects of all three archetypes above. They find themselves not only consumers of the music, but music artists and collaborators who seek out others to bring together in new ways that will stand out as an amazing phenomenon; a forever lasting impression. One such alchemical artist is the Master of Space and Time himself, Leon Russell.
Leon Russell was born Claude Russell Bridges, in Lawton Oklahoma. Aware of his desire at an early age, Leon Russell was performing while still at Will Roger’s High School. At fourteen years old, Russell was playing night clubs with his group “The Starlighters.” The Starlighters would consist of many of the artists that would be held responsible for creating the “Tulsa Sound.” The “Tulsa Sound” is perhaps best described by John Wooley in the article ‘You know it when you hear it- Put that dictionary down: The Tulsa Sound is hard to define but easy on the ears’ “Countless times, I've used the term Tulsa Sound to describe a certain kind of laid-back, blues- and country-influenced rock 'n' roll sound, one that began with the men profiled in this series and reached full fruition in the '70s, when Leon Russell returned triumphantly to his hometown, and Tulsa -- for a brief, shining moment -- became a rock-world nexus.” Leon Russell would not only be a part of the band, but would create his own innovations to the style that proliferated into a new sound. Gerald Goodwin, who was a bassist for many of the club bands in the fifties, is quoted as saying “Then, Leon sort of single-handedly put the keyboards into the picture. You could never hear the piano in any rock band. They didn't have amplification. But through his vision and his talent, he made that a big part of the sound, along with a good clean guitar by somebody like Cale.” Clearly Russell was in league with greatness from an early age.
Moving away from Oklahoma, Leon Russell set up shop in Los Angeles and became well known playing backup music with many of the superstar bands of the 60’s. Bands such as ‘The Byrds’ of “Turn, Turn, Turn” fame, Bobby “Boris” Pickett who was well known for “Monster Mash” and Phil Spector’s studio group who’s acts featured such classics as “The Righteous Brothers”. Russell’s musical aspirations also turned toward production. In 1967 he had his first recording studio built. It was at this time that he recorded his first album, “Look Inside the Asylum Choir.”
In 1969 Leon Russell came across the next big phase of his career. It was this point that would help to cement him as a masterful alchemist of music. He achieved success with arranging and song writing with the rotating rocker himself, Joe Cocker. As noted by the liner notes in the “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” DVD, “As things have turned out, a half year after finishing Joe Cocker’s album, for which he had written the hit song ‘Delta Lady,’ Russell was asked to put together a group for Joe Cocker. To do so, he not only drew upon the concepts he had worked on with Delaney and Bonnie, but he used some of the same musicians as well. And by then, the ‘family’ had grown to include the likes of Eric Clapton, George Harrison and Dave Mason. They weren’t a part of <ad Dogs, but they were a part of the Leon Russell Controversy… Whether the winner was Cocker, Russell or the audience is up to those who feel obliged to render a judgment.”
The cavalcade epic of his work would become apparent in Joe Cocker’s 1970 tour “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” wherein Leon Russell did organize the vast majority of the music and events. “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” brought together Joe Cocker, Leon Russell and 42 other musicians in a communal touring company. An example of the Okie sense of camaraderie and fellowship, this group worked together and helped each other out along the way, singing and writing as well as introducing new members to the public. Russell’s arrangements of the music and organization of the events would make it quite successful, in so much as to bring it to the level of “Woodstock” and “Gimme Shelter.” This piece would become part of a trinity of concert films that epitomized the times in which they lived and played; all the while serving as part of an end cap to the age of the hippie revolution. Of course while the “Altamont Free Concert” as chronicled in “Gimme Shelter” would be the final note of the trilogy, “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” is much the appropriate bridge of sentiments from the ‘Woodstock’ to ‘Altamont.’
The Russell’s spirituality and ‘Okie’ flair is apparent throughout the “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” movie filmed on the tour. He regularly calls upon the group to join hands in a circle for a moment of silence. This coupled with his arrangements and use of organs and back up choirs gives the music an almost holy level of magnificence. To add to this sound, imagery is also utilized greatly by Russell. Often seen with a large cross around his neck and sporting a t-shirt saying “Holy Trinity” on it, Leon Russell expresses a level of reverence befitting of the master of space and time. This imagery was perhaps culminated the greatest in his acquisition of the Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1960s and 1970s.
Leon Russell was truly a magician of music. He has worn many hats, served the community of the human carnival in bringing innovation all along the way. He worked as backup, lead and producer of some of the greatest music. Today he is still about, recently on tour and writing songs with Elton John. The circus continues, and Leon Russell remains right where he belongs, up on the tight-wire, flanked by life and the funeral pyre, putting on a show for all to see.
Be Excellent to Each Other,
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~BAT