Leon
Diane enjoyed Saturday night’s Leon Russell concert; I say, put the poor wretch out to pasture.
The Bull Run in Shirley is a dinner theater. The dining room’s a perfect rectangle seating three hundred people. The so-called stage is not elevated, and this night’s opening act, a banjo and steel-guitar-playing rockabilly soloist, disappeared below the heads of those diners in front of us. His music disappeared too. He touched on those famous locomotive cord sounds, but the train never arrived.
During intermission, Leon’s drummer and two guitarists set-up largely unnoticed. Then Leon, with his ghost-like flowing white beard and hair, and wearing a jacket, white fedora and dark sunglasses, limped to his keyboard from a nearby stairwell. There were no introductions, nor much time for applause. Leon laid his thick fingers on the keyboard and from that moment on, he pounded out unremitting wake-the-dead material.
I turned to Diane, pulled her head close, and screamed, “This is what the first act lacked,” but she couldn’t hear me. I gave up, pivoted back and waited for the quiet break between songs – except there were no breaks, because there were no intros, no repartee with the audience, and no intelligible words. With his lips pressed against the microphone, and the volume and treble maxed out, Leon rasped his way through the entire set like a hack saw screeching through a rusty Studebaker fender.
Two hours later and a single song before the end, his band stumbled away to recover while Leon played on. Stiff back, seemingly frozen at the mike, Leon shattered ear drums until his mates returned. Together they banged out a final number, after which Leon stood up, said, “Thank you,†and walked away.
View larger image
>I turned to Diane, pulled her head close, and >screamed, “This is what the first act lacked,” but >she couldn’t hear me
That’s what text-messaging is for, man.
Comment by rakkity — December 14, 2005 @ 7:13 am
Sad when legends are reduced to humiliating themselves, and in dinner theatres no less … Sorry your introduction to him was past his expiration date. He’s put out a vast amount of music in his career, much of it quite good.
Comment by adam — December 14, 2005 @ 9:13 am
‘Tis only my take.
And he has played with the likes of: Bryan Wilson, The Byrds, the Wrecking Crew, the Stones, Beatles, Dylan, Ray Charles, and on and on.
Comment by michael — December 14, 2005 @ 9:33 am
I can’t even imagine portraying Leon’s performance as humiliating. He was a consummate professional, a wonderful volume of music streamed from his gestalt, his back-up guys were genuinely gifted, and Michael just didn’t happen to like it, which is his godgiven right. But I did.
Comment by rebuttal — December 14, 2005 @ 2:19 pm
He made him sound defunct, grating and unintelligible, like a seized Wurlitzer, or a broken-down hurdy-gurdy or something. My bad …
Comment by sucker — December 14, 2005 @ 3:22 pm
And there you have it, she likes hard rock and I’m pinning for The Montovani Orchestra playing La Amore E Bleu.
Comment by michael — December 14, 2005 @ 3:23 pm
He’s no Jon Bon Jovi in the pulse department, never was. However, I always thought Leon Russell had a very distinctive voice, unusual. And he wrote A Song for You, one of the all time great ones. But he’s no Bon Jovi (which he’d probably take as a compliment).
Comment by la Rad — December 14, 2005 @ 4:28 pm
So, when was the last time you cut through a Studebaker fender with a hacksaw? Leon has always been a worker. I saw him in a similar venue 30 years ago. He is too loud because he is deaf! Mike, a guy I know from your old high school played with Leon for a number of years. His band, New Grass, opened the show and then backed Leon.
Comment by Jeffro — December 14, 2005 @ 5:37 pm
And he’s deaf because he’s been in the midst of deafening music for most of his life. Don’t forget your earplugs if you go to loud concerts, or you’ll be deaf too.
From personal experience.
Comment by rakkity — December 14, 2005 @ 6:03 pm
I was going to write something about cutting through downspout with a hacksaw, but I thought more people could relate to the Studebaker.
And he was more than loud. When he backed off the mike, which was like never, you could discern a voice, one that sort of resembled what you hear on his albums. His intent was not to entertain – clearly – but to assault the geriatric set a bobbin’ and a weavin’ to his music.
Point well taken, rakkity.
Comment by michael — December 14, 2005 @ 8:43 pm
What the heck, BTW, is a “perfect rectangle … ?
Comment by el Kib — December 14, 2005 @ 10:14 pm
“Perfect” as opposed to “imperfect”, i.e. not like the rectangles in Grok Hill refugio?
Comment by rakkity — December 14, 2005 @ 11:35 pm
I might have meant golden rectangle, eh rak?
Comment by michael — December 15, 2005 @ 1:15 am
The golden rectangle–extract a subsquare and the remainder is similar to the original–or so my geometry teacher said back in ought’57.
Comment by rakkity — December 15, 2005 @ 6:17 pm