I missed out on Leon Russell until now.  I never listened to his stuff and really didn’t know much about him.  I did a little research in anticipation of this review and found that while I hadn’t heard Russell, I had heard a lot of the songs that he’d written.  Nobody born after 1960 could have missed out on Elton John.  This collaboration evidently came to be as a product of Elton John’s inspiration.   Russell evidently is one of John’s earliers inspirations. The Union is quite good and leverages both men’s talents.

It requires no time to “get into” or develop a taste for.  I suspect that is entirely due to Elton John’s influence.  This is a guy who’s music is always undeniably “catchy.”  It just is.  My personal preference is for his earlier, less flamboyant, diva-ish work, but regardless, the man’s got talent.  However, this is more than a catchy album, it’s one made for grown ups.

While The Union hearkens back to a lot of Elton John’s earlier material, both thematically and musically, theme-wise, it’s kind of a down-beat and melancholic collection.  The music has a rich, dramatic and sometimes flamboyant texture.  A lot of the songs have almost a gospel sound to them in the background vocals.  Somehow this seems to work, in spite of the seemingly odd juxtaposition.  Aside from good lyrics, and a sometimes funky gospel tint, the pianos provide a lot of the vibrancy in the music.  Both artists are more than merely accomplished pianists and complement each other hugely.  Some of the songs have a melifluous ragtime sound.  The tracks Hey Ahab and A Dream Come True feature the fluid sounds of fingers rippling over the keys.

When I first heard the CD, my initial thought was, “this is what you get when the people are making music because they want to, they don’t need to give a damn whether anyone else likes it.”  That can either be a really good thing, or a very bad thing.  In this case, it’s a good thing.  Just as Mark Knopfler has moved beyond Dire Straits, this album feels like it’s definitely unconstrained by externals.  Many of the songs feel like grown up versions of familiar Elton John standards.  I could hear echoes of Elton John’s Disney soundtrack piece Circle of Life in the chorus of The Best Part of the Day, Saturday Night’s All Right for Fighting in Monkey Suit, and $800 Shoes seems like a grown up version of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  However, the music is much more than an evolution of earlier work, it really is a true collaboration, although it’s definitely tilted more toward Elton John than Leon Russell.

For listeners who take the time to listen to the lyrics they will discover another parallel to Knopfler’s later work and that is songs that tell a story of forgotten or little-remembered people.  Jimmie Rodgers Dream is just such a jewel.  Jimmie Rodgers is considered by many to be the father of country music.  To be sure, the steel guitars and western twang make this song seem like a “country and western” piece.  The lyrics incorporate a lot of detail from Rodgers’ short life.  There are railroad references which hearken back to his moniker, the singing brakeman, there’s a line which refers to his tuberculosis, his wife Carrie, and the shortness of his life.  The lyrics are somewhat haunting as you picture Rodgers sitting by himself in a lonely hotel room dreaming of home (Meridian).

In this room all alone
I dream of you
In this drawer I found someone
I never knew
Now I pop a top and stay up late with Gideon
And fall asleep to visions of Meridian

In addition to Elton John and Leon Russel, T-Bone Burnett’s influence and musical stylings are strongly in evidence.  After hearing him perform with Alison Krauss and Robert Plant some years ago, I’d like to think I can hear his influence in producing this album.  This may be my imagination, but he also collaborated on writing a few of the songs on the album.  However, the best, and most surprising collaboration comes from Neil Young’s participation on what I think is the best song on the CD, Gone to Shilo.  The song is about the Battle of Shiloh, and Young’s etherial sounding voice on the verse he sings is chilling.  It is presumably from this song that the album gets its title.  It starts with some haunting piano strains and Russell telling the story of “Luther” going off to fight for the union at Shilo.  Young’s verse melds the sadness and worry of goodbye with the chilling knowledge of what is to come at the battle.

April’s come and the air smells fresh with rain

They watched his shadow fade around the bend
He’s headed for a different kind of thunder

And the stunned surprise in the eyes of dying men

Young’s distinctive voice appears again in the background, giving the song a haunting, melancholy aspect as it ends with the warning:

After all this, if we should prevail
Heaven help the South

When Sherman comes their way


All in all, The Union was an excellent purchase and one that is sure to age well and provide years of listening pleasure.  It introduced me to Leon Russell and proved that Elton John still has some musical life left in him.  I’d give this one 4/5 sawblades.

No Degrees of Separation

The Union – Elton John /Leon Russell

When we were kids, my best friend Dave Pela and I used to connect our favorite artists to each other by finding common side musicians on their albums or producers or arrangers.    This has become cliché in later years, as X degrees of separation, but at that time it was just a fun little pastime.   Dave was better at it than I was, because while I studied album liner notes, and Rolling Stone magazine, Dave did all of that, and read “Creem” magazine too.   He is an aficionado.  Plus I was a late arrival to contemporary music.  

But that is another story for another time.

Elton John and Leon Russell were musical favorites as a teen.  Leon’s distinctive piano rolls, chord progressions and melody lines, and lyrical choices were unique and incredible.    (I heard “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by Leon Russell months before I knew it was a Rolling Stone song)    And “Masquerade” (from Carney) will never be a George Benson song in my recollection.    BB King’s Indianola Mississippi Seeds will forever be stamped by Leon Russell’s “Hummingbird”.     Mad Dogs and Englishmen was a whole other universe.    (Joe Cocker owes him a lot!)  Then Leon departed from conventional wisdom and blew me away in 1973 with  Hank Wilson’s Back – Volume 1, which was a rollicking true to the genre country tribute to some of the finest beer joint country music ever written.   

The first album I owned by Elton John was  11-17-70  which I can remember listening to over and over with headphones on in my bedroom at night.  I heard it first in high school on the radio on KDKB when it was a good station and they did albums at night.  That led me of course to buying it and his first album.     Long John Baldry had an album co-produced by Elton and Rod Stewart that bore his stamp, which I also acquired.   But I never bought Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across the Water, which I probably should have.   I was playing catch up a bit with him, and as Elton became more flamboyant on stage, I became less interested.   Remember this was the era of plumage and glitter.   Feh!  I was from the school of romantic poetry and John Wayne and my musical choices reflected it.  I had little use for affectations.   I picked Billy Joel.  Meat and potatoes and lots of dessert.   

Leon Russell did a fine double album with Willie Nelson in the early 80’s and pretty much disappeared from my consciousness afterwards.    Elton became a diva and well, I have already waxed on that.   (Though he did a great album in 1990, Sleeping with the Past that reaffirmed his credentials IMHO as a whale of a performer and songwriter)   

I never figured these two dots would meaningfully connect for me all these many years later.   

Times have changed, and this project, The Union was not well publicized.  I guess with Lady Gaga around, who needs a couple of aging geniuses.   The whole project was unknown to me until my wife Sandi, came up with 2 tickets to their concert at the America West Arena.   I had seen Leon Russell in concert a few times, but had never seen Elton John, so I said, ‘lets go!’    Until we got there, I thought this was a concert with Leon opening for Elton.   Still playing catch up.  What a fantastic surprise.  

I won’t do a review of the concert here, and I know I have laid an excessive foundation, but what’s past is always prologue.  

Now the album:

From the opening chords of “If It Wasn’t for Bad”, I knew this was going to be good.    Leon Russell delivers a solid performance on a fun song.   I love the added bars with the very signature Leon Russell chord progression.   A nice opener.   Following this is Elton John’s “Eight Hundred Dollar Shoes”, which I haven’t figured out yet, but its got a great line “the winter of your discontent came 20 years too late”…. Maybe a revisit of Marilyn.  (Or maybe not).  Nice song, waltz time and a fine little melody.   

The keys start pounding with “Hey Ahab”, with more than a passing nod to the gospel meets rock and roll feel of Mad Dogs and Englishmen.    A driving song that you can’t keep still while listening to.   Nice to hear Jim Keltner again (who is on most of the album) on drums.   The song ends with a splash.   (You get it.)

The albums best song is next.  “Shiloh” is amazing.   It grabs you the first time you hear it.    Delivering the opening lyric is Leon Russell, which makes it all the more melancholy, bringing it an element of vulnerability and subtle phrasing on the chorus.    I can almost see the peach blossoms falling on the ground around the dying men, when Neil  Young surprises with a lead harmony vocal that takes you into a whole other dimension.    Hard act to follow.

But they do it and they do it well.  “Jimmy Rodgers Dream” is a real toe-tapper, as Lightfoot might say.   Great follow up.   Nice steel work by Keefus Ciancia, and you start to hear the work of T Bone Burnett.   Fits right in.     

Back on a more serious note is the dirge-like “There’s no Tomorrow” with its rolling drum lines and fatalistic lyrics.   A fine piece of work.   One I look forward to hearing everytime I spin the CD.

“Monkey Suit” follows which is the first completely unremarkable song on the CD.   Not bad, but nothing here that makes it noteworthy.    Plus the song was about 2 minutes too long.   “The Best Part of the Day” is a nice love song and a reminder that Bernie Taupin is still a very fine lyricist.  

Things are starting to feel a bit bogged down, but not for long.   Leon Russell’s piano leads us into “Dream Come True”, which is just what we needed.     Well done by Elton and Leon.    Nice keyboard work by both of them and a lot of fun.    A hand clapper.  

“When Love Is Dying” sounds like a Leon Russell song until the chorus, but then its solid Elton.    Nice song and makes great use of Leon Russell’s unique delivery in the opening verse.    I am not sure what Brian Wilson’s contribution was to this.  Nothing harmful, but certainly nothing with the distinctiveness of Neil Young’s earlier contribution on “Shiloh”.   If I hadn’t read the liner notes, I would not know he was there.  

“I Should Have Sent Roses” is a collaboration between Leon Russell and Bernie Taupin.    Nice song, and the guitar fills are really fine by Doyle Bramhall II.  

“Hearts Have Turned to the Stone” is one of the 3 songs penned exclusively by Leon Russell for the album.   I really like this song.    Vintage Leon vocals, great horns here, nice piano solo in the middle and great background vocals, punctuated by T-Bone guitar chords.  

This is a good record.    If I have one complaint, it’s too long.   And it drags in places.   And in the wrong places.  It needed to end on a higher note.   The last two songs come very close to spoiling the broth.

“You’re Never Too Old” sounds like maybe they were a little too old to be singing these last two songs.   I felt a bit like Igor was there dragging one leg behind him while I was listening to it.  (Close your eyes, you can almost see Marty Feldman)  Come on guys, let’s not be so maudlin.   The bridge picked up things a bit for a bit but not long enough.   

“In The Hands of Angels” is Leon’s tribute to Elton John, and it actually came off better live.  Leon has been in poor health in recent years, and apparently according to what I read, he underwent surgery shortly before the album was recorded.   He sounds weak and fragile on this song and the angelic background chorus lent the feeling that immediately after the song was recorded, Leon laid down and died.    Not the way I wanted the album to finish.    

Maybe there was a reason that most albums from that era were around 40 minutes.    There is wisdom to leaving audience wanting more.    This one could have probably ended at 10-11 songs and been a real delight.  I wouldn’t have felt cheated.    I probably would have omitted the last 2 songs and “Monkey Suit”, and finished with “Dream Come True”.  I would have left the rest as “bonus tracks”.    Then there would be something extra for the version that came with the DVD with all the interviews from the project.  

Ah, marketing.   But I am truly fine with the one abridged CD as described above.   All in all, The Union is really a very nice album.   And it was very cool connecting these amazing artists with only one set of liner notes.  

 

In 1970 there were three albums released around the same time that to me were the future of music. They were the greatest thing I had ever heard and they all happened at one time. Those albums were Cat Steven’s “Tea For The Tillerman” and the albums titled “Elton John” and “Leon Russell”.

It was a couple years before I could actually afford to own them but I knew people who did. After a couple more albums, Cat got a little boring for me, and then became Yusef Islam. I guess there is one sane Muslim in the world. I hope it’s him.

I was a big fan of Elton until, like everyone whose music I adored; he became a commercial hit machine. After “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” I couldn’t stand him. Everything Leon did never quite measured up to his first two albums (“and The Shelter People” being his second). The Hank Wilson persona was a highlight, introducing me to some classic country songs I had never heard.

Although their early music was a revelation to me and always a part of that time of awareness that defines your life, I lost interest in both of them over the years.

What is amazing about this record is the fact that Russell was such an influence on Elton. I never suspected that there was any connection between their music but in retrospect, it is obvious listening to Elton’s first album (which was really his second) that there is an influence in “Take Me To The Pilot” and “No Shoestrings On Louise”.

The two songs for me that had an entwined thread were “Your Song” and “A Song For You” .  They were often played back-to-back by William Edward Compton on KCAC. I always thought they were more competitors than comrades.  I am appalled that although Elton John is a household word, people are not aware of Leon Russell. A few seasons back on American Idol, one of the contestants sang, on two occasions, a song that he introduced as “Donny Hathaway’s A Song For You”. Barb was startled (both times) when I threw the remote at the big screen and yelled “It’s a Leon Russell song!”

I was a little leery of this album. I feared that Russell had succumbed to the old man vocal disease- i.e. Bob Dylan is even more un-intelligible, John Stewart turned into Walter Brennan and Lightfoot’s vocal chords were snorted into his sinuses. What is amazing is that Elton John voice has not changed over the years. Clean living? I doubt it. Although Leon sounds his age, he always has. In the liner notes, Elton reveals that Leon had major surgery prior to this and the recording was beneficial to his recovery. It is obvious that he felt better on some tracks than others. I went back and listened to his early material and back then he had a slight lisp as he does now.

This is a rather large album to take in. There are sixteen tracks; twelve would have been easier. It’s interesting to guess without reading the songwriting credits, whose song is, did they collaborate, was one just adding back-up to something already finished? The propensity seems to be to add a gospel chorus to any Russell songs. If you listen to his first album, that gospel influence is pre-dominant. The most satisfying part of this album is that it is a return to the sound of “Tumbleweed Connection”- that version of Elton John that I like the most.

 

Trivial Threads-

 

Jason Scheff (background vocals)- He replaced Peter Cetera (high vocal and bass) in Chicago. His dad Jerry Scheff  played bass for Elvis.

 

Martin Grebb (b.v, keyboards)- Grebb has been a member of Leon’s touring band but he is more famous as a member of The Buckinghams in the late 60s –“Kind Of A Drag”, “Hey Baby, They’re Playing Our Song”, etc.

 

Rose Stone (b.v.)- Rose is Sly’s sister. She was the black lady with the blonde afro in Sly & The Family Stone. Her little sister Vaetta was part of a trio called Little Sister. Sly produced a couple of discs for them but they mostly sang back-up on the Family Stone recordings. Another member of Little Sister was Mary McCreary who later became Mrs. Leon Russell. They recorded two albums together- “The Wedding Album” and “Make Love To The Music”. After they split, Mary resumed her maiden name and has had a career as a Gospel singer. Apparently she wasn’t available to sing here but Sister Rose was.

 

Leon- Before his solo career, Leon was a studio musician with fingers in every pie. He did most of the arrangements and keyboards for Gary Lewis & The Playboys. This should not be held against him. Although he was not credited, it was obvious on Bob Dylan’s “Watching The River Flow” who was playing piano.

            Also before his solo career, he was a part of The Asylum Choir who released a couple of albums that were re-released after he became famous. The other half of TAS was Marc Benno. Benno had a varied career as a solo artist, band leader and session man after his work with Russell. He played bass on The Doors “LA Woman” album. Although The Doors didn’t have a bass player on stage (Ray Manzarek played foot-pedal bass), they always had one in the studio. Jerry Scheff (see above) was the bass player on most of their albums. Benno also fronted a band called The Nightcrawlers. It featured a young Texas guitar player named Steven Vaughan. It was the recording and song-writing debut for the late Stevie Ray.

 

Reggie- Reginald Dwight took his stage name from two former band-mates John Baldry (an artist who bears exploring!) and sax player Elton Dean. He played piano on The Hollies “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother”. Leon, on his 2^nd album, wrote “Crystal Closet Queen” about Little Richard but it could have been about Elton.

 

The songs-

1)      If It Wasn’t For Bad Luck- sounding like his old self, this has the sound of Leon piano.

2)      $800 Shoes- Seems to be describing Elton. Down deep he is a piano player like Leon, but their careers took different path. He opted for glamour of commerciality, while Leon always stayed true to himself.

3)      Hey Ahab- Sounds like a reject from “Madman Across The Water” with the Leon piano and gospel background thrown in. Not my favorite.

4)      Gone To Shilo- My favorite. Sounds like something from “Tumbleweed..” with “A Song For You” thrown in. The same Western theme with a touch of “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by The Band. Apparently Levon Helm wasn’t available so Neil Young filled in. Young’s voice, like Elton’s, has not changed.

5)      Hearts Have Turned To Stone- pure Leon. He’s in good voice here.

6)      Jimmie Rodger’s Dream-  Good duet, another highlight. The Gideon/meridian rhyme is about as bad as Lightfoot’s “morning after blues from my head down to my shoes” but I will overlook that because I really like the song.

7)       There’s No Tomorrow- This is collaboration between Elton, Leon, T-Bone Burnett with a writing credit given to James Timothy Shaw. Shaw was better known as The Mighty Hannibal. He was an R&B singer who scored a minor hit in the mid 60s with “Hymn #5” which was largely banned because it was an anti- Vietnam war song. There’s No Tomorrow is a re-working of that song.

      Monkey Suit- All Elton with all the Leonisms added in.

9)      The Best Part Of The Day- Since Elton is paying homage to his influences, it is pretty obvious that Gary Brooker was one of them. You can easily hear this as a Procol Harum song. The piano/organ bridge is pure PH.

10)   A Dream Come True- Pure Leon Boogie.

11)   I Should Have Sent Roses- Leon’s health improved on this song, a collaboration with Bernie Taupin. Don Was and Booker T. drop in for a visit.

12)   When Love Is Dying- Since Neil Young couldn’t qualify as a member of the Old-Man-With-A-Shot-Voice-Club, they dragged in Brian Wilson and his shattered vocal chords to dub in a background chorus. Brian has always been a master of the recording studio and his voice still sounds beautiful because of that. Great song.

13)   My Kind Of Hell- Madman Across The Water returns.

14)   Mandalay Again- Probably the best duet on the album.

15)   Never Too Old- When we visit my parents every Sunday, part of our job is to keep my mother occupied to give my dad a break from his role as care-giver. Occasionally when mom and I are playing a hybrid version of gin dad will walk by and put his hand on her shoulder. They will smile and give each other a kiss. You’re never too old to hold somebody.

16)   In The Hands Of Angels- Leon’s final comment on this project. Painfully honest. This bears too much of a resemblance to “In The Arms Of The Angels” by Sarah McLaughlin. Sarah got arms, Leon only gets a hand.

 

To summarize, this is a good album.  It is touching because it recognizes someone who deserves recognition. I’m not sure if Leon Russell could have done a solo album now that would be as listenable as this is. He has continued to record over the years with on-line album sales. I hope this is not the last we hear from him. Reading the liner notes and watching the Cameron Crowe DVD that came with, he seems quite humble and grateful to be accorded so much attention. It is far better to collaborate  with one of your mentors than to do a tribute album when it is too late.