Leon Russell
Last night, my friend Megan and I went to Jaxx to see Leon Russell. There was a hard rain falling and only 144 other brave souls came to listen to one of the 1970s great keyboardists. Leon played as a session musician for Ronnie Spector in his heyday as a record producer for the Wall of Sound but really gained popularity as the piano player for Joe Cocker in his Mad Dogs and Englishman tour and for George Harrison in the Concert for Bangladesh. He also played piano for Dave Mason, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. After that, he put out a bunch of solo albums, first under his own name and later under the name of Hank Wilson.
We get to Jaxx and it is pretty quiet. Two opening bands played good cover songs while the crowd drifted in. Just before Leon takes the stage, I had the chance to chat for a minute with his roadie/sound guy who assured me that Leon still had it together and was playing a pretty good show.
Leon takes the stage and looks like an aging 1970s rocker. He starts the show and no one is standing in front of the stage so I walked right down and snapped some pictures. Jacqui and I had seen him at Jaxx a year or two back and he raced through his set. He does the same last night, not acknowledging the crowd or stopping more than two seconds between songs on his 90 minute set.