I was happy to learn a biography of Leon Russell by Bill Janowitz was going to be published by Hachette during March 2023. Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History.
I first saw piano player/singer Leon in 1965 at a Shindig! television taping at the ABC studios in Hollywood on Prospect Ave.
Over the following decades I attended a handful of his concerts. Once when he was the bandleader with Joe Cocker in Mad Dogs and Englishmen, and on other occasions under his own name and at a jam in a regional venue.
In 1978 I spent close to two months at Russell’s Paradise studio when he was recording an album Americana. It housed seven songs co-written with Kim Fowley. Leon and I had some marvelous encounters, which supported my own ventures as a writer, author, talent scout and record producer.
Over the last half century, I’ve been interviewing musicians, associates and friends about Leon Russell. Some are referenced and quoted by the author in his Russell biography. Many were not, and I felt another long-form examination of Leon Russell was in order, providing additional musical history, facts, insights and balance to some of the author’s reporting in his 2023 endeavor.
I re-visited Russell’s catalog this past year. I felt enough time had passed since his physical departure in 2016. His work has been omnipresent in my own journey.
This decade I planned a lengthy multi-voice narrative on his career that would include contributions and anecdotes from Jack Nitzsche, Don Randi, Jackie DeShannon, Don Peake, Ian Hunter, Kim Fowley, Dr. James Cushing, Don Wilson, Toulouse Engelhardt, Jim Keltner, Gary Pig Gold, George Harrison, Ravi Shankar, Ian Whitcomb, Howard Wolf, Chris O’Dell, Henry Diltz, Phil Spector, Michael Ochs, Stephen J. Kalinich, Marty Balin, Rick Henn, David Kessel, Chris Hillman, Daniel Weizmann and Michael Macdonald.
Subsequently, Cave Hollywood provided me a fourteen thousand word forum to tout Russell’s book title as well as plenty of space to chronicle aspects of Leon’s career I felt required coverage.
Assembling my Leon expedition, I asked photographers for pictures that reinforced my undertaking. The visual assets from Henry Diltz, Brad Elterman, Gary Strobl, Gary Pig Gold, David Kessel, Harold Sherrick, Ron Furmanek, Brad Rosenberger, Rhino, and Universal Music Enterprises are greatly appreciated.
Harvey Kubernik, Boss Angeles, California
