Leon Russell biography puts the Tulsa musical legend in the spotlight

Leon Russell’s place in rock 'n’ roll history has been notoriously opaque. It has...

“Just the other day, I had to correct somebody,” Janovitz says. “Leon didn’t play on the Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds.’ But he played on plenty of Beach Boys songs.”

“He was a guy on the cutting edge starting in his earliest days,” Janovitz says. “He’s interesting because there these moments where he seemed like the head of the spear. But he also wasn’t comfortable being the guy in the spotlight putting on the gigantic show even though he was the guy putting on the gigantic show. That was a persona, and it caught up with him at various points.”

He worried the book would lose momentum as Russell slid from 1970s superstar to ‘80s has-been. Instead, that’s when “Leon Russell” nestles into a quiet tragedy, as the artist proved unable to manage his finances, relationships and career. An early adopter of the video format, he was unable to translate it into MTV success the way some of his contemporaries did.

The book arrives at a time when Russell is receiving some overdue attention that builds upon his 2010 collaborative album with Elton John and his Rock Hall induction a year later. As his hometown has become a musical tourist destination, Russell’s Church Studio has become active for recording and houses a museum covering his most unusual career. It slots comfortably with recent museums and archives in Tulsa dedicated to Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan.

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