BillLindau

Leon Russell concert, Aug. 4, 2005, Southern Pines, N.C.

Rock 'n' roll's 'session man'
Leon Russell plays to full house
A photo I took after the concert also appears. The producers only frowned on photos taken during the concert. Guitarist Jason "Curly" Speegle, far right, of Leon Russell's backup band, celebrates after the concert with friends "Bluebird", second from left, her daughter "Bluebird Charms", third from left and another member of the touring group (far left), Thursday evening, Aug. 4, 2005, at the Sunrise Theater in Southern Pines, N.C. Directly after the 90-minute concert, Leon Russell went straight to the tour bus and signed autographs from inside the vehicle, parked in front of the theater. -- Bill Lindau

A review
By Bill Lindau
SOUTHERN PINES, N.C. -- Leon Russell, the 63-year-old singer-songwriter and keyboardist known as the main session man of rock 'n' roll and "pop music's most anonymous big shot" came to a tiny renovated cinema in downtown Southern Pines and played to a packed house Thursday evening, Aug. 4, 2005.
All 350 seats in the Sunrise Theater were sold out nearly a week before the author of such pop hits as "A Song for You", and "Delta Lady" and "Superstar" came to town. Since the 1960s, he has written a great deal of songs for other people. He performed on keyboard and vocals for 90 minutes, he stayed on stage the whole time, without taking a break. The late Ray Charles covered "A Song for You"; "Delta Lady" was Joe Cocker's signature song; and the 1970s pop duo The Carpenters recorded "Superstar".
Clad in a white straw cowboy hat and a short-sleeved print shirt, the white-haired, long-bearded, ruddy-faced native of native of the southwestern United States performed these hits many other hits, including ones he wrote and songs by other, such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, and the Who. Russell has written and arranged songs for artists in other genres, including jazz and swing (Frank Sinatra), rhythm and blues (George Benson, Ray Charles, and others) and country (Willie Nelson, who teamed up with him for a 1979 concert in Greensboro).
An area production company, Name Productions, based in Southern Pines, was responsible for booking Russell.
"His booking is a coup for the Sunrise and for the Sandhills," wrote Brent Hackney in a Southern Pines arts magazine, Pine Straw", in its July 2005 issue.
Russell sang in his trademark Texas drawl, the red hair of his younger years turned all white. Without the hat, Russell looked like a fairy-tale wizard, with his long, white beard and long hair. In fact, as soon as Russell appeared, one emotionally overwhelmed person in the audience cried out, "He really does look like Gandalf!"
(Gandalf is the good wizard of J.R.R. Tolkien's popular "Lord of the Rings" fantasy trilogy.)
Among the other numbers were "Rolling in my Sweet Baby's Arms," Rolling Stones hits "Jumpin' Jack Flash" "Paint it Black" and "Wild Horses) (all written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards); as well as "Sixteen Tons" (Tennessee Ernie Ford), "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" (Bob Dylan), "Let the Good Times Roll," (Sam Cooke), "Georgia" (another one sung by Ray Charles), "Youngblood," "Papa was a Rolling Stone," "Kansas City," "Great Balls of Fire" (Jerry Lee Lewis) and even "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean."
A guitar solo by backup musician Jason "Curly" Speegle during the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards hit "Wild Horses" drew deafening roars of applause.
Russell's troupe of backup musicians also featured one of his two daughters, Tina Rose, on tambourine and vocals. She nearly stole the show from Dear Old Dad when she sang one of her own songs a capella (Italian, "without accompaniment") and drew a standing ovation.
His other daughter, Sugaree Noel, could not attend. The other performers in the concert were Jackie Wessel on base and Grant Whitman on drums.
Some people had expected the band to play longer and were stunned when they left the stage and learned it was not an intermission. The theater staff said Russell and the band made it clear that they were only to perform for 90 minutes, instead of two to three hours, the average time of most pop-music concerts.
Tickets, sold in advance at several area merchants, cost $35 for general admission and $45 for reserved seating. Since many big-name concert tickets charge much higher for even the cheapest seats, many concertgoers Thursday regarded that as a bargain, even playing for 90 minutes. For example, tickets to a Rolling Stones concert often start at $65, according to one regular concertgoer.
While many in the audience conceded that what they paid for 90 minutes was a decent ticket price, the concert had one flaw. Due to the acoustics, the audience found Russell's lyrics hard to understand. One of them said that for those who had not heard the songs before, it would have been a drag. But most of them appeared to shrug it off, waving their arms, holding up burning cigaret lighters and doing some head-banging and dancing.
The average age of the audience was 45 years old. This included many people who had listened to Russell's works since they were teenagers in the 1960s.
Bill Russell, a native of Montgomery County now living in Southern Pines, was one of the concertgoers. A friend teased him about his last name and his own looks, a white Santa Claus beard.
"With his big white beard and that last name, he could be your brother," the friend said to Bill Russell.
"Actually, he's my uncle," Bill Russell quipped back.
Another concert goer, also named Bill, told about a desperate hunt for tickets in Southern Pines during the last 10 days before the show. Two of the merchants who were selling tickets were also sold out. But a customer of the second outlet, a night club in downtown Southern Pines, telephoned a neighboring outlet and asked them to hold some tickets for Bill.
"Anything for a fellow rock fan," said the nightclub patron, whom Bill had never met before.
Bill dashed across the tracks to the other business, where the proprietor was waiting for him with the tickets.
"Then I heard just before they came on (at the concert): The tickets were sold out the next day," Bill said after the concert.
This reporter received a souvenir from one of the persons following Russell's tour. A woman who called herself Bluebird," who came with her teenage daughter, "Bluebird Charms," gave me a small lapel pin with the design of a bluebird, just before the concert, as I met them while I was waiting in line.
Russell played the first of three back-to-back-to-back concerts in the Carolinas. Later that week he was scheduled to perform in York and Long Creek, both in South Carolina.
Russell was also booked for concerts on Aug. 18 and 19, in Blowing Rock and Charlotte, respectively, following two gigs in Minnesota and one in Winnipeg, Canada. His Aug. 19 show in Charlotte was in the Neighborhood Theatre.

posted by Bill Lindau @ 9:15 PM