{"id":12110,"date":"2012-02-09T09:15:44","date_gmt":"2012-02-09T14:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=12110"},"modified":"2012-02-10T09:43:25","modified_gmt":"2012-02-10T14:43:25","slug":"the-state-of-the-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-state-of-the-union\/","title":{"rendered":"The State of The Union"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Has anyone caught the <strong>Cameron Crowe<\/strong>-directed documentary on the <strong>Elton John\u2013Leon Russell collaboration<\/strong> that premiered on HBO last week?<\/p>\n<p>I am an unabashed big fan of Leon Russell.  I think his early \u201870s albums were as good as it gets.  (An early RTH thread on best string of albums probably didn\u2019t mention <em>Leon Russell<\/em>, <em>Shelter People<\/em>, <em>Asylum Choir II<\/em>, and <em>Carney<\/em> but should have.)<\/p>\n<p>I always liked Elton John\u2019s early hits and had his first two albums.  He\u2019s also an artist that I have grown to like more and more as time passes.  Back about a half-dozen years ago I bought all the early albums when they had the reissues cheap at the BMG club and was pleasantly surprised by just how much I liked them.<\/p>\n<p>So, not unsurprisingly, I greatly looked forward to <em>The Union<\/em>, the Elton-Leon collaboration that came out in late 2010.  And if it wasn\u2019t as great as I wished it might have been, it was a lot better than I feared it might be &#8211; and that\u2019s not as much damning with faint praise as it sounds.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/N8Or0kDo_SM?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>I greatly enjoyed this documentary.  It\u2019s really Elton\u2019s show but then so was the collaboration.  The backstory, for those who need it, is that Russell was a great inspiration and hero for Elton way back when.  They hadn\u2019t been in contact for decades and somewhere along the way Elton became aware of Russell\u2019s circumstances\u2014Russell\u2019s apparently pretty much broke, playing small clubs, health issues\u2014and Elton wanted to get him the recognition he (John) feels he (Russell) deserves.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The documentary is quite touching.  John\u2019s love and respect for Russell is really the center of the film.  There are scenes with the two of them writing the songs, rehearsing, recording, etc.  The different characters are almost like caricatures\u2014Elton is generally seen in a sweat suit, carrying a few too many pounds, and looking like the stand-in for Mr. Cunningham on <em>Happy Days<\/em>; Russell looks like the old rocker who\u2019s past caught up to him awhile ago and is resigned to his fate. <strong>Brian Wilson<\/strong>, shown in a short cameo contributing backing vocals on a cut is the deer in the headlights acid casualty character that he always is nowadays.<\/p>\n<p>Russell really has had a heckuva career that I wish got more attention in the film.  In addition to the more well-known parts of his resume\u2014<em>Mad Dogs &amp; Englishman<\/em>, <em>Concert For Bangladesh<\/em>, \u201cA Song For You,\u201d \u201cThis Masquerade\u201d\u2014he\u2019s one of those legendary session musicians who was involved in almost everything. He studied guitar under <strong>James Burton<\/strong>; co-wrote <strong>Gary Lewis<\/strong>\u2019 hits \u201cEverybody Loves A Clown\u201d and \u201cShe\u2019s Just My Style\u201d; arranged \u201cRiver Deep, Mountain High\u201d; played on sessions for <strong>Sinatra<\/strong>, <strong>Dylan<\/strong>, <strong>The Byrds<\/strong>\u2019 version of \u201cMr. Tambourine Man,\u201d everyone\u2019s favorite Halloween song \u201cMonster Mash,\u201d and lots of others with The Wrecking Crew.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a nice timeline of Russell&#8217;s career\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tulsaworld.com\/specialprojects\/scene\/leon%5Frussell\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I saw Russell live back in his heyday, circa 1972, at the sold-out Spectrum and again a few years ago at the Iron Horse, a club that seats maybe 150 people (and wasn\u2019t full).  The former was a fantastic show, the latter not so much, mostly because of those memories of the earlier show.  I\u2019d advise anyone to go see him though.  He rips though the set list like he\u2019s <strong>The Ramones<\/strong>, barely a second or two break between songs, few enough words from the stage to rival Dylan.  Not enough of his classic songs either, but he has enough of those that there are still plenty.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s Russell from 1964, looking nothing like the Leon Russell we know (skip the first 30 seconds):<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wUc9W7K-mi0?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>And here is the more typical \u201cMaster Of Time &amp; Space\u201d persona in 1972:<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ESVMmyRdjlA?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>I\u2019m sure the doc is on HBO multiple times. It\u2019s a great way to spend 90 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Has anyone caught the Cameron Crowe-directed documentary on the Elton John\u2013Leon Russell collaboration that premiered on HBO last week? I am an unabashed big fan of Leon Russell. I think his early \u201870s albums were as good as it gets. (An early RTH thread on best string of albums probably didn\u2019t mention Leon Russell, Shelter <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-state-of-the-union\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[340,65,590,34],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}