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Jeff Moehlis: King Leon Rocks SOhO
The breadth of musical contributions by Leon Russell — who played a rousing show at SOhO Restaurant and Music Club in Santa Barbara on Tuesday night under the cloud of the Jesusita Fire, which might explain some of the empty reserved seats — is mind-boggling.
It ranges from playing piano on the Beach Boys’ California Girls, Badfinger’s Day After Day, Ike and Tina Turner’s River Deep, Mountain High, The Byrds’ cover of Mr. Tambourine Man, and the novelty Halloween song Monster Mash, to co-writing Superstar, which in slightly sanitized form was a huge hit for The Carpenters. He also played with the Rolling Stones, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton, Marvin Gaye, Frank Sinatra and others. I’ll resist the urge to go on and on, but hopefully you get the picture.
The show blasted off with the 67-year-old Oklahoma native Russell, decked out in a Hawaiian shirt, shades, a cowboy hat, and long white hair and beard, leading a swamp-stomping, good-time boogie medley of the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash and a quick wah-wah inflected Paint It Black instrumental, The Temptations’ Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone, and Leiber and Stoller’s classic Kansas City. Wow! It arguably worked better than Russell’s star-making performance of the Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Young Blood medley from the rock-royalty-studded 1971 Concert for Bangladesh album.
From the get-go, it was clear that this was going to be a great show.
Other tasty covers included a more-zap-than-sap version of the Rolling Stone’s Wild Horses, a slide-guitar-enhanced take on Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, a supercharged cover of The Beatles’ I’ve Just Seen a Face, and a rollicking version of Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven, which closed the show and featured a short duck walk by guitarist Chris Simmons as far as the cramped stage dominated by Russell’s keyboard setup would allow.
More obscurely, there were phenomenal covers of Chuck Willis’ Kansas City Woman and Jimmy Reed’s Baby, What You Want Me To Do That were two of the show’s highlights. Also great was a whirlwind boogified cover of bluegrass legend Bill Monroe’s Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms.
But, as expected from Russell’s renown as a songwriter, the show wasn’t all about cover songs. Most notably, there was a spirited version of Russell’s Delta Lady, which was an early hit for Cocker, with effective double-time phrases at the end; an ultra-funkified Out in the Woods with the super-cool trading of phrases between Simmons and Russell (another show highlight); an energetic Stranger in a Strange Land, which medleyed from Roll In My Sweet Baby’s Arms; and a soulful take on Russell’s signature A Song For You with Russell on piano and vocals accompanied by Brian Lee on organ. There was also a faithful version of Russell’s mellow 1970’s anthem Lady Blue.
Russell graciously shared the spotlight with his band. Bassist Jackie Wessel sang lead on Let the Good Times Roll, guitarist Simmons did a stellar electrified solo performance of Robert Johnson’s Walking Blues, and keyboardist Lee did a touching solo performance of Lucky Old Sun.
The band of Simmons, Wessel, Lee (all three of whom also sang background vocals) and Brandon Holder on drums was, in one word, incredible. Throughout, they played with precision, confidence and taste. Putting them together with Russell’s funky piano fills and gritty voice gave the ultimate bar band — and I don’t mean to belittle them by saying that. There was no sloppiness, no tuning up, just song after well-sequenced song of fun, rockin’ music. Rock on, Leon!
— Noozhawk contributor Jeff Moehlis is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at UCSB.
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