Rita Coolidge on the artistry of Leon Russell: “He just was music”
For many artists, music is more than just a fun job that you can cash out of. When you’ve been in the business long enough and worked with as many people as you have, the idea of sitting down to put together a melody feels less like songwriting and more like a calling, as if the music is being physically driven out of you. Rita Coolidge already had a reputation for performing amazing material, but she had never seen someone so in tune with their own music than Leon Russell.
Before we even unpack what Russell sounded like, we need to first address the pedigree he has in the rock field. He may be known to many as the guy who had the long, shaggy hair and sat behind a piano, but the way that he crafted melodies was the stuff of legend in the 1970s, managing to put together rootsy songs that made grown men weep.
While he deserves to be heralded as one of the greatest artists of all time, for some reason, his iconic status has always fallen through the cracks compared to people like The Band. Outside of the Billy Joels and Elton Johns of the world, it’s hard to be one of the biggest attractions when you’re stuck behind a keyboard, but that’s not what Russell was going for in the first place.
In fact, he probably preferred being in the background more, not having to put up with the same sense of drama that most artists have to go through with a guitar in their hands. Maybe that’s why some of his most remembered moments have to do with him working as a session player half the time.
Looking through his back catalogue, Russell was known for working among the greatest songwriters of all time, either collaborating with Elton John shortly before his death or working with George Harrison on the album Extra Texture. Despite the latter being one of the most milquetoast albums a former Beatles ever made, there isn’t anything cooler to add to one’s resume than being able to compose with someone like Harrison, with Russell suggesting the stirring opening for his relief song ‘Bangladesh’.
It’s one thing to work with him, but when Coolidge saw him outside the spotlight, he was still the same person, recalling, “He would get the hair out of his eyes and sometimes wipe the sweat away. The music really was the force that was coming through him. I don’t think he really understood that. I think that he just was music. He was so much music that it was hard for him to be a human being in a social setting.”
When someone is that in tune with their craft, it doesn’t matter if they aren’t a social butterfly. Despite not being the biggest salesman for his own work, Russell had legends coming to him for help with their compositions. Even though Tom Petty was a nobody after his first band, Mudcrutch, fell through, it wasn’t a mistake that he wound up at Russell’s house more than a few times when he put together the Heartbreakers.
Others might try to sit down with their guitar and write a half-decent hook, but taking a cue from someone like Russell was like listening to a wise sage from yesteryear. Rock and roll may have seemed like a throwaway thing for a lot of listeners, but somewhere in between the thousands of shows he played, Russell probably figured out the meaning of life from behind that white mane of hair.