Elvis to play with Elton John and Leon Russell

[sweetest punch]

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?sect ... 041761&c=1

Elton John turning back on singles chart.
By Paul Williams

Sir Elton John says his career as a hit singles artist is now effectively over and he will now concentrate on making albums, starting with a collaboration with Leon Russell.

Sir Elton is one of the most successful singles artists of all time with his run of hits across four decades including Candle In The Wind 1997, the biggest-selling single globally of all time.

However, in conversation last night with writer and broadcaster Paul Gambaccini to promote the forthcoming The Union album with Russell he effectively drew a line under this part of his career.

"I don't have to make pop records any more," he told the event at the Electric Cinema in London. "In the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties the record companies said you had to have a single. I think I've fulfilled my brief. The singles chart is not one I'm going to be in very often any more so my view is to make records that fit my age. I don't think I'm going to do Crocodile Rock any more."

He said his aim now was to make albums like Bob Dylan does, citing the American's Modern Times as a model for his new album with Russell.

The album came about when Sir Elton heard Russell playing on his partner David Furnish's iPod and thought he had not done enough for who he called last night his idol and whom he had not spoken to in more than 30 years. American Russell was one of the most influential songwriters and musicians of the late Sixties and early Seventies and had previously played with the British artist but has been completely out of the limelight for three decades.


Sir Elton then phoned Russell in what turned out to be the nick of time with Russell's wife Jan telling the star, "He had more or less given up and this phone call brought him back to life."

In fact, just the week before recording started on the album Russell, writer of such clasic songs as This Masquerade and Delta Lady, had to have a five-and-a-half-hour emergency operation.

The new album, which will be released by Mercury in the UK in October, is produced by T Bone Burnett who shares its writing with Sir Elton, Russell and Sir Elton's long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin. It also features a stellar line-up of musicians including Booker T, Neil Young and Brian Wilson.

Sir Elton told Gambo most of the tracks were recorded in two takes, a way he now wants to record going forward. "Some of it isn't in perfect time, some of it is a little rough around the edges, but that's good for me," he said.

He also suggested the album would be a difficult seller. "The only way this record can sell is by word of mouth because it's not going to get any radio play, especially in America," said Sir Elton who plans to play live with Russell to promote the album with different artists guesting, including Elvis Costello, Tom Waits and Neil Young.

But his main aim is for the spotlight to be thrown back on the prestigious back catalogue of Russell , who is now being managed by Sir Elton's company. "There's no point in doing this record and not to bring to life his great work," he said.

[Jeremy Dylan]

I cannot bloody wait for this album. T-Bone, you've done it again!

[Jack of All Parades]

Old enough to have seen Leon live in his heyday in the very early 70's. Nice to see that some have taken it upon themselves to help give him some joy in his later years, especially after Elton spoke so fondly of his influence during his session in the first season of Spectacle.

[bronxapostle]

okay; hope EC plays at a new york stint....

[rachelhasen]

I cannot bloody wait for this album!

Oh wait a minute, someone already said this!

Love for Elton! Joy for him and David!

[docinwestchester]

"I don't have to make pop records any more," he told the event at the Electric Cinema in London. "In the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties the record companies said you had to have a single. I think I've fulfilled my brief. The singles chart is not one I'm going to be in very often any more so my view is to make records that fit my age. I don't think I'm going to do Crocodile Rock any more."

Does that mean he's retired this outfit forever?

[Ypsilanti]

Elton...such a weird Dude. Can't figure him out. Awesome piano skills. A rich & compelling singing voice. The great early work. Then so many truly shitty pop singles. Then Elvis got married at his house--WTF--that seemed to make no sense. I assumed he was exactly the kind of sell-out Elvis would scorn--so insulated by decades of money & drugs & yes men & hair weaves that he had morphed into a creepy, irrelevant Pop Music Frankenstein--a loony media whore. Didn't it seem like he was trying to be a latter day Liberace--playing tasteless music for late-middle-aged idiots in velveteen track suits? I cringed when he was announced as a guest on Spectacle. I wasn't even going to watch that episode. Then he walked out, kissed Elvis full on the mouth, and spoke so beautifully--and lucidly--about the music he loved. I was stunned. Then this Leon Russell/T-Bone Burnett project was announced. Then he played at Rush Limbaugh's wedding. So confusing.

[terryhurley]

http://www.jazzcafelive.com/newsandeven ... 4&zoneid=3

Leon plays London's Jazz Cafe in August

[sweetest punch]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_b ... union.html

First listen: Elton John, Leon Russell and T Bone Burnett unveil 'The Union' in Santa Monica

Elton John has always been passionate about his musical taste, always ready to throw his support behind new acts that capture his imagination, whether it’s the Scissor Sisters or Lady Gaga.

But in recent years he’s also been on a special mission to turn the spotlight on veteran artists who never got the attention he and other pop stars received, a key reason he dreamed up the Sundance Channel music interview and performance series “Spectacle,” and persuaded his friend Elvis Costello to take on the job as host.

That mission is front and center with “The Union,” his forthcoming duet album with fellow piano-pounding rocker Leon Russell, to whom John doffed his cap during the first episode of “Spectacle.”

John, Russell and the album’s producer, T Bone Burnett, invited a few friends, family members and journalists for a preview of the project in a playback session earlier this week at the West Los Angeles studio where they recorded it.

John didn’t waste a moment telling the audience of about two dozen people how much this one means to him. He prefaced the music with a touching story of how much he’d idolized Russell, the Oklahoma-born pianist, singer, songwriter and producer who had toiled for years as a highly regarded session player before coming into his own as a performer and bandleader in the late-’60s and early-'70s. That’s when Russell fronted Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen touring band and then the all-star conglomeration that George Harrison assembled for the Concert for Bangladesh.

“All I wanted for Leon,” John said, “is to have, in his later life, the accolades that seem to have been missing for him in the last 35 years. I want his name written in stone. I want him in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I want his name to be on everybody’s lips again, like it used to be. So we made this record.”

At the playback, John took the lead, sitting in front of the 96-channel mixing board, energetically pounding air piano and drums along with the various tracks -- songs with touches of country, blues and gospel woven into some of the most mainstream-sounding rock that Burnett has shepherded.

Russell, who had undergone a 5½-hour brain surgery operation to relieve a chronic condition shortly before the recording sessions began, sat at the back of the control booth, his flowing white hair and beard cascading over a recliner chair he relaxed in while occasionally fingering left-hand piano runs. Burnett also attended, along with Recording Academy President Neil Portnow, KCRW music director Jason Bentley, keyboardist-composer James Newton Howard and some of the musicians who played on the album, including drummers Jim Keltner (who played in Russell’s band in the ’70s) and Burnett regular Jay Bellerose.

The album is slated for release Oct. 19, and features songs written by John, his longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin, Russell and Burnett. John also noted that the sessions were filmed by Cameron Crowe, but John’s spokeswoman said a decision hasn’t been made as to how that footage might be used.

-- Randy Lewis

[sweetest punch]

Hear 30 second audioclips of Elton/Leon album here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHKXMT8GhDM

[Jack of All Parades]

The song "If It Wasn't For Bad Luck" is getting consistent airplay here in NY- at least on WFUV. The sound hearkens back to Leon's heyday in the early 70s.