Leon Russell

Fine and funky -- that's Leon Russell's first album out on his own, away from his
producer/arranger/back-up role with Delaney and Bonnie, Joe Cocker, even the Stones
("Live with Me"). But that word "away" is misleading, since all those folks -- and then some --
are present, if not accounted for, on his album too; gentlemen with such Christian
surnames as Harrison and Starr, Wyman and Watts, Clapton and Voorman. An aug... More >

Russell knows how to put music together, but he still has trouble putting it across. His Okie-cum-Brooklyn (ersatz Nworleans?) drawl is the outcry of a confused homeboy driven to fuse rootsy eccentricities with masscult shtick and flash, and his meaningfulness clarifies nothing. The Dylan covers here are trying to tell us something, but in the end Russell's newfound (and competent enough) zeitgeistery ("Stranger in a Strange Land") and protest ("Alcatraz") aren't as interesting as the injokey "Ballad of Mad Dogs and Englishmen." Which tells us something else. (Grade: B)