Leon Russell Gimme Shelter! The Best Of Leon Russell (1996)

It's a little problematic to put together a compilation of such an album-oriented artist. But unless you're very deeply into the Leon Russell catalog, this two-CD, 40-track best-of will serve as a retrospective of all that you need, largely covering his work from the first half of the '70s (a couple of songs from his 1992 Virgin album are also included) and featuring his best-known hits, big and small. It's a well-done tour through his blend of swamp rock, gospel, and bits of blues and country, with material from eight of his Shelter LPs, including the one he recorded in 1969 as part of the Asylum Choir. Interesting rarities include a 1974 single of "Wild Horses," a 1970 cover of Dylan's "She Belongs to Me" that only showed up on a compilation, and a folk-rockish 1965 single for Dot.

Bruce Hornsby's active participation in Leon Russell's first recording in ten years is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because without Hornsby's encouragement, co-songwriting, production, and musical backing, the project would probably never have happened. A curse, because Hornsby imprints too much of his own personal style and mushy, middle-of-the-road keyboard washes on the sessions. Despite Russell's long layoff, the unique, drawling rasp that gave us "Tight Rope" and "Delta Lady" in the early-'70s is still intact. However, the cloying instrumental backings to such tracks as "Angel Ways" and "Faces of the Children" have Hornsby engraved all over them.

Carney is Leon Russell's third solo studio album, released in 1972. It peaked at number 2 on the Billboard Hot 200 and was the first for Russell to contain a hit single - "Tight Rope" b/w ""This Masquerade" - which reached number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Russell returned to the Top Forty in 1975 with “Lady Blue,” from Will O’ the Wisp. Subsequently, Russell explored his roots in country, recording a set of covers by Hank Williams and others (for which he used the pseudonym Hank Wilson) in 1976. His next album was 1978’s Americana, whose title nodded to the melting pot of homegrown influences that figured in Russell’s music (and presciently anticipated the roots-based Americana movement that would take hold in the Nineties).

Digitally remastered reissue of this long-lost Psychedelic album from 1968 by this duo featuring Leon Russell. Poised between his past as a top Wrecking Crew session man (Phil Spector, The Byrds, Sonny And Cher) and assistant to Liberty A&R head Snuff Garret, and his future as a '70s Rock superstar, Russell teamed up with his Texas Psych buddy Marc Benno to work with Gene Clark, Harpers Bizarre and Gary Lewis in their new studio. In between sessions, they created this unusual and breathtaking album. Here once more is this amazing lost gem, intensified in Rev-Ola style, and ready to work it's magic! A great lost nugget by one of the major Rock superstars!

Daughters of Albion were GREG DEMPSEY and KATHY YESSE (later Kathy Dalton), partners since their days in the folk-rock oriented Gas Company. By 1968, they hooked up with producer LEON RUSSELL and created this unbelievably ambitious psych-pop rock-opera that could’ve only come from that tumultuous moment in time. Clarinets, bells, xylophones, harps and guitars collide magically with elaborate vocal arrangements and intelligent lyrics - all within a psychedelically experimental pop context.

Neil Young, Carole King, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, James Taylor and Bill Withers all saw their songs covered by Merry on her 1971 LP. Her reputation soared yet higher after people witnessed her stunning performances of Southern Man; Walk on In; After All This Time; Same Old Story; Grandma's Hands; a Song for You; Light on the Hill, and more!