Leon

Leon Russell's accolades are monumental in a number of categories, from songwriting (he wrote Joe Cocker's "Delta Lady") to session playing (with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, just to name a few) to his solo work. Unfortunately, it's the last category that never really attracted as much attention as it should have, despite a multitude of blues-based gospel recordings and piano-led, Southern-styled rock albums released throughout the 1970s. Leon Russell and the Shelter People is a prime example of Russell's instrumental dexterity and ability to produce some energetic rock & roll. Poignant and expressive tracks such as "Of Thee I Sing," "Home Sweet Oklahoma," and "She Smiles Like a River" all lay claim to Russell's soulful style and are clear-cut examples of the power that he musters through his spirited piano playing and his voice. His Dylan covers are just as strong, especially "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh," while "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" and "It's a Hard Rain Gonna Fall" have him sounding so forceful, they could have been Russell's own.

Sony's The Essential Leon Fleisher covers the first and second parts of the pianist's career, from his early successes to his recordings of piano left-hand literature after developing focal dystonia in his right hand. Even though it's a full two-disc collection, and it does cover every genre that Fleisher essayed – concerto, chamber music, solo works – it is just a snapshot, a brief sampling of Fleisher's recorded legacy.

Texas connection aside (Bridges is from Fort Worth, Khruangbin from Houston), Leon Bridges and Khruangbin make a natural pair: Bridges, the throwback soul man who brings R&B’s past into vivid focus, and Khruangbin, a one-band jukebox whose encyclopedic sense of groove has made them one of the more sneakily pleasurable artists of the 2010s. A companion to 2020 collaboration Texas Sun, Texas Moon is, first and foremost, a mood: dusky, mellow, warm, windows down. The artists can take on Philly soul with a psychedelic slant (“Doris”), mix disco with West African juju (“B-Side”), and play country cadences with ambient, indie-rock warmth (“Mariella”), all with an effortlessness that would make their melting pot state proud.

Life and Love is an album by singer and songwriter Leon Russell. The album was recorded in Russell's new studios, Paradise Studios in Burbank, California, and produced and written by Russell. The album was first released as a vinyl LP, 8-track tape and cassette tape by Paradise Records and Warner Records in 1979, and re-released on CD in 2007 and 2012. Russell used electronic drums on this album for the first time, courtesy of Roger Linn who had invented the Linn LM-1, a pioneering version of the drum machine, making Russell an early user of this new instrument. Roger Linn started a company Moffett Electronics to sell his electronic drums at the same time as Leon's Life and Love album in 1979.

Two very different takes on the romantic piano concerto, both equally successful. The Bliss – written in 1939 for the World’s Fair in New York – is extrovert, exuberant and virtuosic, the Rubbra a profound reflection on, and continuation of, the English pastoral tradition.

On the inaugural episode of Elvis Costello’s talk show Spectacle in 2008, Elton John – who just happened to be a producer on the show – rhapsodized at length about Leon Russell, hauling out a note-perfect impression of Russell’s piano style and Oklahoma drawl. It was enough of a tease to whet the appetite for more but nothing suggested something like The Union, a full-fledged duet album with Russell designed to raise the profile of the rock & roll maverick…

During his lifetime Odysseus was one of Bruch’s most frequently performed and highly regarded works: the influential English critic J. A. Fuller-Maitland thought it his masterpiece, and Brahms admired it greatly. It was a very successful performance of Odysseus in Liverpool in 1877 that led three years later to Bruch’s appointment as Director of the Philharmonic Society there. It is an oratorio, not an opera (subtitled Scenes from the Odyssey), and one reason for its decline into obscurity may be that for such a subject it is often undramatic, in word-setting (sometimes rather square and inexpressive) and in its choice of episodes: Odysseus’s return to Ithaca, and the jubilation over his rout of the suitors are portrayed, but not Penelope’s recognition of him nor the fight itself. There is no narrator, and there are very few dramatic links between the 12 self-contained sections.