Leon Russell (born Claude Russell Bridges, April 2, 1942) is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo profession in music.
Russell started his musical profession on the age of 14 within the nightclubs of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He and his group the Starlighters, which included J.J. Cale, Leo Feathers, Chuck Blackwell and Johnny Williams, had been instrumental in creating the fashion of music referred to as the Tulsa Sound. After settling in Los Angeles, he studied guitar with James Burton.
Recognized principally as a session musician early in his profession, as a solo artist he has crossed genres to incorporate rock and roll, blues, and gospel music, enjoying with artists as diverse as Jan & Dean, Gary Lewis, George Harrison, Gram Parsons, Delaney Bramlett, Ringo Starr, Doris Day, Elton John, Ray Charles, Eric Clapton, the Byrds, Barbra Streisand, the Seaside Boys, the Ventures, Willie Nelson, Badfinger, Tijuana Brass, Frank Sinatra, the Band, Bob Dylan, J.J. Cale, B.B. King, Dave Mason, Glen Campbell, Joe Cocker and the Rolling Stones.
Through the Nineteen Sixties and early Seventies, Russell owned the Church Recording Studio on third Road (renamed Leon Russell Street in 2010 by The Pearl District Affiliation) in Tulsa. http://thislandpress.com/05/09/2012/the-making-of-leon-russell-road/?page_num=1. His former house on Grand Lake, Oklahoma, contained a eating room desk and chairs produced from church pews taken out of the church when it was was a studio.
A busy 12 months for Russell, 1971 additionally introduced the Shelter launch of Leon Russell and the Shelter Individuals and Asylum Choir II (which was co-produced by Marc Benno). That very same 12 months, Russell performed on recording periods with B.B. King, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan.
Russell helped blues guitarist Freddie King to revive his profession by collaborating with him on three of his albums for Shelter through the early Seventies. Throughout those self same years, Russell helped himself to a pleasant share of what was then referred to as the “County and Western” market, recording and performing beneath the moniker Hank Wilson, and was an everyday performer at Gilley’s Membership, the Pasadena, Texas, honkytonk made well-known in City Cowboy.