Leon Russell & Friends, with Reverend Patrick Henderson & The Heavenly All-Stars
1973-08-11 Uniondale, Town of Hempstead, Long Island, New York Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum (M+M1-AUD)
Introductions :::
01. --lengthy concert introductions--
--Mary McCreary intro + two 15 second music fragments
(taper shut off deck twice & that's all there is, folks...)--
--Reverend Patrick Henderson & The Heavenly All-Stars introduction--
02. Trouble In The World(?) ->
03. ? ->
04. Medley: Roll, Roll, Roll(?) -> God Gave Rock & Roll To You -> Roll, Roll, Roll
05. Heaven
06. All Across The River(?) ->
07. Over The Rainbow ->
08. God Put A Rainbow ->
09. --LEON starts singing & rapping (maybe on piano before...*) ->
God Put A Rainbow (conclusion) ->
10. Mighty Quinn Medley: I'll Take You There/Idol With The Golden Head ->
Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) -> I Serve A Living Savior(?) // (tape flip) ->
Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn) (->)
11. Blues Power -> Shoot Out On The Plantation
12. Dixie Lullabye ->
13. Roller Derby -> Roll Away The Stone ->
14. Sweet Emily ->
15. Are You Ready(?) ->
16. Alcatraz ->
17. Stranger In A Strange Land ->
18. Out In The Woods
19. ? (->)
20. Jumpin' Jack Flash -> Young Blood -> One More Chance(?) -> Jumpin' Jack Flash ->
21. Crystal Closet Queen
Encore :::
22. Crystal Closet Queen (--one more time!--) -> Roll Over Beethoven ->
Down On The Bayou -> Great Balls Of Fire -> I Got A Woman -> Of Thee I Sing ->
23. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Total Time ::: 2:23:01
::: Distant AUD for collectors but clear enough & an intensely wonderful performance. Check samples for yrself and/or to start shakin' it on down.
::: Warts: 1st 30 seconds has mono patched repair bits. Dropouts - fixed many, many left (especially 1st 40 minutes), some unrepairable. Tried to smooth frequently adjusted levels. 2nd half of show has some AUD participation (clapping). Only a few seconds (at most) missing from tape flip in track 10.
::: Venue generally refered to as the Nassau Coliseum in Hempstead but the above information is the full-on description.
::: If nothing else, an extremely notable performance due to the scarcity of live Leon from 1973 & the great length & breadth of material. Plus, he's in a great mood. It's a unique look at the Heavenly Allstars set into the Leon set which was the standard for 1 or two tours in 1973.
::: Songlist help would be great, as would bandmember confirmation. Maybe other Leon tunes interspersed in medleys & he does some rappin'...
::: PITCH... was a drag. Hopefully I matched the 2 different generation copies (1st part master & 2nd part is 1st gen.).
::: Taper says Leon was on stage on piano for openers (Mary McCreary, Reverend's gospel set). Sounds more like he hits the stage in track 8 (which happened when I saw them on the tour). Then the Reverend & the Allstars back up Leon & were, I believe, also joined by a couple of other of Russell bandmembers.
Recording Information ::: $30.00 Lafayette cassette recorder adjustable recording levels, unknown mono Sony microphone bought in 1967 -> master TDK SD-90 mono audience cassettes (tracks 1-10a), Dolby off -> tracks 10b-23 transfer circa 1990 onto 1st generation Maxell XLII-90 cassette, Dolby B on.
Playback (tracks 01-10a) 2012-07-xx Master TDK SD-90 mono audience cassette (azymuth adjusted heads on unknown deck, Dolby off) -> CD-R -> computer -> wavs (that's all I know).
Playback (tracks 10b-23) 2012-07-01 ::: 1st generation Maxell XLII-90 cassette on Nakamichi 680ZX cassette deck, Dolby B on, azimuth & pitch adjusted, heads cleaned & demagnatized -> Sony Linear PCM Recorder PCM-M10 (LPCM 44.10kHz/16bit WAV files) -> computer -> Audacity (normalisation to remove DC offset, fades &/or glitches, dropouts, volume adjustments, no EQ) -> CD Wave (track splits) -> Trader's Little Helper -> yer ears. First uploaded week of 2012-07-28. 1st gen part (almost entire Leon set) actually sounds better than the master - probably the copy survived better. Taper originally traded this to me without part 1. After working on the recording I had (tracks 10b-end) for about 10 hours I contacted him, only to find out he did have more, which he supplied. But since I had done so much work already & my copy actually sounded a bit better, I combined them as you see here.
Line-up (unconfirmed) ::: Jeez. Hard to know! The spring tour listed 12 musicians on stage. Here is a possible 11... Leon Russell - piano, vocals, probably guitar // Reverend Patrick Henderson - piano, vocals // Joey Cooper - guitar, background vocals // Wayne Perkins - guitar, background vocals // John Gallie - organ // Chuck Blackwell - drums // Ambrose Campbell - congas // Nettie Davenport, Delrose Allen, Charlene Foster, Carolyn Cook - background vocals.
Nothing here ever commercially released to my knowledge. If I'm wrong, please advise & I'll take the offending trax offline.
CoolSonics 168 ::: Thanks to the original taper & trader! Taped & traded by The Florida Kid himself, long may his own stopwatches run on time. ::: Corrections welcome ::: Work on this recording & these lengthy notes set a new record for length of time & effort. While the original taper was somewhat disappointed by the direction Leon had taken musically at this point, it was a period I finf mesmerising. If you love Leon's "gospel rock" period you should dig this. Regardless of quality, both a distant audience & a challenging listen in some respects, it is fairly consistent after some work & should grab people's attention as it's an important artifact of the era - a very rare, basically complete Leon Russell show with the Reverend Patrick Henderson & The Heavenly All-Stars backing him up throughout. One thing I like about this is it doesn't have the rushed, speeded out feel thru many of the songs that plagues the once triple LP "Leon Live". I still find it irritating to see the oft quoted line on Amazon, "Russell's 1973 triple-LP Leon Live was hailed as one of the greatest live recordings in rock", which is nonsense. Great performance, but not one of Leon's best, and absolutely not well recorded at all. Most hardcore Leon Russell fans I knew at the time, and in all the years that followed, rate the album as a sonic drag. It had some beautiful packaging, gotta give it that. Anyway, this concert is quite fine. Leon is enjoying himself. I saw him for the 2nd time this same summer. Cool jam here in "Out In The Woods". MANY cool things about this. Unusual arrangement of "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Some of the jams & vocal work I have not heard replicated on any other Leon performance, but we can hope some more from the period show up! Clearly for collectors & Leon fanatics, but damn, once acclimitised, they should be royally happy one & all. Enjoy!
Kudos to Zongo for life support, Lochner for mikes&more & Fast Freddie for runnin' Video Dick's Record Emporium with the bathroom office full of tape decks. Thanks to Hanwaker (few among us can keep his pace). Mountains of gratitude to Davmar, D.White, Sanchez, Elliot, The Florida Kid, Kloiber, Zingg, JTW, Bershaw, Boston Gold, Weeks, Dixon, Moore, Gough & SO many more for all that collecting & sharing... Royal thanks to The Man In The Palace, Doc Tinker, Brinkhoffs, Barely Eatin', Reel Master Gaule, Parrish & all the traders who housed me thru my music acquisition & travel years. Hats off to Brother Kent, Uncle Jake, Little Queenie (& her neighbor Frank) & his honor Ptomaine Thomas. Glasses raised to Byron for musical horizon expansion & much obliged to J & Thurston for keepin' my concert fires burnin' since my continental shift. Thanks to the Mods for keepin' DIME alive. Enjoy, share, give, spread peace. Yers truly, Knees
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