Leon Russell Quotes
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My whole family's been involved with music, and it's been so since the minstrel days.
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Words have been the most difficult thing for me. Melodies have been the easiest for me; I have more than enough melodies to go around.
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I'm just concerned with going about my business and making the records I want to make.
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I had a whole bunch of bad country songs, so I put 'em all on an album.
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I would have to say Sam Cooke is the one I admired most. His artistry and vocal, just the way he did it.
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When I was in grade school, I had a little duet act with a guy who was a beautiful singer, and somebody recorded it on a wire machine. They played it back for us, and I went, 'I hear Donald, but what is that other ugly voice?' It turned out to be me, of course.
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I have damaged nerve endings on the right side, so my piano style comes from designing stuff I can play with my right hand. And some of it effectively mimics classical stuff.
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The doctor who pulled me out at birth damaged my second and third vertebrae. But without those tugs, I probably would have been a regular guy selling insurance in Texas or something.
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I used to play on Phil Spector's records, and he liked to use three pianists.
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I had two parts of my body: my left side, which was strong and somewhat dumb, and the other side was weak and hard to control but perhaps smarter. It gave me a very strong sense of the duality of the plane that we live in.
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I don't think there's any danger of me playing Indian music. However, I did a song of George Harrison's 'Beware of Darkness' that was kind of like that. That was an illusion. I was playing that on a thumbtack piano, and Jim Gordon was playing tablas. He's an amazing player. That was as close to India as I ever got.
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My feet are giving out on me. But I have a wheelchair that folds out on my tour bus. I've also got this little tricycle, so if I want to go someplace, I get those out.
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I was with my band at a karaoke bar in Japan when it was very big there, and they got up and made fools of themselves without practicing properly. I didn't understand why they were doing that. It was like they were making fun of the genre by performing badly. But I didn't get up and sing, so I don't know what it feels like.
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I played on a few Frank Sinatra sessions.
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The Pentecostals had horns, drums, guitars, huge choirs, and screaming and dancing and all kinds of stuff. That was for me.
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All my writing takes place during the recording of the master tapes. I never do have songs when I start up an album. I actually write them while I record.
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Sometimes one misses the sign posts as you're going down the road. They aren't as obvious as they become when you get to the end of the road, so to speak.
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I often haven't heard the music since I've recorded it. I don't listen to it. When I do hear it, like at someone's house, I'll listen. I'm probably the most pleased with the stuff I did with New Grass Revival.
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I think probably my main advice to new artists is if you want to be in the music business, you need to be dang serious about it because it's a rough business.
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I started writing rather late in the game. I was fascinated about the story about how Bob Dylan, for 'Nashville Skyline,' wrote between takes. So I'd try to sing new songs off the top of my head. I had rather less than spectacular success on that. But a lot of my songs were done that way.
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I'm kind of the Forrest Gump of rock n' roll.
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Songwriting was very tough for me... I would go in and sit and hope for inspiration to come, and it was rarely forthcoming.
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I really am serious abut catfish farming. I'm very interested in aquaculture.
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I started playing in nightclubs when I was about 14 in Oklahoma.