http://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-leonrussell-idUSKBN1380JM

 

I saw him on the street during SXSW 2016, and pointed him out to someone whom I'd just met. The guy went over to Russell and chatted him up, and Russell was very down-to-earth and appreciative of the guy's appreciation of him. In recent years, Russell had trouble walking and got around on a motorized scooter-thing; I noticed that had to be helped up into his tour bus (like Hillary Clinton). He was a great musician; a songwriter who wrote from the heart.

 

Wow, one of the greats and the performer of the first piece of music that made me want to become a musician. The Concert For Bangladesh was an album I bought in 1972 with 12 silver dollars my Grandmother gave to me when we visited her in Clarksburg, W. Va that sunny summer. When we got back to New York I went straight on to Sam Goody and threw down my coin, and when I got home and heard his medley of Jumpin' Jack Flash/Youngblood I knew that music was something that I just couldn't live without, could not not participate in, and that one way or another I was going to experience the joy of what those people on stage were experiencing. RIP Leon.