Listen to the best of Leon Russell on Apple Music and Spotify. In another moment of poignancy, Bonnie Bramlett performed the song live at Music City Roots Live in June 2016, with Leon in the audience, just five months before his death. Luther Vandross recorded it for his third studio album, 1983’s Busy Body, cleverly combining it with Aretha Franklin’s R&B classic “Until You Come Back To Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do).” Released as a single the following year, the medley reached the soul Top 5. And Leon had that touch.”Īmong the countless readings of the song that have continued to arrive, there was one that took it to a new soul audience. As A&M co-founder Herb Alpert said in the BBC documentary: “The Carpenters were always looking for good material, and Richard Carpenter had an ear for great melodies. It topped the Adult Contemporary chart, went to No.2 pop and made the Top 20 in the UK. As the oboe decrescendoes in bar 5, Richard brings in a three-part french horn line, which ends on an F minor (in second inversion) in bar 8. 1973 remix: stereo soundstage altered, opening harp centered, segues into Rainy Days. “And then Karen sang it, and of course she had a definitive version.”Ĭoolidge, meanwhile, was the featured vocalist on the song (by now called “Superstar”) when it became part of the set for Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour, album and film, with Russell as musical director.Īfter covers by Cher, Vikki Carr, former Smith singer Gayle McCormick, and others, the Carpenters recorded their version in early 1971 and it was released by A&M that summer. (Leon Russell, Bonnie Bramlett, Delaney Bramlett) Skyhill Publishing Co./Delbon Publishing BMI 3:49. “So that kind of struck me, I was not familiar with the word, and I started trying to started trying to write, and I ended up finishing it with Bonnie Bramlett,” he continued. “She was talking about Dionne Warwick, who was down in Memphis cutting a record, and Rita said ‘She was the first superstar I ever saw.’ “Rita Coolidge was the first person I ever heard use that word, ‘superstar,’” he said. In a BBC Radio 2 documentary on Russell made by this writer in 2010, Singing This Song For You, Russell explained the song’s origins. The single that accompanied that tour, ”Comin’ Home” (on another new label, Atlantic) featured “Groupie (Superstar)” on the B-side. Soon afterwards, they moved to Elektra for The Original Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, and by the end of the year, were touring with Clapton and the musicians with whom he would form Derek and the Dominos. As far back as the mid-1960s, Leon and Delaney Bramlett had played together in the Shindogs, the house band for the hit TV music show Shindig!Īfter signing to Stax, the Bramletts had released their first album Home in May 1969, with Russell on keyboards and further contributions from Stax alumni such as Booker T and the MGs, Isaac Hayes and William Bell. Like Eric Clapton, Russell was part of the circle of musical friends that came to be known as Delaney & Bonnie and Friends.
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