Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Let’s twerk like it’s 1971

Leon Russell and friends in 1971 on PBS performing “Honky Tonk Woman”. We used to see stuff like this on TV then – recorded live and loose and weird, which you could do with real musicians:


The old black guy sitting down with a baby on his lap is Furry Lewis (best known now as the subject of the Joni Mitchell song). Carl Radle on bass, Kathi McDonald (white) and Claudia Lennear (black) on backing vocals, Jim Horn on sax and Emily on – well, if that’s not twerking avant la lettre I don’t know what is.

Claudia Lennear featured in the Joe Cocker tour movie Mad Dogs and Englishmen and the more recent one about backing singers, 20 Feet from Stardom. Here she is again from the same show.

Monitor: David Hepworth

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