Leon Russell and the Shelter People

Leon Russell and The Shelter People is an album by singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Leon Russell, released in 1971. It peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot 200.

History

The song "Stranger in a Strange Land" contains one of the early uses of the Moog synthesizer on a pop recording. Russell called in engineer Terry Manning, who had just studied this early commercial synthesis under inventor Robert Moog in Trumansburg, NY., to introduce him to this new technology. The song was covered by Filipino hard rock/blues band, the Juan de la Cruz Band on the album Up in Arms in 1971. "Alcatraz" was covered by British rock band Nazareth on their album Razamanaz in 1973.

Reception

In his Allmusic review, critic Mike DeGagne called "The Ballad of Mad Dogs and Englishmen" the highlight of the album and wrote "On the whole, Leon Russell and the Shelter People is an entertaining and more importantly, revealing exposition of Russell's music when he was in his prime. ... Carney is an introspective piece which holds up a little better from a songwriting standpoint, but this album does a better job at bearing his proficiency as a well-rounded musician." Critic Robert Christgau wrote "Russell knows how to put music together, but he still has trouble putting it across. His Okie-cum-Brooklyn (ersatz Nworleans?) drawl is the outcry of a confused homeboy driven to fuse rootsy eccentricities with masscult...
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