Artist · chart history · #530 in indie & aaa artist polls
Leon Russell
Solo artist Lawton United States
Leon Russell is an artist from Lawton. Leon Russell has 22 chart appearances on 13 radio countdowns from 6 stations on RockLists, spanning 2001–2026. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “A Song For You”, which appears on 6 lists with a best position of #355. The station that charted Leon Russell most often is WYEP (Pittsburgh, PA), with 6 appearances.
Leon Russell, born Claude Russell Bridges in 1942 and hailing from Lawton, was the piano pounder behind half the records you loved before you knew his name. As a young session man with the Wrecking Crew he played on albums by the Beach Boys, the Ventures, Dick Dale and Jan and Dean, and later he produced and played for Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Ike & Tina Turner and the Rolling Stones. He wrote "Delta Lady" for Joe Cocker and ran the Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour in 1970.
His own debut, Leon Russell, came out that same year with Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr and George Harrison among the players, and it holds "A Song for You", a weary, gospel-soaked ballad that more than 200 artists have since recorded. Carney, in 1972, gave him the hit "Tight Rope", a wobbly, carnival-flavored strut, and Will o' the Wisp followed in 1975 with "Back to the Island". He tore through "Jumping Jack Flash" at the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971 alongside Harrison, Dylan and Clapton, and earned a Grammy for it.
Country, gospel, blues, folk, surf, the Tulsa sound: he played all of it with the same rolling, preacher's swagger. Elton John called him a mentor and cut The Union with him in 2010, and in 2011 he went into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He died in 2016.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Leon Russell on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A Song For You | 6 | #355 | – | – | |
| 2 | Tight Rope | 4 | #450 | – | – | |
| 3 | Delta Lady | 1 | #288 | – | – | |
| 4 | This Masquerade | 1 | #587 | – | – | |
| 5 | Back to the Island | 4 | #882 | – | – | |
| 6 | Roll Away The Stone | 1 | #690 | – | – | |
| 7 | Jumping Jack flash (Concert for Bangladesh) | 1 | #720 | – | – | |
| 8 | Medley:Jumpink Jack Flash/Youngblood | 1 | #775 | – | – | |
| 9 | Jumpin' Jack Flash/Young Blood | 1 | #778 | – | – | |
| 10 | A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall | 1 | #1074 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
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