#bill janovitz

[garudabluffs]

Bill Janovitz goes deep to tell the story of Leon Russell, a rock showman teetering on a tightrope March 9, 2023

"Bill Janovitz is best known as the singer-guitarist of the guitar-rock trio Buffalo Tom, the celebrated alt-rock band he formed in 1986 with his UMass Amherst schoolmates Chris Colbourn and Tom Maginnis. Though Janovitz has been working his second career as a real estate agent in his hometown of Lexington since 2001, the band still stays busy recording and performing.

But in recent years, one of Janovitz’s side gigs has become more and more prominent: author. Specifically, of two books about the Rolling Stones: the “33 1/3″ series entry “Exile on Main St.” (published in 2005, about the epochal 1972 album) and the more expansive “Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones” (2013).

Now comes “Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time’s Journey Through Rock & Roll History” (Hachette), out Tuesday. In this, his first full-length single-subject biography, Janovitz traces the trajectory of the protean pianist/singer/songwriter/bandleader/arranger/producer through myriad musical highways and byways: from his formative years as a Tulsa teen playing with Jerry Lee Lewis to ace L.A. session man, a member of the legendary Wrecking Crew, on countless record dates with Phil Spector as well as the Beach Boys, Herb Alpert, Frank Sinatra, and scores of others. Then come Russell’s star turns as musical director of Joe Cocker’s “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour and subsequent live album and film, two classic albums under his own name, the cofounding of Shelter Records, top-grossing tours, and an eventual fade from the spotlight until a duo album collaboration with Elton John, 2010′s “The Union,” and Elton’s campaign to elect him to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame."

"There are few artists today who can claim the stature of Russell at his peak in every category: virtuoso instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, bandleader, producer, arranger, and stadium headliner."

READ MORE https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/03/09/arts/bill-janovitz-goes-deep-tell-story-leon-russell-rock-showman-teetering-tightrope/#bgmp-comments

This 1971 gem shot to #17

Leon Russell And The Shelter People

Track Listings

1 Stranger in a Strange Land 2 Of Thee I Sing 3 It's a Hard Rain Gonna Fall 4 Crystal Closet Queen 5 Home Sweet Oklahoma 6 Alcatraz 7 The Ballad of Mad Dogs and Englishmen 8 It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry 9 She Smiles Like a River 10 Sweet Emily 11 Beware of Darkness 12 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue 13 Love Minus Zero/No Limit 14 She Belongs to Me

[krispyweiss]

Book Review - Leon Russell: “The Master of Space and Time’s Journey through Rock & Roll History” by Bill Janovitz

Leon Russell’s career was long and varied enough as to require a considerable number of words to tell its story.

But even when writing about the man born Russell Bridges, a guy whose career spanned the 1950s as a member of Jerry Lee Lewis’ band to 2016 as a legacy act enshrined in the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame, 592 pages are too many.

Yet, that’s the number Bill Janovitz settled on for his biography, “Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time’s Journey through Rock & Roll History.” On the one hand, Janovitz takes care to ensure the reader comes away knowing everything necessary to understand the contours of Russell’s extraordinary life and career; on the other, he’s not above going into minute detail about what the musician is wearing in a grainy YouTube video shot in Europe in the 1970s. It’s at moments like this - and there are many - that the book drags.

Still, it’s a riveting tale, as the Tulsa, Okla.,-born Russell heads West, makes his first studio appearance on the 1962 recording of “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah,” becomes a member of the Wrecking Crew and goes on to discover J.J. Cale, Tom Petty and even actor Gary Busey, who served as Russell’s drummer for a spell in the 1970s. And the chapters on Delaney & Bonnie, Mad Dogs & Englishmen, George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh and Russell’s long-standing collaboration with New Grass Revival could be standalone books themselves.

Janovitz tells the story/ies both through detailed research and with the help of Russell’s cooperative family members and musical colleagues - Eric Clapton, Sam Bush, Rita Coolidge, Willie Nelson, Jim Keltner and Derek Trucks among them.

Russell began his emergence in 1970 when, as Joe Cocker was balking at a tour to which he was contractually obligated, Russell put together Mad Dogs for a two-month extravaganza that changed the lives of everyone involved and led to lifelong friction between Russell and Cocker, who believed the former had used the latter to advance his own career.

Regardless of whether that is true - and Russell maintained it was not and professed to be hurt by Cocker’s feelings - Russell did go on to become one of the biggest concert draws and record producers of the early 1970s. Russell was also ahead of his time in realizing video would become a prime medium for promoting music. And while his many ventures in that area failed, his prescience dovetails with his visionary status in the early part of his career.

Russell - who fiends and family suspect was both bipolar and on the autism spectrum - remained busy, but at a low ebb commercially, in his later years. He made and released albums on his eponymous label and toured incessantly, playing to small audiences in clubs to keep the mortgages paid and the lights burning.

Russell is at his nadir when his former opening act and acolyte Elton John returns to Russell’s orbit in 2010. John and Russell cut the Union; Russell gets his aforementioned hall of fame honors; reunites with many members of Mad Dogs under the auspices of Tedeschi Trucks Band at Viriginia’s Lockn’ festival in 2015; and enjoys a career resurgence before death comes in 2016. Alas, Russell and Cocker never reconciled.

In the end, Janovitz’s Russell biography is a sort of music-lover’s textbook. For despite the sometimes-excruciating level of detail, the information within is essential to understanding rock ‘n’ roll as we know it.

Grade card: Leon Russell: “The Master of Space and Time’s Journey through Rock & Roll History” by Bill Janovitz - B

3/7/24

[thekylemeredith]

"I take my guitar approach from Neil Young & Pete Townshend"

Buffalo Tom’s Bill Janovitz joins Kyle Meredith With to talk 60s sounds, Jump Rope, & bios for Leon Russell and The Cars

#buffalotom #neilyoung #petetownshend #LeonRussell #thecars

[riylcast]

Episode 591: Bill Janovitz (of Buffalo Tom)

Leon Russell: The Master of Space and Time's Journey Through Rock & Roll History is every bit as grandiose as its subtitle suggests. It’s a sprawling and lovingly researched portrait of an unsung rock hero.

Author Bill Janovitz knows a thing or two about that world, as the longtime frontman of Boston-based alternative rock stalwarts, Buffalo Tom.

The band continues to tour and release music – though the pace has slowed since the halcyon days of the late-80s/90s. The band’s latest record, Quiet and Peace, was released in 2018.

These days Janovitz is largely content to focus on books. 2013 saw the release of Rocks Off: 50 Tracks That Tell the Story of the Rolling Stones.

[dustedmagazine]

Aaron Troyer — Shatter the Fantasy (No Coast)

Aaron Troyer is an indie rock lifer, best known for his Columbus Ohio-based Day Creeper, but now working in Austin with a different, rootsier cadre of collaborators. His songs foreground clear, liquid guitar and creaky cowpunk vocals, walking a tightrope line between rock and twang with occasional lurches to either side. He can remind of you John Hiatt in one song, Paul Westerberg in another, Buffalo Tom’s Bill Janovitz the next. It’s a meat and potatoes variety of rock, nothing flashy, few electronics or recording tricks.

His songs view middle American vistas in a not entirely cynical way, and they get better and more complicated as the record proceeds. I like the late album run that starts with “Citizen Protector,” a country blues meditation on the “good guy with a gun” myth, neither wholly buying in or wholly dismissing it. “Discount Trip to Heaven,” is even better, full of shape-shifting power chords and stately rhythms and working man’s melancholy, where pleasures are to be had where they come. That’s a twanger, but “Nuclear Vista” which comes right after, shimmers with psychedelic overtones, gathering itself for a flaming guitar solo about halfway through.

Indeed, the best songs flare with wild, arcing guitar sounds, as in the single “Moonlight Painter,” where layered Television-like play elevates a plain spoken song about art and suffering. In it, Troyer seems to understand that he’s not re-inventing the wheel, but rather making what’s come before fresh and personal. “Slip into the subtle pattern familiar and mundane,” he sings, “Open up the landscape let it pull you through the pain.”

Troyer comes from punk, but this is slow-jamming country rock, a genre whose patron saint is Neil Young. He’s not as subtle and fine a songwriter, nor as fiery a player as Young, but the feeling of ragged, rugged defiance, of noisy rage against a stacked deck, is much the same. Rock and roll may not be healthy, but it’s not dead yet. Here’s Aaron Troyer pushing it forward with an old-fashioned fervor.

Jennifer Kelly

[jscalzi]

Reminder: I'm in New York This Friday for the Cabinet of Wonders

I’m going to be performing at Wesley Stace’s Cabinet of Wonders alongside Chris Collingwood (Fountains of Wayne), Dave Hill, Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom), Vicki Peterson (The Bangles), Queen Esther, Kim Richey and of course Wesley Stace himself. Most of them will be performing music; I will be doing a reading of something funny. We’ll be at the City Winery in NYC; doors open at 6pm and the fun…

[whateveradjunct]

Reminder: I'm in New York This Friday for the Cabinet of Wonders

I’m going to be performing at Wesley Stace’s Cabinet of Wonders alongside Chris Collingwood (Fountains of Wayne), Dave Hill, Bill Janovitz (Buffalo Tom), Vicki Peterson (The Bangles), Queen Esther, Kim Richey and of course Wesley Stace himself. Most of them will be performing music; I will be doing a reading of something funny. We’ll be at the City Winery in NYC; doors open at 6pm and the fun…

[willdailey]

2022 you’re only 12 moths out of my life but I had an ok time so thank you: 1. A picture of me performing to prove that I did that in 2022 2. Rehearsal with two friends I love who agreed to marry so that I could add “minister" to my performance resume. 3. The groom, who was not at nervous at all. This might have been my favorite gig on 2022. 4. Sometimes you are out and a fan wants a picture so you say yes. 5. I Podcasted and lived to talk about it and talk about it 6. First time at the Apol. 7. Jammed with the great Tom Rush. 8. Finally got that hug from Bill Janovitz he’s been threatening me with for years. 9. Introduced my amiga Oompa to her biggest fan who immediately broke into tears after this pic was taken. 10. Regretted all my decisions and decided that 2023 would actually be my year. . . . . #2022wrapup #indiemusic #indie artist #doingmybest #thisisrediculous #makenosense #artist #listeningtomusic #listentothis #lovethissong #music #musicartist #musiccity #musicforlife #musicindustry #musicismylife #musicmaker https://www.instagram.com/p/CmxYZxcse39/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[pcnmagazine]

Buffalo Bill Returns from the West: Buffalo Tom Live @ Lafayette, London 30/09/24

Sheriff Bill Janovitz and his posse take no prisoners on their brief stop off in the UK Pic Credit: Thanks Lorraine Lowe I’m reliably informed by my gig buddy Alex tonight, that it’s 6 years since Bill Janovitz, Chris Colbourn and Tom Maginnis last set foot in the capital. That show was at Camden’s Electric Ballroom#, an historic part of London’s music heritage, having seen the likes of The…

[greensparty]

Album Reviews: Ringo Starr / Buffalo Tom

This week I got to review new releases from two artists I've been a long-time fan of!

Ringo Starr Crooked Boy

EP cover

In the last few years Sir Ringo Starr has been knocking out killer EPs including 2021’s Zoom In and Change the World (both were included on my Best Albums of 2021 list) 2022’s EP3 and last year's Rewind Forward. While he hasn’t released a full length album since 2019′s What’s My Name, he has been super prolific with the release of his 5th EP since 2021: Crooked Boy drops today from UMe. It was released in a special Record Store Day edition last month, but is getting a proper physical release today.

Sir Ringo Starr (center behind drums) with the All-Starr Band in June 2022 at Boch Center

In 2022, I was lucky enough to see Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band live (my second time seeing them) and I was blown away that at age 82 (he’s now almost 84), he is still a showman singing and drumming like he was in his twenties. He was always the funny one in The Beatles. Over time it has become cool to poke fun at Ringo, but his solo career is criminally underrated. As a member of The Beatles, he gets loads of respect, but as a solo artist he doesn’t get the recognition he deserves. He has to live up to the Fab Four and each of their solo careers, but he has actually made some great solo albums. What is special about this EP is that all four songs were written and produced by Linda Perry, the former 4 Non Blondes frontwoman-turned-superstar songwriter / producer, who collaborated with Sir Ringo on Change the World and EP3. She wrote the songs for him and he added his vocals and drums. Something I’ve talked about in previous EP reviews is that when you have a short album of four or five songs, the bullseye is bigger and easier to hit. This new EP lacks the duets with Sir Paul McCartney that Zoom In and Rewind Forward had, but credit where credit is due: Linda Perry tailored these songs to Sir Ringo and made them about his favorite topics, peace and love. This easily hits the bullseye! Now if only he could do a full length album soon.

For info on Crooked Boy

3.5 out of 5 stars

Buffalo Tom Jump Rope

album cover

A few years ago Jon Stewart was asked his 3 favorite musicians of all time and his answer was Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and Buffalo Tom. The fact that Buffalo Tom performed on the final episode of The Jon Stewart Show doesn't hurt their inclusion in his list, but to those who know Buffalo Tom know they are easily one of the greatest bands to emerge out of the Boston music scene of the late 80s. Also one of the most underrated. I first discovered them when I was in high school. They were big on WFNX, appeared on the No Alternative compilation, appeared as themselves in a famous episode of My So-Called Life, and were on a number of compilations including Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks. I saw them in Boston in 2000 and in NYC in 2006, 2007, and 2008, and at the Outside The Box festival in 2013. Singer / guitarist Bill Janovitz, in addition to being a best-selling author and having some solo and side projects, also works as a real estate agent and for a little while he actually worked in the same office as my Mom. In 2018 when I saw Pearl Jam at Fenway Park, they brought out Janovitz as a guest when they performed Buffalo Tom's "Taillights Fade". It was a very special moment in Boston music history and the whole time I was watching him onstage all I could think was “I can’t believe this guy onstage with Pearl Jam at Fenway Park worked in the same office with my Mom!?!” But I digress. Now Buffalo Tom is back with a new album Jump Rope from Scrawny Records.

bassist Chris Colbourn, singer / guitarist Bill Janovitz and drummer Tom Maginnis

Their music has always been a mix of college indie rock (their friendship with Dinosaur Jr. drew many comparisons), a slight classic rock influence and introspective lyrics. Even when the band is going big, i.e. playing Outside the Box in Boston Common, they still make you feel like you're seeing them at a college campus in 1988. Since the 90s, they've been a reliable rock trio, most notably their 2007 album Three Easy Pieces. I am happy to say that the new album Jump Rope is their best since the 90s. It really takes me back to the era of Let Me Come Over and Big Red Letter Day. A whopping 36 years since the first Buffalo Tom album was released, they have nothing to prove but yet they seem to have really come alive post-pandemic. There are some bangers here, but it's the quieter moments like "Our Poverty" or "You're On" that the band is willing to indulge into that feel like their happy place. This is definitely an album worth listening to in the Summer while sitting on the beach or in your backyard reading! Jon Stewart was onto to something when he made his list!

For info on Jump Rope

4 out of 5 stars

[reconprate]

Buffalo Tom

Buffalo Tom “Autumn Letter” Jump Rope (05-31-2024) Third single from the new album and third to make the weekly playlist.  Singer/guitarist Bill Janovitz is quoted in Stereogum about the song:  “It reminds me of a certain kind of classic Buffalo Tom song from our Let Me Come Over era. It’s big, open chords are strummed way up high on the capo’d guitar neck, with a little Van Morrison Celtic…

[rockinnews]

Buffalo Tom tienen nuevo disco, «Jump Rope»

[thekylemeredith]

Great to catch up with Buffalo Tom's Bill Janovitz! They've got a new album on the way and he's also writing a bio on The Cars.

[parkerbombshell]

Stereo Embers The Podcast: Graham Parker

Thursdays 2pm-3pm EST 11pm-12pm PDT 7pm-8pm BST bombshellradio.com stereoembersmagazine.com Stereo Embers Magazine #StereoEmbers, #podcast, #RadioShow, #AlexGreen, #Nowplaying, #BombshellRadio, #StereoEmbersThePodcast Repeats Fridays 1am EST and Sundays 11am EST “The Songs Between The Docks and the Roads” Over the course of his career, the east London-born singer/songwriter Graham Parker has put out close to thirty albums and they’re all great. All of them—Whether its Howlin' Wind or Squeezing out Sparks or Another Grey Area or Deepcut To Nowhere or Cloud Symbols, every single GP album is a winner. Parker grew up a huge fan of the Beatles, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke and ska and reggae music and you can hear those influences coursing through his songbook. His compositions swing and shake and sway and groove with some of the most infectious pop hooks you’ll ever hear. Parker’s early life could be a series of novels—he hung out in the Channel Islands and Paris, hitchhiked thourhg Spain and Morocco and worked on the docks in Gibraltar. And you and I both know, there are stories in between those docks and roads and islands. Graham Parker has lived a life. And his life in music is equally as staggering as his adventures. With his band the Rumor he was produced by Nick Lowe, opened for Dylan, played on Top Of The Pops, had Top 40 hits and albums, toured Australia, been on labels as varied as RCA, Arista and Bloodshot and collaborated with folks like Bill Janovitz of Buffalo Tom, The Smithereens and Kate Pierson of the B-52s. And he’s stilt at it. His two new singles (“Humans Are The Mutant Virus” and '3-D Printer”) are all the proof you need that Parker is still at the top of his game. He’s practically peerless. His new album Last Chance To Learn The Twist will be out in September, 2023. www.grahamparker.net www.100-percent.co.uk www.alexgreenonline.com www.bombshellradio.com Stereo Embers The Podcast Twitter: @emberseditor Instagram: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com Read the full article

[mojackpod]

Episode 250 Buffalo Tom "Buffalo Tom" w/ Bill Janovitz is up now wherever you get your podcasts.

https://on.soundcloud.com/nfyPt