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REDBONE: (Singing) Talk about my substitute. He once said, when performing songs from an earlier era, it wasn't really accuracy he was after it was the sentiment. REDBONE: (Singing) Sweet substitute, sweet substitute tells me that she's mine, all mine - does anything I tell her 'cause love is blind.īLAIR: Leon Redbone was a self-described romantic. And that's the legacy that he will always have. And he revived so much of what was great about those eras. RAITT: He just was honoring a music that would be, you know, put in the ivory tower of musicology departments and not appreciated. She says Redbone could pull off the subtlety of those old songs as if he was from that era. She got to know him when they toured together and says they shared a deep appreciation for the blues. REDBONE: (Singing) I hate a man like you, don't like the things you do.īONNE RAITT: None of us had ever seen anything like Leon before.īLAIR: Bonnie Raitt was mesmerized by Leon Redbone when she first saw him in the 1970s. JELLY ROLL MORTON: (Singing) I hate a man like you, don't like the things you do.īLAIR: Several decades later, Redbone recorded his own version. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I HATE A MAN LIKE YOU") He listened to songs by Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson and this one, "I Hate A Man Like You," by Jelly Roll Morton. Redbone once said, the only thing that interests me is history - reviewing the past and making something out of it. Even Redbone's friends and family aren't sure where his love of old songs came from - ragtime, jazz, blues, country. I feel undressed without my cane.īLAIR: According to a recent article in the magazine Oxford American, Leon Redbone was born in Cyprus to Armenian parents. REDBONE: (Singing) Without my walking stick, I'd go insane.
#LEON REDBONE SHINE ON HARVEST MOON TV#
He was introduced to millions of TV viewers when he was invited to perform on "Saturday Night Live" four times. Redbone got his start on the folk circuit, first in Toronto and then in the U.S. He told one interviewer he was born in 1670 another, 1910. For love, they pined.īLAIR: Redbone was sketchy about the details of his life. There's a couple sitting neath (ph) the willow tree. LEON REDBONE: (Singing) The night was mighty dark, so you could hardly see 'cause the moon refused to shine. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHINE ON HARVEST MOON") He was a singer with a laid-back delivery and, even as a young man, dressed and sounded like he'd stepped out of a bygone era, as NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports.ĮLIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: With his mustache, sunglasses, three-piece suits and Panama hat, Leon Redbone transported audiences back in time. The singer and guitarist was 69 years old.