
While his gravelly baritone and omnipresent fedora, dark glasses and Groucho Marx moustache made him one of the more distinct and recognizable characters in popular music, little is known about the neo-vaudeville crooner Leon Redbone. Throughout his career, he steadfastly refused to divulge any information about his background or personal life; according to legend, Redbone's desire to protect his privacy was so intense that when he was approached by the famed producer John Hammond, the contact number he gave was not his own phone, but that of a Dial-A-Joke service.

AMG Review by Lindsay Planer:
Leon Redbone followed up his debut long-player On the Track (1975) with Double Time (1977), an equally enchanting, if not somewhat eclectic blend, of jazz, folk, blues and pop standards -- all in Redbone's undeniably distinct throaty baritone. While the tunes may be familiar, these renderings are steeped in the artist's unique sensibilities. The results are uniformly ingenious and commence with a New Orleans ragtime flavored interpretation of Blind Boy Blake's dirty "Diddy Wa Diddie" blues. Augmenting Redbone's acoustic guitar is an extended cast of session stalwarts and a host of other musical notables -- such as Milt Hinton (bass), Jonathan Dorn (tuba), Vic Dickenson (trombone) and Jo Jones (drums). Don McLean (banjo) sits in, supplying his criminally underutilized instrumental versatility on the endearing revamp of Jimmie Rodgers' "Mississippi Delta Blues."


These great old songs regain all their appeal thanks not only to Leon Redbone's intrinsic talent but also to his always fresh, sometimes "tongue-in-cheek", even irreverent approach towards choice material he genuinely loves and understands. Listen to him whistling through Mamie Smith's 1920 "Crazy Blues" before conjuring a swing jazz depiction of country singer Jimmie Rodgers ("Mississippi Delta Blues") before finding his way through pistol shots (!) on the wonderfully double-entendre "Mr. Jelly Roll Baker" (a Jelly Roll Morton composition). He can also be delightfully tender, but never maudlin, on tunes like "My Melancholy Baby" (a 1912 composition made famous by Judy Garland in the aforementioned "A Star Is Born").

Year: 1977
Label: Warner Bros
whistle-scat-growl.
from vinyl, over-cleaned by someone | mp3 192kbps | w/ cover | 50mb
direct links in comments.
and you can get Leon Redbone - On the Track at Sugar Plum Fairy.
Once you hear that album and this, I'm sure you'll be a convert and you'll have to go and get the rest of his records from his official site
on disreputable sources, I have this information:
Leon Redbone
AKA Dickran Gobalian
Born: 26-Aug-1949
Birthplace: Cyprus
Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Occupation: Musician
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Vaudevillian with mysterious background

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