Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone: The Search for Leon Redbone

Has anyone got any news on how this is progressing?

http://fridaynightboys300.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/please-dont-talk-about-me-when-im-gone.html

 

When I think of Leon Redbone, I always think of the Mr. Belvedere theme.

 

I think of the guy sporting a hat and shades croaking out tunes on early episodes of SNL.

 

I always think of him primarily from the Budweiser commercials he did in the early 80s, and later
his duet on "Frosty The Snowman" with Dr. John.

 

Ive recorded Leon Redbone in concert, and he never, ever drops character. He was the same when he showed up for sound check as during the show. That was when I took the photo for Wikipedia that is my avatar.

I've done quite a bit of work on the article, and the earliest reference to him was by John Hammond who called him "a kid from Philadelphia named Redbone".

 

This is a legendary UK commercial:

 

And the follow up:

 

I couldn't believe he was in his 20s when appeared on SNL. He's 65 now, I would have guessed 80s.

 

A friend of mine met him in the 70's and said the same thing. He also said Redbone was pretty loaded and still pretty much in control.

 

I was visiting the Kansas City Public Library to do some microfilm research, and it turned out the guy manning the department was my friend Stretch from one of my favorite, long lost record stores - the Music Exchange. We got to talking, and I mentioned my hobby of adding artist photos to Wikipedia and the Leon Redbone one that I was particularly proud of, and he mentioned that Leon had visited his department the day he played Knuckleheads Saloon. He was wanting to research when a particular singer had played Kansas City's Vaudeville theaters. For all the wonders of the Internet and the various tools Google offers, the truth is if you're wanting to look at old newspapers, the only way you're going to be able to do that is to travel to that paper's home city and look at the microfilm records. It's the rare library that is going to have newspaper microfilms of papers from other cities. So Leon does his research when touring.

Stretch recognized Leon, and said "Sir, you look familiar" and Leon replied "The name's Redbone." My friend said he was entirely in character while he was there.

You know, if you adopt a persona for 50 years or so, eventually that's just who you are.

I was at the venue setting up my cameras and was on the stage adjusting lights during the sound check, and he was exactly the same during the sound check. After the show, I was able to talk to him a little bit about by own research into the provenance of the song Shine On Harvest Moon. The song is credited to Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth, but I believe it was actually written by Bayes' accompanist Dave Stamper. When you talk to him, you find yourself falling into a more "courtly" manner of speech. When I took the picture, I said "pardon me sir, my I take your portrait?" and got the shot.

 

I have a clipping from an Illinois paper in October 1972 that identifies Redbone as a blues-folk musician from Toronto.

 

Researching the Wikipedia article, I found and added this bit:

However, an article about producer John H. Hammond in a 1973 issue of the Canadian jazz magazine Coda states that he was a native of Philadelphia who moved to Toronto: "Sitting next to Hammond was a young white musician named Leon Redbone from Philadelphia, but currently residing in Toronto"

He's done everything he can to obscure his past.

 

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