Redbone entertains at The Canyon
Concert Review
By Cary Ginell Soundthink@aol.com

MYSTERY MAN- Leon Redbone brought his unique sounds to The Canyon in Agoura recently. The musician, accompanied by pianist Paul Asaro, played for several hundred devoted fans.

For more than three decades, Leon Redbone has been one of the concert scene's most unlikely successes. Redbone has made a career out of reviving songs from jazz, blues and pop history. At his recent appearance at The Canyon in Agoura Hills, Redbone played a dozen tunes for a few hundred reverential fans, accompanied only by talented stride pianist Paul Asaro.

Redbone has always been a mystery man. Nobody really knows much about him; his background and even his real name have been deliberately obscured. After his successful appearances on "Saturday Night Live" and "The Tonight Show" in the 1970s, it was rumored his real name was Dickran Gobalian and he emigrated from the island of Cyprus to Toronto, where he started his career in the mid-1960s.

Over the years, other rumors have floated- he was eccentric comedian Andy Kaufman in disguise, he was a disaffected proPalestinian from Lebanon and assorted other fanciful guesses.

Redbone doesn't encourage or discourage these notions; he's just there to play songs he's loved for years. Modest about his talents, he describes himself as "a vehicle- not so much for the particular kind of music I prefer, as for a mood that the music conveys."

On stage, Redbone wears a Panama hat, dark glasses and moustache, which serve to conceal his features as well as give his act a sense of authenticity. His laconic manner is engaging, but he is detached from his audience. Even when he responds to a shouted request, you never get the feeling he's really connecting with anyone. He's from another world, a musical time machine.

In a phone conversation the week before his Agoura appearance, Redbone described his career as merely an indulgence. When asked if he could be viewed as a crusader for a richer era of music, he said, "I don't really have any lofty thoughts as to what the result is going to be. I don't really have a large plan."

Redbone's goal is to re-create a mood, a simpler time when sentimentality wasn't considered hackneyed, a kinder, more honest era.

Redbone acknowledges that many of his musical references are lost on today's audiences. Flashing a laminated photo of pioneering jazz cornetist Nick LaRocca (a founding member of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band of the 1910s), Redbone knew that only a handful of people in the audience would have heard of him. But he wanted to mention LaRocca's name anyway.

Other names get sprinkled through his act, including '20s chanteuse Lee Morse, Texas songster Mance Lipscomb and crooner Gene Austin. Redbone said about Austin, "I don't think there has ever been a singer who could put a song across better than him in that light, sentimental manner that he had." Redbone made sure to sing Austin's hit "My Blue Heaven," which was recorded in 1927.

His opening number, "Sweet Mama, Papa's Getting Mad" was first recorded by minstrel star Emmett Miller in 1929. His deft guitar picking is chiefly modeled after that of Chicago's Blind Blake, but he also plays in the rhythmic style of Piedmont guitarists like Blind Boy Fuller and the Reverend Gary Davis.

Fats Waller is also a Redbone idol. With Asaro providing the patented Waller stride accompaniment on the piano, Redbone sang the rollicking "Oh, Suzannah (Dust Off that Old Pianna)" and "Ain't Misbehavin'," to the delight of the audience.

One of the most affecting moments came when he crooned Rudolf Sieczynski's "Vienna, City of My Dreams," accompanied by a prerecorded zither. Redbone is to be admired for his musical eclecticism; he is one of the few performers who can still get away with singing sentimental songs without their being viewed as mawkish.

For his encore, Redbone indulged the audience's request for "Shine On, Harvest Moon," a 1908 chestnut that had everyone singing along with the chorus. When asked if there was anything in particular he'd like to see accomplished, Redbone said, "If you can get cracking on a time machine, I'd be the first one to jump in it."