She looked like the Barbie doll that the neighbor kids had playing with for too long. Her girlfriend Vanessa told me that Linda opened the door and, upon hearing that Alan was here for a meeting about a Leon Russell project, Linda grabbed him by the arm and THREW him into an easy chair and proceeded to rant and rave for about an hour until a very frightened little man suddenly pulled out his checkbook and asked if he should leave the tapes with her. After picking my jaw off the floor I noticed that sure enough, in the corner of Linnie’s living room was a stack of 2-inch video reels with a coating of dust on them like they had been wrestled from some ancient crypt. The first thing that needed to be done was to get these much maligned tapes converted to a format that didn’t date back to the days of The Honeymooners or something. 1-inch Type “C” seemed like a good idea, but the tapes weren’t going to cooperate. That Sinking Feeling The moment I put up Reel Number One over at Dubs, Incorporated, I heard a sound that reminded me of a lawn mower on LSD. Quarter inch size bits of tape rained on the floor like a ticker tape parade. What followed was two months of heat treating, running the tapes over a blade and cleaning, an inch at a time, followed by prayers as we again tried running the originals. We still suffered massive casualties. Those of you who attended the Charlotte concert will remember that Nitzinger was one of the opening acts. It seems that during the early 1970’s 3M had been experimenting with a cork lining for the inside of the metal reels on certain tapes to minimize lateral tape travel during fast forward and rewind cycles. Three years in the trunk of a Mercedes had rendered the adhesive for this cork liner a sticky mass of waxy goop that very nearly destroyed the heads on a two hundred thousand dollar AMPEX 2-inch Quad VTR, and the master reel for Nitzinger was so hopelessly entangled upon itself that even disassembling the metal reels caused further damage to the tape. Unfortunately, Nitzinger died on the cutting room floor. The same nearly happened to the reel for The Freddie King Blues Band, but somehow we managed to save that one by tossing the entire reel into the heating unit and leaving it on low setting until we could carefully wrangle the tape from the reel. Then we slowly wound it onto a fresh, unused metal reel and cleaned it inch by inch. While doing the transfer to 1-inch Type “C”, we also made duplicate sub-masters on ¾ inch SP U-Matic cassette for viewing and off-line editing. I first observed the massive video glitches that plagued the concerts and started to have the same sinking feeling that all the previous editors in La La Land had experienced when it occurred to me that, except for an occasional hat change, the concerts were very nearly identical, both in costume and song sets. Why not grab the best soundtrack of a particular song and try to synch up matching video from whichever one of the three concerts would yield some stable footage? A simple enough affair, if there is synched playback during the original taping. But this was a live concert, and I had to pray that Leon did not take liberties with the stylings from night to night. Suddenly it was no longer all that simple. No time code, just me and my trusty eyeballs, and Leon. It turned out that Leon is quite dependable when it comes to timing and for the most part, the songs were a good match from venue to venue. All I had to do was log thirteen hours of footage and shuttle back and forth between three separate concerts and then blend the result into what would hopefully appear to be a single concert. I was at the mercy of “Stoney” and his crazed crew of technicians, and whatever legacy they had left intact on tape, a few seconds here, a minute there. I would lay down song footage from one night and then, piece by piece, shot by shot, cover a multitude of electronic sins, using my eye to lip synch the shots. I wondered who had the idea to dress those girls in plaid bellbottoms but somehow it seemed appropriate, plaid on stage… I just prayed I wouldn’t end up with square eyeballs when it was all over from sitting two inches from the video monitors. I became very familiar with Leon’s stage presence and mannerisms during the next months. I also marveled whenever a glimpse of those humungous “Minicams” came into view. The fellows operating those monsters looked like Hell’s Angels and they still wobbled under the crushing weight of the electronics strapped to their torsos. They were like Video Visigoths wrestling some gigantic electric Hydra with three heads. On stage were three refrigerator sized studio cameras on big studio pedestals. This being 1972, the end result of all this effort was a riotous attack of light trails and smearing color, set down in what I could only describe as the opposite of Steadicam. I called it “Shuddercam”, but I can’t even imagine what my shots would have looked like after an hour with nearly two hundred pounds on my back. I probably would have ended up on the floor, trampled by Leon Lifers. As the months went by I kept Alan Pacella informed of the progress I was making, and of course I also kept him informed of the expenses, which were starting to stack up to a prodigious bill. But Alan Pacella was a rather magnanimous type, almost like a sawed off Aristotle Onassis, and I was told to spare nothing and no expense to get the job done. Eventually I had a finished rough cut and when I presented Alan with the bill he nearly fainted. After regaining his composure he told me that he was going to have some difficulty raising that much money and he wanted to know if we could work out a deal, with a portion of the money up front and the rest on "the back end" after the concert was in the distribution pipeline. Since "the girlfriend soon-to-be-ex-wife" had been previously married to a rather well known Hollywood screenwriter I was already being peppered with some good advice, namely the evils of the phrase "net profit", which translated roughly to "NYET PROFIT". I finally settled with Alan signing me on as a partner in the authorship of the work and a deal memo was signed to that effect and I was also entitled to ten percent of the gross and five percent of the "nyet", but for the purposes of this story the important part is that Alan made me a partner in the authorship of the project, a signatory. Meeting the MOSAT We screened the rough cut and pronounced it ready for online editing, the final step in producing an edited master ready for duplication. But Alan Pacella knew that the key to the success of this project would be having Leon Russell on board. Unfortunately this would prove to be Alan's eventual undoing. We tried for several weeks to get a meeting set up, but going through "Leon's people" was a vivid re-enactment of dealing with Elvis Presley's crew of Flying Yes Men. Getting a read on Leon's business manager at the time was about like reading wallpaper. With nothing forthcoming and impossible to pin down we were flummoxed by an office staff that just did not understand what we had. It was difficult explaining that we "had the lost Leon Live video reels from 1972". They just didn't get what we were trying to put across. Leon was going to be playing in the Long Beach area and we decided it would be smart to get a copy of the rough cut to Leon in the hopes of getting a meeting with The Master of Space and Time and perhaps a few minutes of interview footage. God, were we naive or what. Little did we know that Leon reserves a special place in hell for people who want to talk business on the road and, pikers that we were, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We arrived at the bar in Long Beach, a rather pleasant little dive with a small stage and a large dance floor. We learned that there were two shows that night and as we settled down at our table I dragged my professional video camera and video deck and all my gear and gathered it around our little enclave. Leon's road manager approached us and warned that we were not to shoot any of the night's performance and I quickly informed him that what I really wanted was a few moment's sit-down where I could ask Leon a few questions about the Leon Live album tour. I showed "Glen", the road manager, the VHS copy of the rough cut and told him that this was the movie of the tour that was shot in 1972 and that Leon might find it interesting. Glen took the tape and said that he would pass it along and have Leon take a look at it between shows. Then the lights went down and the Master of Space and Time took the stage, with Edgar Winter as special guest. It was a magical show, but Leon seemed tired from a long stretch on the road, the West Coast being at the far end of something that had started out in Nashville, and it was understandable, but we could see that Leon clearly enjoyed playing with his saxophone soulmate, and the band was tight and ready to rock. Leon said nothing to the crowd but went straight to his work, handily ripping out renditions of his classics and before we knew it the show was over, and Glen approached us again a few minutes later. What followed still puzzles me to this day. Glen strolled over and told us that Leon had looked at some of the tape and that he wanted to talk to us, and then he said some things that I found unsettling: "Listen, I have to tell you a couple of important things. First, I can only let two of you on the bus...Leon doesn't see people when he is on the road. You two will be the first people he has invited on the bus in five years. And I dont want you to get your hopes up either. What we're dealing with is a forty-eight year old man who probably doesn't remember all the way back to 1972, he's not in good health and he is not beyond shooting himself in the foot over a principle." I thought that was sort of a cheap shot at a man who had been routinely disrespected by every major record label on the planet. I didnt think that Leon needed another Judas in his midst but who was I to say what's right and what's wrong. I chalked it up to "The Flying Yes Men Effect" and my soon to be ex-wife and I headed toward the bus with Alan frantically gesticulating and haranguing Glen in the background. I knew that bringing a crazed Alan with me would get us jettisoned faster than I could say "Doda koo panga Ma doda koo kala". The bus was a mixture of Bohemian delights and carney mystery, with oriental tapestries and large comfy loungers on one side and a couple of booths on the other. We were seated in one of the booths and Leon appeared from the rear of the machine, still sweating. He looked like he had a headache and he was wiping his nose, which turned out to be an ongoing problem which would eventually lead to brain surgery. Leon's headaches were a constant source of misery and his nose was leaking cerebro-spinal fluid from his cranial cavity, but all in all he was pleasant and charming as he greeted us and sat down. He told us that he had watched some of the tape and looked over all the court papers and contracts, and in his opinion we were holding on to a bootleg videotape and he believed the documents were a forgery. Naturally this was impossible, because forging court papers was surely a felony, and anyone stupid enough to cobble together a court document with a docket number and a judge's signature would be facing a pretty severe stretch in solitary, and also because it was impossible to shoot a bootleg video in 1972 with three cameras on stage and two in the crowd, but I stayed silent as he finished his thought. I asked him what he thought of the performance and he smiled and said it was a crazy energy back in those days, and I replied that this crazy energy was some of the finest Leon Russell rock and roll out there and that his fans wanted to see it. I told him that whatever else, whatever other issues were standing in the way, that I wanted to work those issues out so that this video could receive the right kind of promotion and the right kind of distribution. I told him that I believed it would be good for all of us to put our heads together and work out the problems and obstacles so that we could all benefit from it on a mutual basis. And Leon said: "Well I wont rule out that possibility." He thanked us for our time and we were escorted off the bus and as we were leaving, a very thin and energetic Edgar Winter climbed on board and shook our hands, and spent a long time admiring my soon-to-be-ex-wife's chest. And then we were back on the outside. A blue Ford Pinto pulled up with two ladies who wanted desperately for us to pass along some fudge brownies and cookies that they had made for Leon. They believed that we somehow had the magic to get back on that bus to pass them along to The Master of Space and Time.... Ahhhh, future Leon Lifer Ladies in the making... But I knew that the distance between my soon-to-be-ex-wife and I, and that bus was more Space and Time than could be traveled in a light-year, even though we were only a foot and a half from the door. Now, you remember I told you that the first show was tight, and entertaining, but that Leon said nothing to the crowd and he seemed a little tired. None of us were prepared for what happened next. Leon didnt take the stage, he LEAPED AND BOUNDED out onto the stage, and then proceeded to burn the house down to the ground. From the first note he followed with a series of screams and "wooooo---hoooooo's" and he may as well have lit the keyboard on fire and launched a depth charge at the dance floor. We turned to each other in unison and Alan said "Whoa, do ya THINK HE LIKED THE TAPE??" The second show was like watching a man posessed. Leon was on fire and he knew it, lashing out with that rock and roll tent revival, and doing that little talking thing he does in between songs, giving the band just enough seconds to catch their breath in between. The audience was rode hard and put up wet, and we left knowing that we had made an impression on the man. But what to do next?