Leon Redbone: Singer-songwriter whose music and mystique beguiled even Dylan

Leon Redbone was an enigmatic performer who animated a past he was never witness to in his concerts and recordings, playing and singing early jazz and blues as if he had strolled straight out of the 1920s.

He seemed to emerge out of nowhere in Toronto in the late Sixties – a self-created performer who defied musical trends to revive the sounds of a bygone time. His acoustic guitar and a deep, guttural voice seemed to have come from a travelling medicine show – a tradition of quackery imported from 19th century Europe – or the back alleys of old New Orleans. Always appearing in a coat and tie, hat and dark glasses, he seemed at first glance to be a costumed caricature.

He was an eccentric blend of antiquarian, actor, singer, musician and performance artist – with a strong element of Marxian absurdity. Redbone sometimes pulled a tomato from his handkerchief and placed it on a stool beside him, then wrapped it up again as he left the stage.

He entertained with hoary jokes, paddled his guitar as if rowing a boat for one of his signature songs, “Up a Lazy River”. His banter with the audience could be zany or head-scratchingly odd.

“If you know the words,” he might say, “please hum along.” He would blow bubbles onstage, shine a flashlight into the audience or a pull out a camera to take photographs of his fans.

For years, there was speculation that Leon Redbone was actually the invention of comedian Andy Kaufman, musical iconoclast Frank Zappa – whom he strongly resembled – or even Bob Dylan in disguise.

It was Dylan who brought Redbone widespread recognition after a 1972 performance at Canada’s Mariposa Folk Festival.

“Leon interests me,” Dylan later told Rolling Stone. He praised Redbone’s remarkable command of early musical styles, switching from ragtime to the country music of the “Singing Brakeman” Jimmie Rodgers to the jazz of Fats Waller and the blues of Robert Johnson and Blind Blake.

But Redbone was an enigma even to Dylan. “I’ve heard he’s anywhere from 25 to 60,” Dylan said. “I’ve been this close and I can’t tell”.

Redbone never broke character in any context. When it came to his music and his persona, he was dead earnest. A 1976 performance on Saturday Night Live shifted 200,000 copies of his debut 1975 album, On the Track.

His only song to reach Billboard’s Hot 100 was “Seduced” in 1981. A TV regular on programmes such as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, he sang the theme song of the 1980s US sitcom Mr Belvedere. He also did ad campaigns, including one for Budweiser.

More recently Redbone was the voice and inspiration for Leon the Snowman in 2003 film Elf. Over the film’s final credits, Redbone sings a duet of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” with the film’s co-star, Zooey Deschanel.

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He released 16 albums over the years, including a Christmas album in 1989. Redbone studiously concealed his past, including his name at birth and his age – the latter has been revealed by his wife and manager, Beryl Handler, who survives him along with their two daughters and three grandchildren.

In his early biographical materials, he said his father was violinist Niccolo Panganini and his mother was the opera singer Jenny Lind – both of whom died in the 19th century.

He sometimes claimed to have been born in Manhattan on the day of the 1929 stock market crash. Other accounts suggested he was from Shreveport, Louisiana, New Orleans, Cleveland, somewhere in Canada – or maybe India.

Redbone was born in Cyprus in 1949. In the 1980s, a Canadian magazine reported that Redbone was born Dickran Gobalian.

His background remained largely unknown until March of this year, when journalist Megan Pugh published an extensive article in the Oxford American magazine. Redbone’s father was an Armenian orphan, and his parents lived in Jerusalem before moving to Nicosia, Cyprus, shortly before their son’s birth.

They moved to London in the early 1960s, then to Toronto in 1965. Amid such instability, Redbone found solace in music, particularly in obscure popular songs and blues from about 1880 to 1940.

In Toronto, where he began performing in the late 1960s, Redbone led a secretive life. No one knew where he lived, and the only way to reach him, according to Pugh’s article, was to call a billiards hall and leave a message for “Mr Grunt”.

As a musician and as a personality, he was entirely self-made. His virtuosity as a fingerpicking guitarist, pianist and harmonica player seemed to materialise out of thin air. He adopted a languid, drawling manner of speech that was in place by his twenties.

In 1979, Redbone survived a plane crash in West Virginia in which two of his fellow passengers were killed. From then on, he was reluctant to travel by air and usually drove to his performances.

Although he was evasive about where he lived, Redbone settled in New Hope and became a skilled stonemason and cook. He released his final studio album, Flying By, in 2014 and retired from performing the following year. A two-disc compilation of early recordings, Long Way From Home, was released in 2016.

Leon Redbone, American musician, born 26 August 1949, died 30 May 2019

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