The Beginning of the End

Leon’s Creation: This Is The Beginning and Until You Were Gone and Mirage
Taken from the album This Is The Beginning on Studio Ten (196?)

O, The irony! The injustice! Under any other title this album may have served as a stepping stone into a fruitful career in popular music; with another title it may have passed safely into the annals of music history, heralded for its sonic ingenuity and sheer fuzzed-out fonkiness… but no. The title–This Is The Beginning (so full of promise!)–stood, a hex was laid, and the group’s (justifiable) optimism notwithstanding, Leon’s Creation disappeared before they had even begun.

Leon Patillo burst out the Yay Area in the late sixties, locked and loaded with a killer band and some serious native funk and flash. He dropped a pair of promising 45’s followed by a debut album that seemed poised to make dramatic inroads into the budding commerciality of the psychaedelic soul movement… Too bad that Sly Stone couldn’t stomach the presence of the new kid on the block. Beseiged by jealousy or intense paranoia (or maybe acting on his notoriously bizarre whimsy; see Grammy’s) Sly quickly stepped in at Studio Ten records, bought the whole shebang and promptly shut down ol’ Leon and his creation. And that was the end of The Beginning.

(Reminds me of a story I heard (hearsay? maybe.) about another famous wierdo: a certain R. Kelly, abruptly yanking the rug out from under his eminently talented protege, Raheem DeVaughn, (SUPPORT TALENT) when he realized that Jr. may just have been a little too dope for his own good. It’s a damn shame I tell ya.)

At any rate, enjoy the tunes. It’s not every day that you find an album whose opening three tracks constitute fire, FIRE, and MORE FIRE!

Two last notes: Continue to the support the Cap’n (a.k.a.-Chewy Chewbaka, Duff-duf, et al.) by copping a FREE DOWNLOAD of the Building Bloc album (see below). Also, if you are interested in being part of some next level upliftment, get hip to One Self. I’ve been loving their music for a minute, but I saw these cats at the Root Down here in L.A. last night, and um… I’m in love with Yarah Bravo. There I’ve said it. Happy Friday.