13-06-2021, 20:29
Howard Leese was born on this day in 1951, in Hollywood, California. Best known for his tenure in Heart – he’s a multi-instrumentalist although I’d say the guitar is his primary focus. As both a woodworker and luthier, he founded his own guitar production company in 1994, HML guitars, in addition to playing, and was hands-on for a large part although he did have another luthier building the instruments - Jack Pimental, who now continues under his own brand. After playing their #1 for around 15 years on stage, Leese had a Paul Reed Smith guitar named after him, the "Howard Leese Limited Edition Golden Eagle", and another company he endorses named one of their guitar effects "Barracuda", in his honour, which makes total sense.
He can be heard on a number of recordings outside of Heart and also performs with Paul Rodgers (as well as with Bad Company) who he took up with along the way. One of his collaborations was with Randy Meisner (Eagles, Poco) and this is where one enters the rabbit hole (which although I’m not fond of that expression, seems to fit rather well in this instance!); coincidentally, the album he plays on for Meisner is also one which has Paul Buckmaster arranging the strings, and guess what? It would have been his birthday today too. The maestro sadly shuffled off this mortal coil in 2017 after a lifetime’s invaluable contribution to the biz.
I decided to listen to Randy Meisner’s Randy Meisner (the second of two eponymously titled releases which is a bit weird, not to mention confusing) but couldn’t find the album I wanted – just a couple of tracks, one of which was "Strangers" which was written by Elton John and Gary Osborne. Meisner, and wait for it, Ann Wilson of Heart, do a knockout cover of “Strangers” IMHO – both Howard Leese and Paul Buckmaster in evidence too – and that’s not all – Mr Buckmaster was on the EJ original. How’s that for a tidy little tale??! Lol!
He can be heard on a number of recordings outside of Heart and also performs with Paul Rodgers (as well as with Bad Company) who he took up with along the way. One of his collaborations was with Randy Meisner (Eagles, Poco) and this is where one enters the rabbit hole (which although I’m not fond of that expression, seems to fit rather well in this instance!); coincidentally, the album he plays on for Meisner is also one which has Paul Buckmaster arranging the strings, and guess what? It would have been his birthday today too. The maestro sadly shuffled off this mortal coil in 2017 after a lifetime’s invaluable contribution to the biz.
I decided to listen to Randy Meisner’s Randy Meisner (the second of two eponymously titled releases which is a bit weird, not to mention confusing) but couldn’t find the album I wanted – just a couple of tracks, one of which was "Strangers" which was written by Elton John and Gary Osborne. Meisner, and wait for it, Ann Wilson of Heart, do a knockout cover of “Strangers” IMHO – both Howard Leese and Paul Buckmaster in evidence too – and that’s not all – Mr Buckmaster was on the EJ original. How’s that for a tidy little tale??! Lol!
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson