Leon Michels

Last updated
Leon Michels
Birth nameLeon Marcus Michels
Also known as
  • El Michels
  • Truth & Soul
Born1982 (age 4142)
New York, New York, U.S.
Instrument(s)
Years active1999–present
Labels
Member of
Formerly of
Website elmichelsaffair.com

Leon Marcus Michels is an American music producer, record executive, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist best known as the leader of the eclectic soul project El Michels Affair and co-founder of Truth & Soul Records and Big Crown Records. [1] He is a founding member of soul and funk bands Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Menahan Street Band, and Lee Fields & The Expressions, and has played with Charles Bradley as well as Wu-Tang Clan. A frequent collaborator of Dan Auerbach, Michels was a touring member of The Black Keys and co-founded The Arcs. As a producer, Michels has produced records for artists such as Lee Fields, Norah Jones, Chicano Batman, Nicole Wray, and Hanni El Khatib.

Contents

History

Michels' professional career began as a teenager in the late 1990s. He got his start playing in the high school funk band The Mighty Imperials with Thomas Brenneck, Nick Movshon, Sean Solomon, and Homer Steinweiss, which soon found a home at the small Desco Records label, the precursor to Soul Fire and Daptone Records. [2] At age sixteen, Michels and Steinweiss joined Desco's house band The Soul Providers and toured internationally as part of Sharon Jones' band. [3]

When Desco folded in 1999, The Mighty Imperials became the house band for Phillip Lehman's Soul Fire Records. With Movshon and Lehman, he produced Lee Fields' 2002 record Problems, beginning a decades-long relationship with Fields. When Lehman decided to leave the music industry in 2003, he helped Michels found retro-soul label Truth & Soul Records with DJ "Jeff Dynamite" Silverman. Truth & Soul was active from 2004 until 2016 as both a label and production team. [4] [5] Outside of producing and releasing Lee Fields' albums, Truth & Soul is best known for producing Aloe Blacc's Good Things which contained the single "I Need a Dollar."

During the time of founding Truth & Soul, Michels left Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, with whom he had toured with for seven years and released two studio albums, and began leading his own project, El Michels Affair. El Michels Affair released its debut album, and Truth & Soul's first release, in 2005. El Michaels Affair was soon recruited to be the backing band for members of Wu-Tang Clan. [6] In 2007, Michels helped found the Thomas Brenneck-led Menahan Street Band with whom he has released three albums as well as four albums with Charles Bradley. [7]

In 2009, Michels produced the first Lee Field & The Expressions' album My World. The album was well-received and got the attention of The Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach, who recruited Michels and Movshon to tour with the band. He worked with Auerbach as a songwriter and session musician for a few years before co-founding The Arcs. [6] [8]

Following the closure of Truth & Soul in 2016, Michels co-founded Big Crown Records with T&S label manager Danny Akalapse. [9] Since then, he has produced a majority of the albums from the label's roster, including Lee Fields, Lady Wray, Paul & The Tall Trees, and Liam Bailey. Michels has also produced records for Kali Uchis, The Carters, Hanni El Khatib, Chicano Batman, Marco Benevento, and Don Toliver. [6]

A native New Yorker, Michels now lives in Rhinebeck, New York. [3] He maintains two recording studios under the name The Diamond Mine, one in Rhinebeck and one in Long Island City with Thomas Brenneck, Nick Movshon, and Homer Steinweiss. [9]

Discography

With The Mighty Imperials

With Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings

With Lee Fields & The Expressions

With El Michels Affair

With Menahan Street Band

With The Fabulous Three

With The Arcs

With The Olympians

Production discography

Albums

In addition to the records Michels has produced as El Michels Affair, he has produced: [10] [11]

Singles

Other tracks produced include:

As sampled artist:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daptone Records</span> Record label

Daptone Records is a funk and soul independent record label based in Brooklyn, New York. Best known as the home of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and Charles Bradley, the label boasts a roster which includes Menahan Street Band, The Budos Band, The Sugarman 3, and Antibalas, and runs the recording studio Daptone's House of Soul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings</span> American funk/soul band

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings were an American funk and soul band signed to Daptone Records. They were part of a revival movement of mid-1960s to mid-1970s style funk and soul music. They released their debut album Dap Dippin' in 2002, the first of seven studio albums. Their 2014 album Give the People What They Want was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. Following Sharon Jones' death in 2016, the band released the posthumous album Soul of a Woman in 2017 and a compilation of cover songs in 2020.

Truth & Soul was a record label and production team based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. It was formed in 2004 by Leon Michels and Jeff Silverman with Philippe Lehman. The label was best known for their releases with Lee Fields & The Expressions and other New York retro-soul / funk groups. As a production house and recording studio, Truth & Soul worked with artists like Aloe Blacc and Adele. In 2016, Truth & Soul's catalog was acquired by The Orchard, and was succeeded by Big Crown Records and Mighty Eye Records.

Nicholas Anthony Movshon is a bass guitarist, drummer and songwriter best known for his considerable contributions to the New York funk and soul revival. A frequent contributor to the recorded output of Brooklyn-based labels Daptone Records and Truth & Soul, he has spent the past two decades playing with Charles Bradley, Lee Fields, and Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, and as a member of groups including Antibalas, Menahan Street Band, and El Michels Affair. He is also a founding member of The Arcs and has toured with The Black Keys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Menahan Street Band</span> American instrumental band

Menahan Street Band is a Brooklyn, New York–based instrumental band formed in 2007, that plays funk and soul music. The band features musicians from Antibalas, El Michels Affair, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and the Budos Band. The group was founded by Thomas Brenneck while living in an apartment on Menahan Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick. Their debut album, Make the Road by Walking, was released in 2008 on Dunham, a sublabel of Daptone Records and was followed by The Crossing in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Leonhart</span> Musical artist

Michael Leonhart is an American jazz trumpeter and multi-instrumentalist.

The Sugarman 3, sometimes titled The Sugarman Three, is a retro-funk band from New York City formed in 1996 by saxophonist Neal Sugarman, Hammond organ player Adam Scone, and drummer Rudy Albin. The band has released four studio albums—Sugar's Boogaloo (1999), Soul Donkey (2000), Pure Cane Sugar (2002) and What the World Needs Now (2012)—and one compilation album, Sweet Spot (2001).

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Elmer Lee Fields is an American soul singer, sometimes nicknamed "Little JB" for his physical and vocal resemblance with James Brown. He has worked with Kool and the Gang, Hip Huggers, O.V. Wright, Darrell Banks, and Little Royal. Fields has also worked with musicians such as B.B. King, Clarence Carter, Dr. John, Tyrone Davis, Johnny Taylor, Denise LaSalle, Bobby Blue Bland, Betty Wright, The Manhattans, Little Milton and Bobby Womack. He recorded his first single in 1969 and is still active. His recent work is with The Expressions, including the albums Faithful Man (2012), Special Night (2017), and It Rains Love (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Arcs</span> American garage rock band

The Arcs are an American garage rock band formed by Dan Auerbach, the guitarist and vocalist of the Black Keys. The band consists of Auerbach, Leon Michels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, and formerly Richard Swift, who died in 2018. They released their debut album Yours, Dreamily, in 2015. Their second album, Electrophonic Chronic, was released in January 2023.

<i>Yours, Dreamily,</i> 2015 studio album by the Arcs

Yours, Dreamily, is the debut album by the Arcs, a side-project by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. The album was released on September 4, 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Brenneck</span> American guitarist and producer

Thomas "Tommy" Brenneck is an American guitarist, record producer, and engineer, best known as the leader of the Menahan Street Band and member of The Budos Band, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, and El Michels Affair. He is the founder of Dunham Records, a subsidiary of seminal retro-soul label Daptone Records, and was the producer of soul singer Charles Bradley. As a producer session musician, he frequently works with Daptone and Big Crown Records artists.

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Homer Steinweiss is an American drummer, songwriter, and producer known as a prominent drummer in the New York soul revival scene. He is a founding member and drummer of groups including Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Lee Fields & The Expressions, Hardly Knew Ya, El Michels Affair, and Dan Auerbach's The Arcs, among many others. He leads the Brooklyn folk soul band Holy Hive with Paul Spring. A popular session musician as part of The Dap-Kings and in his own right, he is perhaps best known for his work with Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse, with whom he recorded the 2006 album Back to Black.

El Michels Affair is an American cinematic soul group led by musician and producer Leon Michels. Based in New York, the group is noted for its wide-ranging influences, analog production approach, and hip hop collaborations. The group released its debut album Sounding Out the City in 2005. After touring behind Raekwon and other Wu-Tang Clan members, the group recorded the popular cover album Enter the 37th Chamber in 2009. After releasing other tribute albums in the following decade, El Michels Affair returned with the original albums Adult Themes in 2020 and Yeti Season in 2021. Since then, the group has released collaborative projects with Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Liam Bailey, and Black Thought, including 2023's Glorious Game.

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References

  1. "How Big Crown Records Is Creating More Than the Retro-Soul Revival". Observer. 2016-11-18. Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  2. "The Mighty Imperials | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  3. 1 2 fleamarketfunk (2020-07-30). "Big Ups With Leon Michels". Flea Market Funk. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  4. "Soul Fire". www.propermusic.com. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  5. "Truth and Soul | WHO?MAG" . Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  6. 1 2 3 "El Michels Affair". Big Crown Records. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  7. "Leon Michels, El Michels Affair,Enter The 37th Chamber" . Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  8. "The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach Announces New Album With The Arcs". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  9. 1 2 "How Big Crown Records Is Creating More Than the Retro-Soul Revival". Observer. 2016-11-18. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  10. "Leon Michels | Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  11. "Leon Michels". Discogs. Retrieved 2021-03-11.