Leon Michels


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. 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 Norah Jones, Clairo, Kali Uchis, Lady Wray, and Chicano Batman.

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. At age sixteen, Michels and Steinweiss joined Desco's house band The Soul Providers and toured internationally as part of Sharon Jones' band.
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. 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. 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.
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.
Following the closure of Truth & Soul in 2016, Michels co-founded Big Crown Records with T&S label manager Danny Akalapse. Since then, he has produced a majority of the albums from the label's roster, including Lee Fields, Lady Wray, Paul & The Tall Trees, Brainstory, and Liam Bailey. Michels has also produced records for Kali Uchis, The Carters, Hanni El Khatib, Chicano Batman, Marco Benevento, and Don Toliver.
A native New Yorker, Michels now lives in Upstate NY. He maintains two recording studios under the name The Diamond Mine, one in Upstate NY and one in Long Island City with Thomas Brenneck, Nick Movshon, and Homer Steinweiss.

Discography

With The Mighty ImperialsThunder Chicken
With Sharon Jones & the Dap-KingsDap Dippin' with [Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings] Naturally
With Lee Fields & The Expressions
  • Problems
  • My World Faithful Man Emma Jean Special Night It Rains Love Big Crown Vaults Vol. 1
With El Michels AffairSounding Out The City Walk On By EP Enter The 37th Chamber Loose Change EP Return To The 37th Chamber Adult Themes Yeti Season Ekundayo Inversions with Liam Bailey Glorious Game with Black Thought 24 Hr Sports
With Menahan Street BandMake the Road by Walking
With The Fabulous ThreeThe Best Of The Fabulous Three
With The ArcsYours, Dreamily, The Arcs vs. The Inventors Vol. I EP Electrophonic Chronic
With The Olympians
  • ''The Olympians''

Production discography

Albums

In addition to the records Michels has produced as El Michels Affair, he has produced:

Singles

Other tracks produced include:
As sampled artist: