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Elton John – Celebrating Forty Years of Classic Rock
The Featured Artist for the First Week of Rocktober is a Classic Rock Legend
He was born March 25, 1947 in the small neighborhood of Tinner, Middlesex, England to Sheila and Stanley Dwight and named Reginald Kenneth. The family, living with Sheila’s parents in their Council House where music played an integral part of everyday life was not always the most idyllic atmosphere for grooming a future rock legend, but Reginald, who was affectionately known during his childhood as Reggie, was in fact destined to become just that. A classic rock legend.
Turned on by the many records his mom and dad would bring home to their new digs the young family had just moved in to down the street from grandma and grandpa, and by listening to his dad, a trumpet player in a semi-pro big band known as the Bob Miller Band, Reggie started climbing up on the piano bench by age three and was soon heard noodling out the melody to Winifred Atwell’s “The Skater’s Waltz”.
The Piano Player and Performer Emerges
A few years later
around 1954 Reggie began taking formal piano lessons. In spite of the fact, or maybe because of the fact that the lessons
were formal and his dad, a stern disciplinarian who enforced a constrictive home life, by 1956, when Reggie heard those
first Elvis Presley and Bill Haley records his mom brought home, knew that he wanted to play like that! Wild, free and unconstrained. I think we call it rock and Roll, eh?
They say by age 11 Reggie was dazzling the aunts
and uncles, cousins, grandparents, friends and anyone nearby with his Jerry Lee Lewis like performances. Imagine having
a kid like that playing at the family holiday parties!
Reggie won a scholarship to the Royal Academy
of Arts and was, according to his instructors a model student who could listen to a recital of say a four page Handel composition
just once, and then play it back from memory sounding like a recording in his flawless execution. Years later, Reggie
would say he was a bit of a rebel during those days, but his teachers don't remember it that way. Ah, memories, like
beauty, are so often as recalled, or seen by the beholder...
Reggie left school at 17, formed a band called
The Corvettes and then a band known as Bluesology. It was with Bluesology, who soon became the backup band for local
legend Long John Baldry, he recorded his first two singles, and, answering an
ad in a local music rag after failing lead vocal auditions for King Crimson and Gentle Giant, met Bernie Taupin.
His dad, concerned by all this craziness, tried
to steer young Reggie to a more conservative future, like, say, banking. I’m
not sure how the loss of another banker has hurt the financial world, but can you imagine a world without the music and magic
of Elton John? I can’t.
Wanting a more "American sounding" name, Reggie
changed his name to Elton John in honor of the sax player in Bluesology whose name was Elton Dean, and Long John Baldry.
Elton John Releases His First U.S. Album, Empty Sky
Elton John began wearing the oversized glasses
in emulation of another rebel, James Dean, and began dressing in wild stage getups to strike a visual impact. Like the
audio impact was not enough.
Then in 1969, Elton John, with several players
from Bluesology and lyrics by Bernie Taupin, released his first U.S. album Empty Sky.
| The Empty Sky Album cover |
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| Released in 1969 |
A Note From the Author
I want to thank everyone who contributed notes and research for this week’s featured artist articles. The information comes from a wide variety of sources, from online articles, biographies from the library, VHS documentaries, album liner notes and just listening to Elton John’s music over the last forty years.
I am quoting no one at any time. The things I’ve written here, and for most of my featured artist articles are my own words and thoughts based on what I have learned about a particular artist over the years.
The Album Chronologies
In the store frame below, I have divided the Elton John albums available at such great prices from Amazon.com into three groups:
1. The Elton John Band Magic Seven – Contains the seven albums released from 1972 – 1975 that reached the number one spot on the U.S. Billboard Charts.
2. The Complete Elton John Discography – Contains all the albums, less the seven in the “Magic” list.
3. The mp3 albums available for download from Amazon.com.
Enjoy,
Dj Bowen
Behind Every Good Man A Better Woman…
Or
maybe behind every good woman a better man, likewise, behind every good solo artist, a really good band. As with most
every great solo artist, acts like previously featured artist Dan Fogelberg, or upcoming featured artist Jimmy Buffett, or even the legendary Elvis Presley, there is a core group of musicians that
are the solo artists backup band.
Some
solo artists use a ever changing variety of studio, or session, musicians. And a lot of solo artist have very good luck
with the rotating band. But the really great ones, like Elton John, have a band that stays together for a long enough
period of time to create for the solo artist a distinct and identifiable sound.
AS
Elton John was transitioning from the relative obscurity of singer and piano player for Bluesology and into the superstar
we all know today, he managed to bring together three guys, who by the time the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Captain Fantastic
albums were released, came to be known as "The Elton John Band" They are
v Davey Johnstone on guitars, banjo, mandolin and singing background vocals
v Nigel Olsfon on drums and singing background vocals
v Dee Murray on bass guitar and singing background vocals
There were always lots of extremely talented session players being used on various songs and for bits large and small. But, Olsson , Johnstone and Murray were for years the quintessential part of the Elton John Band that created that sound you know, love and almost instantly identify simply as Elton John.
The other critical ingredient for a successful musical act in the popular music genre are the songwriters
Combine the total mastery of the piano that Elton John possesses with the lyrical genius of Bernie Taupin and you have a real winning songwriting partnership. While I hold John Lennon and Paul McCartney up as the two greatest minds in rock and roll songwriting history, they lacked one thing Elton John and Bernie Taupin had. Staying power. It’s true of course that in time Elton and Bernie, like John and Paul, went their separate ways, still, Bernie and John finally did come together again to continue their legacy of songwriting. I only wish Lennon and McCartney had been able to do so while there was still time. Who knows, maybe John would have been going home from the studio at Abbey Road instead of the studio in new York city that fateful December night back in 1980.
The Two Johns - Elton and Lennon...
In 1974 a collaboration between Elton John and John Lennon resulted in some real musical magic. Three great songs and an unforgettable final performance by John Lennon at Madison Square Gardens on Thanksgiving Night in 1974.
But I’m getting ahead of the story. For reasons as yet undiscovered by this humble author, whether from personal desires of either or both artists, which I suspect, or the machinations of a record industry bent on hit production, in early 1974 Elton John and John Lennon got together. Elton recorded The Beatles song “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds” and John Lennon’s solo composition “One Day At A time”. John Lennon plays on both recordings under the pseudonym Sir Winston O’Boogie.
Meanwhile, John Lennon, inspired by late night TV channel surfing, heard the phrase “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” from a TV evangelist. Lennon dug it, wrote it down on a pad he kept by his bed and began working on the song.
While in the studio
recording “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds” and “One Day At a Time” for Elton John’s upcoming album “Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy”, the two John’s found themselves working on John Lennon’s “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”, slated to be on John’s forthcoming album “Walls and Bridges”.
During the recording sessions for “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” Elton John remarked to John Lennon that he was sure “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” would be a number one hit. Lennon, a skeptic at his most optimistic moments, replied he doubted it. Elton was so sure he offered Lennon a bet. The bet was that if “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” did in fact reach number one, John Lennon would appear on stage with Elton John and his band to perform “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds”. No mention has been made of what it would cost Elton if the song did not reach number one. It’s a moot point.
The song was picked as a single by a Capitol Records executive (the same guy who picked the singles from Paul McCartney’s “Band On the Run”). And immediately the song hit the top spot on the U.S. Billboard charts.
John Lennon’s Final Show
so, true to his word, during Elton John’s 1974 Thanksgiving Night performance at Madison Square Gardens, John Lennon came onstage to join the Elton John Band. The three song set began with an out of breath Elton introducing John Lennon and the band launching in to “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”. And then Elton introduces the song inspired by Lennon’s son Julian and one of the classic songs on the 1967 masterpiece Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds”. That crowd pleaser was followed by “I Saw Her Standing There”. John Lennon introduces the song as “one of Paul’s songs, I never sang it with the Beatles…”It would be John Lennon’s final major concert performance.
The three songs from Elton John and John “Sir Winston O’Boogie” Lennon, recorded at that live performance can be found on disc 2 of the 1996 remastered rerelease of Elton John’s “Here and There”. The songs “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” and “One Day At A Time” by John Lennon can be found on “Walls and Bridges” and “Mind Games” respectively.
years later, after the murder of John Lennon on his way home from the “double Fantasy” sessions in 1980, Elton John was asked why he never performed “Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds” or “Empty Garden”, a song written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin in memory of John Lennon.
“It’s too sad. Too many memories” was Elton’s reply. It’s been almost thirty years since John Lennon’s death, and Elton does now on rare occasions, perform “Empty Garden”. Maybe someday we will get to hear it on a live album. Or better still, we will be at an Elton John concert when he plays it.
Elton John is currently touring with Billy Joel in the Face to Face tour and holding down a gig in Las Vegas called the Red Piano. He is also currently working on a new album due out sometime in 2010.
Stay tuned!
Dj Bowen
October 2009
