209 Hello Elton John - Your Song

Chart  entered : 23  January  1971

Chart  peak : 7

Number  of  hits : 80

Elton  is  the  first  person  we've  covered  who's  had  a  hit  this  calendar  year.

Another  difficult  one  as  I  generally  loathe  this  guy. I'll  always  have  a  soft  spot  for  "Daniel"  and  can  muster  some  appreciation  for  his  early  stuff  but  as  a  whole  I  think  he's  been  staggeringly  over-rewarded  for  a  relatively  modest  talent  and  his  personality  is  completely  repellent. What's  more  he's  been  given  an  unwarranted  leg  up  by  his  friends  at  the  Beeb  at  key  moments. When  he  was  struggling  in  the  wake  of  punk  Radio  One  wouldn't  consign  him  to  the  Radio  Two  playlist  which  would  have  killed  off  his  career ; bilge  like  "Just  Like  Belgium"  remained  on  rotation  and  throughout  the  eighties  there  seemed  to  be  a  deliberately  concerted  policy  to  maintain  that  he  was  a  vital  and  relevant  artist  however  much  the  likes  of  "Passengers "  and  a  string  of  dismal  duets  suggested  otherwise; the  ghastly  Bruno  Brookes  was  the  worst  offender. When  Watford  made  the  FA  Cup  Final  in  1984  they  showed  the  video  for  "Sad  Songs  Say  So  Much"  at  least  three  times  in  the  build-up  and  when  "Nikita "  came  close  to  the  top  spot  in  the  autumn  of  1985  the  song  was  featured  three  times  on  a  half-hour  Top  Of  The  Pops  programme   to  try  and  get  it  over  the  line.

Rant  over, let's  get  on  with  it. Reginald  Dwight  was  born  in  Pinner  in  1947. His  father  was  a  semi-professional  musician  but  later  pushed  young  Reg  to  a  more  staid  career. He  started  taking  piano  lessons  at  7  and  four  years  later  won  a  junior  scholarship  to  the  Royal  Academy  of  Music. Elton  says  he  was  a  bit  of  a  rebel  there  but  the  instructors  have  contradicted  this  saying  he  was  a  model  student  who  paid  for  extra  lessons. He  started  playing  in  pubs  at  15  working  in  some  of  his  own  compositions  as  well  as  crowd-pleasing  standards.

Also  in  1962  he  gathered  together  a  band  called  Bluesology. They  played  at  night  while  Reg  was  a  messenger  for  a  music  publishing  company.  Their  repertoire  was  as  the  name  suggests  mainly  blues  covers. By 1965  they  were  able  to  turn  professional  and  made  a  living  as  a  pick-up  band  for  visiting  American  soul  artists  including  the  Isleys  and  Patti LaBelle.
They  also  got  a  record  deal  with  Fontana   and  released  their  first  single  "Come  Back  Baby"  in  July  1965. Reg  shared  lead  vocal  duties  with  guitarist  Stu  Brown  but  he's  the  singer  on  this  first  record  perhaps  because  it  was  his  composition. It's  not  a  bad  debut  effort  , very  much  his  record   as  the  piano's  really  loud  in  the  mix.  It  has  a  sort  of  Burt  Bacharach   feel  to  it  although,  tellingly,  Reg's  lyrics  are  really  banal.

Their  second  single , also  written  and  sung  by  Reg  was  released  in  February  1966. "Mr  Frantic"  is  trying  for  an  R& B  groove  but  isn't  very  impressive. The  production  is  so  murky  it's  hard  to  make  the  title  out   and  there's  little  inspiration  in  either  the  melody  or  the  lyrics.  Fontana  weren't  interested  in  them  after  that  and  they  toured  Germany. On  their  return  they  started  working  with  Major  Lance  with  an  expanded  line  up.

In  September  1966  they  got  an  invitation  to  become  Long  John  Baldry's  backing  band. Only  Elton  and  Stu  wanted  to  accept  so  the  line  up  was  changed  again. this  time  to  include  Neil  Hubbard  who  went  on  to  work  with  Bryan  Ferry. They  got  to  record  a  third  single  for  Polydor   in   October  1967 . "Since  I  Found  You  Baby"  was  co-written  ( not  with  Reg )  and  produced  by  Kenny  Lynch. This  time  Stu  took  the  lead  and  it  came  out  under  the  name  "Stu  Brown  and  Bluesology". Stu  sounds  like  a  huskier  Georgie  Fame  and  with  Reg  playing  the  organ  it  sounds  like  GF  doing  a  Geno  Washington  R &  B  number. The  nice  brass  work  can't  disguise  that  it's  another  average  song. After  its  failure  both  Stu  and  Reg  decided  to  quit  the  band.

Reg  reportedly  failed  auditions   to  be  singer  with  both  King  Crimson   and  Gentle  Giant before  answering  an  ad  in  the  NME  placed  by  Liberty's  A & R  man  Ray  Williams. Williams  put  him  in  touch  with  a  lyricist  who'd  answered  the  same  ad  called  Bernie  Taupin  and  they  started  working  together. Reg  decided  on  the  stage  name  "Elton  John "  in  homage  to  Baldry  and  his  ex-colleague  Elton  Dean  who'd  played  sax  in  Bluesology.

In  1968  they  began  working  for  Dick  James  at  DJM  Records  as  staff  songwriters  but  Elton  as  we'll  now  call  him  still  had  aspirations  to  be  a  performer. He  got  a  deal  with  Philips  and  released  his  first  solo  single  "I've  Been  Loving  You "  in   March  1968.  The  songwriting  credit  was  "Elton  John/ Bernie  Taupin"  though  it  had  actually  been  written  by  Reg  before  they  even  met. It's  a  reasonable  attempt  at  late  sixties  big  pop  but  really  needed  more  welly  in  the  production  ( by  Elton's  guitarist  friend  Caleb  Quaye )  if  it  was  going  to  compete  with  Love  Affair  and  The  Foundations.

Elton  and  Bernie  worked  hard; the  former  also  did  a  lot  of  session  work  for  other  artists. He didn't  release  his  next  single  until  the  beginning  of  1969.  It's  immediately  obvious  that  "Lady Samantha"  is  the  work  of  a  different  lyricist, an  ode  to  a  ghostly  lady  haunting  the countryside. It's  more  rock-orientated  with  some  good  guitar  work  from  Quaye   but ,like  so much  of  their  output  , suffers  from  a  boring  chorus  after  the  promise  of  the  verses, the product  of  Bernie's  famous  disinclination  to  get  involved  with  the  musical  shape  of  the  song.

They  suffered  a  minor  humiliation  when  their  Eurovision  submission  for  Lulu  came  bottom  of  the  pile  in  the  British  heats  but  shortly  afterwards  Elton  released  his  next  single  "It's  Me  That  You Need ",  a  rather  egocentric  song  but  strong  enough  to  stand  up  to  Stephen  Brown's  big  production. It  didn't  make  it  but  it  could  have  done.

Elton  left  all  these  singles  off  his  first  LP  "Empty  Sky"  released  a  month  later.  As  none  of them  had  charted  it  perhaps  made  sense  to  showcase  more  material.  Although  it's  never charted  here  (  and  only  in  1975  in  the  U.S. )  and  all  but  one  of  the  songs  ( "Skyline Pigeon" )  have  long  since  been  dropped  from  his  live  set,  it  actually  holds  up  well  as  a singer-songwriter  album. Some  of  it  sounds  well  ahead  of  its  time  for  1969; "Sails"  with  its superb  guitar  solo  sounds  so  like  Steely  Dan  it  had  me  checking  when  the  American  duo got going  ( 1972 ).  Elton  has  said  Leonard  Cohen  was  an  influence  and  a  lot  of  Taupin's  lyrics are  either  pessimistic  ( "Hymn  2000" )  or  lamenting   loss , the  faithful  sheepdog  in  "Gulliver " or  his  childhood  innocence  ( " Lady  What's  Tomorrow " ). Elton  switches  between  piano, organ and  harpsichord  to  keep  the  arrangements  fresh  and  it's  a  much  better  listen  than  I  was expecting.

As  the  new  decade  arrived  Elton  found   new  musical  playmates  in  producer  in  Gus  Dudgeon and  arranger  Paul  Buckmaster  who  was on  board for  the  release  of  "Border  Song"  in  March 1970. I've  never  liked  the  song  which  is  mainly  a  mean-spirited  attack  on  the  London trendies that  Taupin  , the  Lincolnshire  farm  boy, couldn't  feel  at  home  with   but  then  Elton  adds  a corny  third  verse  calling  for  love  and  brotherhood  almost  as  a  rebuke  to  his  myopic  partner.
This  latter  lyrical  section  informs  the  whole  arrangement  which  marks  the  introduction  of   gospel  as  a  major  element  in  his  music. It  didn't  chart  here  but  reached  92  in  the  US  and was  a  much  bigger  hit  in  Canada. A  year  later  Arethra  Franklin  took  it  into  the  US  Top  40. Interestingly, while  Arethra  may  have  accepted  its  credentials, her  black  audience  reacted  quite negatively  when  she  performed  it  live , not  wanting  to  hear  about  Whitey's  whinges.

His  second  album  "Elton  John"  followed  hot  on  its  heels. It's  less  varied  and  more  focused  than  his  debut  with  the  majority  of  the  tracks  being  ornate  piano  ballads  which  vary  in  quality  from  the  affecting  "I  Need  You  To  Turn  To "  and  "The  Greatest  Discovery"    ( about  meeting  a  baby  brother  for  the  first  time  to  the  over-orchestrated  "Sixty  Years  On"  and  "The  King  Must  Die". The  gospel  rocker  "Take  Me  To  The  Pilot"  exemplifies  the  side  of  him  I  can't  abide; I  know  he  has  black  fans  who  think  he's  got  "soul"  but   I  can't  bear  that  raspy  snarl  thing  he  does  on  all  his  uptempo  numbers.

For  his  next  single  Elton  used  a  song  that  didn't  make  the  cut . "Rock  And  Roll  Madonna"  is  a  12-bar  blues  number  about  a  lady  biker  which  suggests  he  should  have  been  interested  in  the  provenance  of  Quo's  The  Wild  Side  Of  Life.  It's disposable  and  his  American  label  didn't  release  it.

Instead  they  released  "Take  Me  To  The  Pilot"  and  put  another  LP  track  , this  one  , on  the  B-side. Disc jockeys  soon  decided  they  liked  "Your  Song"  better. When  it  reached  number  eight   there   it  was  a  no-brainer  to  put  it  out  in  the  UK. "Your  Song"  is  undoubtedly  one  of  his  best  singles,  Taupin's  faux-naif   lyric , about  trying  to  woo  a  girl  by  writing  a  song  about  her  with  regular  breaks  for  expressions  of  false  modesty,  is  set  against   a  rolling  melody  with  a  rousing chorus  not  always  present  in  the  ballads. The  drums  kicking  in  halfway  through  the  song  move  things  along  nicely  and  Buckmaster  gets  the  balance  right  with  the  strings. It's  a  cracking  debut  ; I  just  wish  I  could  enthuse  about  a  few  more  of  the  79  hits  that  followed.