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Dont Shoot Me....
_________________________________________________________________
To download this recording from iTunes, click below:
To buy this recording from Amazon.com, click here: Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player
_________________________________________________________________
Elton John
Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player
Rocket Records
314-528 154-2
_________________________________________________________________
Daniel 3:53
Electric piano/“flute” Mellotron ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums/Maracas NIGEL
A.R.P. synthesizer KEN SCOTT
Acoustic guitar/banjo DAVEY
Teacher I need you 4:10
Piano/ Mellotron ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Acoustic guitar DAVEY
Backing vocals DEE, NIGEL and DAVEY
Elderberry wine 3:34
Piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric guitar DAVEY
Brass arrangement GUS
Trombone JACQUES BOLOGNESI
Trumpet IVAN JULIEN
Saxophones JEAN-LOUIS CHAUTEMPS and ALAIN HATOT
Blues for my baby and me 5:39
Piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Acoustic and electric guitars and sitar DAVEY
Orchestral arrangement PAUL BUCKMASTER
Midnight creeper 3:52
Electric piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric guitar DAVEY
Brass arrangement GUS
Trombone JACQUES BOLOGNESI
Trumpet IVAN JULIEN
Saxophones JEAN-LOUIS CHAUTEMPS and ALAIN HATOT
Have mercy on the criminal 5:58
Piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric guitar DAVEY
Orchestral arrangement PAUL BUCKMASTER
I’m gonna be a teenage idol 3:55
Piano and Leslie piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric and acoustic guitars DAVEY
Backing vocals DEE, NIGEL and DAVEY
Brass arrangement GUS
Trombone JACQUES BOLOGNESI
Trumpet IVAN JULIEN
Saxophones JEAN-LOUIS CHAUTEMPS and ALAIN HATOT
Texan love song 3:34
Acoustic guitar/Mandolin DAVEY
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Harmonium ELTON
Crocodile rock 3:58
Piano and Farfisa Organ ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric guitar DAVEY
High flying bird 4:12
Piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Leslie and acoustic guitars DAVEY
Backing vocals DEE, NIGEL and DAVEY
Screw you (young man’s blues) 4:43
Jack rabbit 1:50
Whenever you’re ready (we’ll go steady again) 2:51
Skyline pigeon (piano version) 3:53
______________________________________________________________________________________
DON’T SHOOT ME I’M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER
“Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player” was Elton John’s sixth studio LP, and his eighth original album overall. Released in January, 1973, it was his first to top the UK LP chart, remaining at Number One for six weeks, and his second US chart-topping LP during a residency in the ‘Billboard’ Top 200 Albums chart of over a year and a half. It was Elton’s first album to include two Top 5 UK hit singles, while in the US, it not only included his very first Number One single, but also a second 45 which reached the Top 3.
It was the second Elton John album to be recorded in France, at Strawberry Studios situated in the Chateau d’Hierouville which was built in the 17th century in a rural backwater about 25 miles north of Paris. The studio had previously been used by The Grateful Dead, and Elton and his band had first worked there at the start of 1972, naming the resultant album ‘Honky Chateau’, and it was decided to return there for ‘Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player’. The album was so titled after an off-the-cuff response by Elton to the great comedian Groucho Marx, whom Elton had met in Hollywood. The legendary veteran was ribbing Elton that his name was back-to-front, and that his real name was probably John Elton! Elton’s remark was smart and certainly not without irony, but seemed to sell him short, as he also wrote the music, sang the words, performed the songs onstage and was constantly in the media spotlight. The album sleeve acknowledges the Groucho influence: the front cover shot is of the street entrance to a cinema which proclaims that the main feature is ‘Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only The Piano Player’ starring Elton John, while a smaller poster advertises the Marx Brothers masterpiece, ‘Go West’.
The two huge hits, ‘Crocodile Rock’ and ‘Daniel’, so dominated the LP that some of the other tracks seem unjustly under-rated, such as ‘Blues For My Baby And Me’. This heavily orchestrated epic includes flourishes near the end recalling the classic ‘Forever Changes’ album by Los Angeles group Love, as well as a fine wah-wah guitar solo from Davey Johnstone, the newest recruit to the Elton John band, joining bass player Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson. Johnstone had played as a session musician on Elton’s ‘Madman Across The Water’ album in 1971, and had also contributed to ‘Honky Chateau’, but before joining Elton, had been a mainstay of Magna Carta, a folk group for whom Gus Dudgeon had produced an album in 1971. Prior to Magna Carta, Johnstone had worked in a duo with noted folk star Noel Murphy which went under the bizarre name of Murph & Shaggis! ‘Have Mercy On The Criminal’ is also impressive, along the classic lines of ‘Burn Down The Mission’ from the ‘Tumbleweed Connection’ LP, and with a riff which rivals the one used in Eric Clapton’s ‘Layla’.
Eric Clapton and Love were street-credible influences, and so was Merle Haggard, although in a different musical area. Haggard’s ‘Okie From Muskogee’ became familiar as an anthem in the “rednecks versus longhairs” arguments of the late Sixties, and ‘Texan Love Song’ sounds rather like a tribute to Haggard, whose significance was confirmed in 1994 when he was elected to the Country Music Hall Of Fame. ‘I’m Going To Be A Teenage Idol’ was inspired by the meteoric success of Marc Bolan & T. Rex, who were as popular in the early 1970s as are Take That in the mid-1990s. Elton and Bolan were friends, and Elton was the special guest star in a movie starring Bolan filmed by erstwhile Beatle Ringo Starr. The brassy R&B sound on ‘Teenage Idol’, on ‘Elderberry Wine’, which was also released as the B-side to the million-selling ‘Crocodile Rock’, and on ‘Midnight Creeper’, was provided by a quartet of French horn players. Elton later recalled: “I started experimenting with my voice on ‘Don’t Shoot Me’. ‘High Flying Bird’, for instance, was very Van Morrison-ish, and while I was singing ‘Teacher I Need You’, I thought of every Bobby Vee record I’d ever heard”.
Many highlights, but the highest was ‘Crocodile Rock’, a nostalgic trip back to the rock‘n’roll era with a perfectly appropriate and instantly recognizable steal from Pat Boone’s 1962 hit, ‘Speedy Gonzales’. ‘Crocodile Rock’ was an instant hit in the autumn of 1972 and Elton’s first million-selling single. He recalled: “I wanted it to be a record about all the things I grew up with. Of course it’s a rip-off, it’s derivative in every sense of the word”. It was followed in early 1973 by the contrastingly gentle ‘Daniel’, a second huge international hit in six months. In the companion book to the ‘Two Rooms’ tribute album in 1991, Bernie Taupin confessed that the song had been inspired by an article in ‘Newsweek’ magazine about Vietnam veterans: “I wanted to write something that was sympathetic to the people that came home”, and interestingly adds: “It was supposedly sung by his (Daniel’s) brother, who saw him leave”. He also admits: “It is a song that is important to me, because it was the one thing I said about the Vietnam war”, and calls it “the most misinterpreted song we’ve ever written. It’s been interpreted as a gay anthem, a family feud song – there’s no end to it”.
‘Daniel’ includes synthesizer played by Ken Scott, who also engineered the recordings, although the sessions were apparently not without problems, as Elton noted “The chateau wasn’t the most technically wonderful studio, but there was something magical about it”, magical enough for him to eventually return there in mid-1973 to record the next LP, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’. Also recorded during the ‘Don’t Shoot Me’ sessions was a new version of an early favourite from the John/Taupin repertoire, ‘Skyline Pigeon’, which had appeared on Elton’s debut LP, ‘Empty Sky’, in 1969, and was regarded as that album’s major highlight. The new version, featuring Elton playing piano rather than harpsichord, was released as the flipside of the ‘Daniel’ single, and is included here as a bonus track. Bernie Taupin said of ‘Skyline Pigeon’: “That’s a song with a history” and calls it “the first really good song that we ever wrote. I think it was a landmark as far as our writing was concerned – it was a good blend of lyrics and melody, and was also one of the first songs that we wrote that was covered. Roger Cook wanted to record it, and we obviously liked the song enough to re-record it, and I think it also turned up on a couple of live albums. Most recently, it turned up again, because at AIDS victim Ryan White’s funeral, Elton played it, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s a quote from it on Ryan’s grave”.
Other bonus tracks here include ‘Jack Rabbit’ and ‘Whenever You’re Ready (We’ll Go Steady Again)’, which were both released on the flip side of the ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’ single, which itself is included on the ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ album. On the ‘Rare Masters’ collection released in 1992, Bernie Taupin says that ‘Whenever You’re Ready’ has always reminded him of the ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ single, and was titled ‘Screw You’, but for American audiences, the title was changed to ‘Young Man’s Blues’, although otherwise the track is identical.
John Tobler, 1995
__________________________________________________________
All the tapes used to create these new masters are the original mixes. However, due to the fact that many of the tapes are at least 25 years old, they have “softened up” to varying degrees. So, the sound has been passed through the most up to date digital processing equipment, at 20 Bit Resolution; namely The Sadie Digital System and Prism Super Noise Sharper. The effect is purely to “enhance” rather than “colour” the sound.
As the original producer, I would have used this equipment at the time, had it been available for mastering. The very nature of analog recordings being transferred to vinyl demanded major compromises. With the benefits of digital sound these constraints are removed, and the recordings can be heard much closer to the reproduction we had originally intended.
Gus Dudgeon
_________________________________________________________________________
All titles written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin
All titles published by Dick James Music Ltd. (PRS) controlled in the U.S. and Canada by Songs Of Polygram International, Inc. (BMI)
314-528 154-2 © 1995 This Record Company Ltd. Printed in U.S.A.
Rocket Records, Manufactured and Marketed by Island Records, Inc.
825 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10019
This Compilation (P) © 1995 This Record Company Ltd.
All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A
Warning: Unauthorized reproduction of this recording is prohibited by Federal law and subject to criminal prosecution.
To download this recording from iTunes, click below:
To buy this recording from Amazon.com, click here: Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player
_________________________________________________________________Elton John
Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player
Rocket Records
314-528 154-2
_________________________________________________________________
Daniel 3:53
Electric piano/“flute” Mellotron ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums/Maracas NIGEL
A.R.P. synthesizer KEN SCOTT
Acoustic guitar/banjo DAVEY
Teacher I need you 4:10
Piano/ Mellotron ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Acoustic guitar DAVEY
Backing vocals DEE, NIGEL and DAVEY
Elderberry wine 3:34
Piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric guitar DAVEY
Brass arrangement GUS
Trombone JACQUES BOLOGNESI
Trumpet IVAN JULIEN
Saxophones JEAN-LOUIS CHAUTEMPS and ALAIN HATOT
Blues for my baby and me 5:39
Piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Acoustic and electric guitars and sitar DAVEY
Orchestral arrangement PAUL BUCKMASTER
Midnight creeper 3:52
Electric piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric guitar DAVEY
Brass arrangement GUS
Trombone JACQUES BOLOGNESI
Trumpet IVAN JULIEN
Saxophones JEAN-LOUIS CHAUTEMPS and ALAIN HATOT
Have mercy on the criminal 5:58
Piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric guitar DAVEY
Orchestral arrangement PAUL BUCKMASTER
I’m gonna be a teenage idol 3:55
Piano and Leslie piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric and acoustic guitars DAVEY
Backing vocals DEE, NIGEL and DAVEY
Brass arrangement GUS
Trombone JACQUES BOLOGNESI
Trumpet IVAN JULIEN
Saxophones JEAN-LOUIS CHAUTEMPS and ALAIN HATOT
Texan love song 3:34
Acoustic guitar/Mandolin DAVEY
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Harmonium ELTON
Crocodile rock 3:58
Piano and Farfisa Organ ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Electric guitar DAVEY
High flying bird 4:12
Piano ELTON
Bass DEE
Drums NIGEL
Leslie and acoustic guitars DAVEY
Backing vocals DEE, NIGEL and DAVEY
Bonus Tracks
Screw you (young man’s blues) 4:43
Jack rabbit 1:50
Whenever you’re ready (we’ll go steady again) 2:51
Skyline pigeon (piano version) 3:53
______________________________________________________________________________________
DON’T SHOOT ME
I’M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER
Starring
ELTON JOHN
With
DAVEY JOHNSTONE
DEE MURRAY
NIGEL OLSSON
Orchestral arrangements by
PAUL BUCKMASTER
Lyrics by
BERNIE TAUPIN
Produced by
GUS DUDGEON
Engineered by
KEN SCOTT
Recorded at
STRAWBERRY STUDIOS, FRANCE
Co-ordinated by
STEVE BROWN
Art direction and sleeve design by
MICHAEL ROSS (Thanks to Ron)
&
DAVIS LARKHAM (Teepee Graphics)
Cover photography by
ED CARAEFF
Remixed at
TRIDENT STUDIOS, LONDON
_______________________________________________________________________________________I’M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER
Starring
ELTON JOHN
With
DAVEY JOHNSTONE
DEE MURRAY
NIGEL OLSSON
Orchestral arrangements by
PAUL BUCKMASTER
Lyrics by
BERNIE TAUPIN
Produced by
GUS DUDGEON
Engineered by
KEN SCOTT
Recorded at
STRAWBERRY STUDIOS, FRANCE
Co-ordinated by
STEVE BROWN
Art direction and sleeve design by
MICHAEL ROSS (Thanks to Ron)
&
DAVIS LARKHAM (Teepee Graphics)
Cover photography by
ED CARAEFF
Remixed at
TRIDENT STUDIOS, LONDON
DON’T SHOOT ME I’M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER
“Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player” was Elton John’s sixth studio LP, and his eighth original album overall. Released in January, 1973, it was his first to top the UK LP chart, remaining at Number One for six weeks, and his second US chart-topping LP during a residency in the ‘Billboard’ Top 200 Albums chart of over a year and a half. It was Elton’s first album to include two Top 5 UK hit singles, while in the US, it not only included his very first Number One single, but also a second 45 which reached the Top 3.
It was the second Elton John album to be recorded in France, at Strawberry Studios situated in the Chateau d’Hierouville which was built in the 17th century in a rural backwater about 25 miles north of Paris. The studio had previously been used by The Grateful Dead, and Elton and his band had first worked there at the start of 1972, naming the resultant album ‘Honky Chateau’, and it was decided to return there for ‘Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player’. The album was so titled after an off-the-cuff response by Elton to the great comedian Groucho Marx, whom Elton had met in Hollywood. The legendary veteran was ribbing Elton that his name was back-to-front, and that his real name was probably John Elton! Elton’s remark was smart and certainly not without irony, but seemed to sell him short, as he also wrote the music, sang the words, performed the songs onstage and was constantly in the media spotlight. The album sleeve acknowledges the Groucho influence: the front cover shot is of the street entrance to a cinema which proclaims that the main feature is ‘Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only The Piano Player’ starring Elton John, while a smaller poster advertises the Marx Brothers masterpiece, ‘Go West’.
The two huge hits, ‘Crocodile Rock’ and ‘Daniel’, so dominated the LP that some of the other tracks seem unjustly under-rated, such as ‘Blues For My Baby And Me’. This heavily orchestrated epic includes flourishes near the end recalling the classic ‘Forever Changes’ album by Los Angeles group Love, as well as a fine wah-wah guitar solo from Davey Johnstone, the newest recruit to the Elton John band, joining bass player Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson. Johnstone had played as a session musician on Elton’s ‘Madman Across The Water’ album in 1971, and had also contributed to ‘Honky Chateau’, but before joining Elton, had been a mainstay of Magna Carta, a folk group for whom Gus Dudgeon had produced an album in 1971. Prior to Magna Carta, Johnstone had worked in a duo with noted folk star Noel Murphy which went under the bizarre name of Murph & Shaggis! ‘Have Mercy On The Criminal’ is also impressive, along the classic lines of ‘Burn Down The Mission’ from the ‘Tumbleweed Connection’ LP, and with a riff which rivals the one used in Eric Clapton’s ‘Layla’.
Eric Clapton and Love were street-credible influences, and so was Merle Haggard, although in a different musical area. Haggard’s ‘Okie From Muskogee’ became familiar as an anthem in the “rednecks versus longhairs” arguments of the late Sixties, and ‘Texan Love Song’ sounds rather like a tribute to Haggard, whose significance was confirmed in 1994 when he was elected to the Country Music Hall Of Fame. ‘I’m Going To Be A Teenage Idol’ was inspired by the meteoric success of Marc Bolan & T. Rex, who were as popular in the early 1970s as are Take That in the mid-1990s. Elton and Bolan were friends, and Elton was the special guest star in a movie starring Bolan filmed by erstwhile Beatle Ringo Starr. The brassy R&B sound on ‘Teenage Idol’, on ‘Elderberry Wine’, which was also released as the B-side to the million-selling ‘Crocodile Rock’, and on ‘Midnight Creeper’, was provided by a quartet of French horn players. Elton later recalled: “I started experimenting with my voice on ‘Don’t Shoot Me’. ‘High Flying Bird’, for instance, was very Van Morrison-ish, and while I was singing ‘Teacher I Need You’, I thought of every Bobby Vee record I’d ever heard”.
Many highlights, but the highest was ‘Crocodile Rock’, a nostalgic trip back to the rock‘n’roll era with a perfectly appropriate and instantly recognizable steal from Pat Boone’s 1962 hit, ‘Speedy Gonzales’. ‘Crocodile Rock’ was an instant hit in the autumn of 1972 and Elton’s first million-selling single. He recalled: “I wanted it to be a record about all the things I grew up with. Of course it’s a rip-off, it’s derivative in every sense of the word”. It was followed in early 1973 by the contrastingly gentle ‘Daniel’, a second huge international hit in six months. In the companion book to the ‘Two Rooms’ tribute album in 1991, Bernie Taupin confessed that the song had been inspired by an article in ‘Newsweek’ magazine about Vietnam veterans: “I wanted to write something that was sympathetic to the people that came home”, and interestingly adds: “It was supposedly sung by his (Daniel’s) brother, who saw him leave”. He also admits: “It is a song that is important to me, because it was the one thing I said about the Vietnam war”, and calls it “the most misinterpreted song we’ve ever written. It’s been interpreted as a gay anthem, a family feud song – there’s no end to it”.
‘Daniel’ includes synthesizer played by Ken Scott, who also engineered the recordings, although the sessions were apparently not without problems, as Elton noted “The chateau wasn’t the most technically wonderful studio, but there was something magical about it”, magical enough for him to eventually return there in mid-1973 to record the next LP, ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’. Also recorded during the ‘Don’t Shoot Me’ sessions was a new version of an early favourite from the John/Taupin repertoire, ‘Skyline Pigeon’, which had appeared on Elton’s debut LP, ‘Empty Sky’, in 1969, and was regarded as that album’s major highlight. The new version, featuring Elton playing piano rather than harpsichord, was released as the flipside of the ‘Daniel’ single, and is included here as a bonus track. Bernie Taupin said of ‘Skyline Pigeon’: “That’s a song with a history” and calls it “the first really good song that we ever wrote. I think it was a landmark as far as our writing was concerned – it was a good blend of lyrics and melody, and was also one of the first songs that we wrote that was covered. Roger Cook wanted to record it, and we obviously liked the song enough to re-record it, and I think it also turned up on a couple of live albums. Most recently, it turned up again, because at AIDS victim Ryan White’s funeral, Elton played it, and if I’m not mistaken, there’s a quote from it on Ryan’s grave”.
Other bonus tracks here include ‘Jack Rabbit’ and ‘Whenever You’re Ready (We’ll Go Steady Again)’, which were both released on the flip side of the ‘Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting’ single, which itself is included on the ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ album. On the ‘Rare Masters’ collection released in 1992, Bernie Taupin says that ‘Whenever You’re Ready’ has always reminded him of the ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ single, and was titled ‘Screw You’, but for American audiences, the title was changed to ‘Young Man’s Blues’, although otherwise the track is identical.
John Tobler, 1995
__________________________________________________________
All the tapes used to create these new masters are the original mixes. However, due to the fact that many of the tapes are at least 25 years old, they have “softened up” to varying degrees. So, the sound has been passed through the most up to date digital processing equipment, at 20 Bit Resolution; namely The Sadie Digital System and Prism Super Noise Sharper. The effect is purely to “enhance” rather than “colour” the sound.
As the original producer, I would have used this equipment at the time, had it been available for mastering. The very nature of analog recordings being transferred to vinyl demanded major compromises. With the benefits of digital sound these constraints are removed, and the recordings can be heard much closer to the reproduction we had originally intended.
Gus Dudgeon
_________________________________________________________________________
All titles written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin
All titles published by Dick James Music Ltd. (PRS) controlled in the U.S. and Canada by Songs Of Polygram International, Inc. (BMI)
314-528 154-2 © 1995 This Record Company Ltd. Printed in U.S.A.
Rocket Records, Manufactured and Marketed by Island Records, Inc.
825 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10019
This Compilation (P) © 1995 This Record Company Ltd.
All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A
Warning: Unauthorized reproduction of this recording is prohibited by Federal law and subject to criminal prosecution.
