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Elton John
Elton John
Rocket Records
314-528 156-2
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1. Your Song
Drums BARRY MORGAN
Bass Guitar DAVE RICHMOND
Acoustic Guitar FRANK CLARK
Guitar COLIN GREEN
12 string Guitar CLIVE HICKS

2. I Need You To Turn To
Guitar ROLAND HARKER
Harp SKAILA KANGA
Harpsichord ELTON JOHN

3. Take Me To The Pilot*
Drums BARRY MORGAN
Bass Guitar ALAN WEIGHLL
Lead Guitar CALEB QUAYE
Rhythm Guitar ALAN PARKER
Percussion DENNIS LOPEZ

4. No Shoe Strings On Louise
Drums BARRY MORGAN
Bass Guitar ALAN WEIGHLL
Lead Guitar CALEB QUAYE
Rhythm Guitar CLIVE HICKS
Percussion DENNIS LOPEZ

5. First Episode At Hienton#
Moog Synthesizer DIANA LEWIS
Lead Guitar CALEB QUAYE

6. Sixty Years On
Organ BRIAN DEE
Spanish Guitar COLIN GREEN

7. Border Song*
Drums BARRY MORGAN
Bass Guitar DAVE RICHMOND
Guitar CLIVE HICKS
Guitar COLIN GREEN
Organ BRIAN DEE
Choir lead by BARBARA MOORE

8. The Greatest Discovery
Drums TERRY COX
Bass Guitar DAVE RICHMOND
Guitar CLIVE HICKS
Harp SKAILA KANGA
Solo Cello PAUL BUCKMASTER

9. The Cage*
Drums BARRY MORGAN
Bass Guitar ALAN WEIGHLL
Lead Guitar CALEB QUAYE
Rhythm Guitar CLIVE HICKS
Moog Synthesizer DIANA LEWIS
Percussion TEX NAVARRA

10. The King Must Die
Drums TERRY COX
Bass Guitar LES HURDIE
Acoustic Bass FRANK CLARK
Guitar CLIVE HICKS
Percussion DENNIS LOPEZ




ELTON JOHN – VOCALS, AND PIANO
BERNIE TAUPIN – LYRICS

GUS DUDGEON – PRODUCER
PAUL BUCKMASTER – ARRANGER
ROBIN GEOFFREY CABLE – ENGINEER
STEVE BROWN – CO-ORDINATOR

*Backing vocals:

MADELINE BELL
LESLIE DUNCAN
KAY GARNER
TONY BURROWS
TONY HAZZARD
ROGER COOK.
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All songs by Elton John and Bernie Taupin
All lyrics © Copyright 1969 (except # 1968) by Dick James Music Ltd. London

RECORDED AT TRIDENT STUDIOS
PHOTOGRAPHY BY STOWELL STANFORD
ART DIRECTION BY DAVID LARKHAM
SLEEVE PRODUCTION BY JIM GOFF

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)
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Elton John

The ‘Elton John’ album represented the artist’s breakthrough into the big time when it was released in 1970. It was his first LP to reach the British chart, and perhaps more importantly, his first to be released in the US, where it scored heavily in the ‘Billboard’ album chart.

The album (plus several other tracks, including ‘Bad Side Of The Moon’, ‘Rock And Roll Madonna’, ‘Grey Seal’ and ‘Into The Old Man’s Shoes’) was recorded in January, 1970, at Trident Studios in London, and marked the first collaboration between Elton and producer Gus Dudgeon. Elton’s previous album, ‘Empty Sky’, had been produced by Steve Brown, who had befriended Elton and Bernie Taupin when they were signed to Dick James Music as songwriters, and had encouraged them to develop their art naturally and without pressure, rather than justifying the pittance they were being paid as a retainer by churning out songs to order. Brown had overseen the recording of ‘Empty Sky’, an artistically respectable if commercially disappointing debut, which failed to set the charts alight when it was released by DJM Records (the label affiliated to Dick James Music) in mid-1969. When Brown first heard ‘Your Song’, one of the earliest tracks completed by John & Taupin for a proposed follow-up album, he decided that an experienced producer should be hired to supervise what he correctly felt would be a very important track.

Dudgeon and Brown had never previously spoken, and Dudgeon was not the first producer Brown approached. He initially asked Beatles producer George Martin, who would only consider the project if he were also contracted to write the arrangements for the songs, which Brown had decided should benefit from orchestral backing. However, Brown had already chosen someone for that role, Paul Buckmaster, who had conceived the memorable arrangement for David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’. When Buckmaster was asked to suggest a suitable producer for Elton’s LP, he nominated Dudgeon, who had not only produced ‘Space Oddity’, but had also worked as engineer or producer with notables such as Eric Clapton (in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers), The Strawbs and The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. With such a reputation, Dudgeon apparently doubted the wisdom of working with a virtual unknown, but changed his mind after hearing the demo recordings of ‘Your Song’ and ‘The King Must Die’, and started a relationship which enjoyed astonishing success during the first half of the 1970s, which in commercial terms was a purple period for Elton.

The standout track on the LP was ‘Your Song’, which became Elton’s first major hit single, reaching the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in early 1971, although it was not the first single taken from the album. ‘Border Song’ had been released in the spring of 1970 by DJM in Britain and by the small Congress label in America. Congress was a small subsidiary of the giant MCA corporation, which earlier in 1970 had released ‘Lady Samantha’, Elton’s first single to create interest, but nevertheless failed to reach the chart. According to Philip Norman’s book, ‘Elton – The Definitive Biography’, MCA were originally more interested in another act signed to DJM, and supposedly only accepted Elton provided they could also release records by the other act, which swiftly vanished without trace. MCA boss Russ Regan realized that the act regarded as a makeweight was in fact quite exceptional and represented the biggest stroke of luck imaginable, when Elton became a huge star almost over night after his first performance in Los Angeles at the famous ‘Troubadour’ club. Congress swiftly withdrew ‘Border Song’ and Regan reissued it shortly afterwards on the far bigger Uni label, another MCA-owned company, when it became Elton’s first chart single, spending over a month in the US Hot 100. Its flipside, ‘Bad Side Of The Moon’, was also recorded during the sessions for the album, from which it was excluded. The gospelly ‘Border Song’ was a US Top 40 hit for Aretha Franklin at the end of 1970, which must have meant a great deal to Elton & Bernie, who were supposedly great fans of Aretha, who would later duet with Elton on a US Top 40 hit, ‘Through The Storm’, in 1989. ‘Border Song’ has also been recorded by Jose Feliciano and by Eric Clapton, whose version appears on the 1991 tribute album celebrating the songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin, ‘Two Rooms’.

The next single released by Elton in the UK was ‘Rock And Roll Madonna’ / ‘Grey Seal’, both tracks recorded during the sessions for the album, and included on this remastered reissue CD. ‘Grey Seal’ was later re-recorded and included on the ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ album. Its appearance in 1970 on a 45 did not result in a hit, and the single was not released in the US. It was only after Elton’s instant breakthrough in America in the summer of 1970 that another single was released, which was ‘Take Me To The Pilot’ / ‘Your Song’ . ‘Your Song’ entered the ‘Billboard’ Hot 100 in November , 1970, and reached the US Top 10 in a three month spell in the chart; in early 1971, it was released in Britain, where it also reached the Top 10. ‘Your Song’ remains one of Elton’s most familiar classics, and has attracted numerous cover versions, although Elton’s has been the only version to become a US hit. In contrast, it has been a UK hit threes times, first for Elton himself in 1971, in 1977 for ‘Philly soul’ star Billy Paul – as Elton remarked more recently: “I still get a kick out of the fact that ‘Your Song’ was the B-side to ‘Me & Mrs. Jones’” (Paul’s million-selling American Number One hit) – and most recently for Rod Stewart, when it was also included on the ‘Two Rooms’ tribute album. Perhaps the greatest accolade ‘Your Song’ received was supplied by John Lennon, who after hearing it, called Elton “The first new thing that’s happened since we (The Beatles) happened”.

Another familiar song on the ‘Elton John’ album is ‘Take Me To The Pilot’, which Elton performs in the style of Leon Russell, regarded in the early 1970s as a hero by discerning music lovers. However, the song is lyrically obtuse, as its creators admitted in the ‘Two Rooms’ book which shared its title with the tribute album. Elton noted: “I don’t understand some of (Bernie’s) lyrics, especially the early ones; ‘Take Me To The Pilot’, I’ve no idea what that’s about, nor has he”. The lyricist added, “I used to hear about David Bowie throwing words into a hat, picking them out and putting them together. The great revolutionary poets did that; I’m sure Baudelaire and Rimbaud were so stoned out of their minds, they just threw things together and went ‘Wow! That sounds good”. It’s how they sound together, you don’t have to worry about whether it rhymes or whether the meter’s great. It’s just how it feels here and now. The perfect example of that is ‘Take Me To The Pilot’. If anybody can tell me what that song’s about, it’d be great. But hey, it worked”.

‘I Need You To Turn To’, like the rest of the album, was recorded very quickly, as Elton remembered: “The album was all done in a week, and I played live with the orchestra. Everything was done live, including playing harpsichord on ‘I Need You To Turn To’”. ‘First Episode At Hienton’ is believed to have been inspired by Bernie Taupin’s adolescent years in Lincolnshire, ‘Sixty Years On’ is a heavily orchestrated epic, and the most lyrically straightforward song here appears to be ‘The Greatest Discovery’, which celebrates the birth of a younger brother. The album spent more than three months in the UK chart, almost reaching the Top 10, while it peaked in the US Top 5 during virtually a complete year in the Top 200, which earned it gold status.

Apart from Elton and DJM labelmate Caleb Quaye on guitar (who had also played on ‘Empty Sky’), most of the musicians were session players – bass player Dave Richmond was an early member of the Manfred Mann group, and Terry Cox was drummer with the folk/jazz quintet, Pentangle, while the half dozen backing vocalists included Tony Burrows (the lead voice on ‘Love Grows’ by the studio group, Edison Lighthouse), Madeline Bell (later of ‘Melting Pot’ hitmakers Blue Mink) and Leslie Duncan.

John Tobler, 1995
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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

314-528 156-2 © 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
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